aren’t always the same person. People couldn’t believe that he’d done something terrible to her, and the noxious Hollywood environment nearly broke my mother.
But again, what was the real story? In a weird way, it felt like we were talking about someone else’s life.
“I mean, I was a kid during all of this, right?” I said. “In a tiny private school with other actors’ kids, and we’re all insulated from this stuff. Basically, Mom came to get me during school one day. She had the car packed full of suitcases, and the dog. We drove for hours—it felt like forever, but seriously, it was like six hours.”
Beside me, Sam laughed.
“We got to Nana’s house on the river, and I think that was the first time I asked whether we were going to go home. Mom said no.” Pausing, I pulled up another blade of grass. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye to him.”
“Does anyone in Guerneville know who you guys are?”
“Probably some of the locals, yeah. I mean Nana has lived there forever, but everyone just knows her as Jude. I bet the only one who knows her last name is Houriet is Alan, the mailman. Mom grew up there, but she cut her hair, dyed it brown, goes by Emma now, not Emmeline, and we both use the last name Jones. Almost everything is in Nana’s name and it’s not like Emma Jones would mean anything to anyone.” I shrugged. “It seems like anyone left in town who knows who Mom is and why she came back also didn’t need to get into her business, if she felt like hiding.”
“But you have friends who know?”
“My best friend Charlie knows. That’s it.”
Guilt started to creep in, spreading from the center of my chest outward until I felt cold all over. It was both good and terrifying to talk about all of it. I was spilling everything. I knew Mom and Nana built this secluded bubble to protect us, but talking about it was a little like unleashing a creature we’d kept in a basement for years. Nice to be rid of it, but now the world could see the ugliness for themselves.
“There were some pictures of you from LAX, weren’t there?” he asked.
“Oh, right.” I settled back beside him, and he surprised me by taking my hand. My neck and face burned with nerves, but I didn’t let go. “It was the first approved visit I had with Dad after the divorce—when I was nine. Mom bought a ticket for me to fly down. She walked me to the gate, hugged me about a thousand times before she’d let me leave with the flight attendant. She was more freaked out about me flying alone than I was, and even more freaked out that I would be hounded by the press when I was out with Dad. I landed in LA, got off the plane with the escort, and waited.”
I told Sam about the rest of it then: about feeling like I was waiting a long time—long enough for some people to figure out who I was, and for a couple of them to take pictures of me. After a while I realized the airline people were figuring out which parent to let me go home with, because Mom flew down and got me.
“I guess she was too worried about me being in LA, and in the papers. She said Dad was waiting, but he would understand, and I guess he did, because she took me home.”
Sam went still next to me when he heard this, and his lingering silence made me uneasy.
“What?” I asked, after his silence started to feel like a thick fog.
“You really haven’t read the articles about this, have you?”
I turned my head, looking over at him. He wore the expression of someone who was about to break terrible news. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he started, looking back up at the sky, “the story that’s out there is a little different.”
I waited for him to tell me, but it was clear that I was going to have to confirm that I really wanted to hear it. “Is it that bad?”
“I . . . it’s pretty bad?”
“Just tell me.”
“I think your mom had to fly down because your dad didn’t show up,” Sam said quietly. “At least, that’s what I read.”
A chill spread down my arms. “What?”
“I mean, there’s not a ton. But I remember it because there aren’t any pictures of you after you left