My Abandonment(55)

"They adopted you," he says. "Temporarily. They're good people but they have to give you up. If you look deep inside you'll feel that you truly aren't theirs, and that they aren't yours. Come on, now. Gather up your things. These larger shoes on the ground here are yours? That's right. Put them on."

"Can I say goodbye?" I say.

"I wish it could be like that," he says. "Right now we don't have time."

"What about Della?" I say.

"Don't wake her."

We don't climb the fence. We go right through the gate and out the driveway and walk past the dark houses of all the people in the ward, houses where my friends are sleeping. A car passes and does not slow down. We're in no rush. I'm afraid and excited at the same time. I keep thinking we'll go back and then I think of what he said and I do feel something. The calm and sure way he said it all makes me believe and see how this has been coming without me even seeing it.

In the foothills not far from new houses being built Father has a camp. Deep in thick bushes he's dug a kind of cave into a hillside with a roof that slants over so it's hidden and hard to see. It's like an earlier copy of our house in the forest park and not nearly so nice. That's where we stay that first night. It takes me a long time to fall asleep and Father does not sleep at all. He watches me.

In the morning we eat bread and peanut butter. Father wears dark jeans and a green sweatshirt.

"I'm so happy," he says. "Aren't you happy? We're together at last. Finally. I've missed you so much."

Later we hear searchers, people close by calling my name. If I answer they will take me away from him and he says bad things will happen to my sister and my foster parents, to me and even to him. He knows things about them, about everyone. We sit silently. The searchers call my name, then it's silent, then they pass in the other direction. We eat more bread, more peanut butter.

"What's kind of funny," Father says, "is that name they're calling isn't even your real name. You know that, right?"

The next morning he leaves me there in the camp in the hills outside of Boise. He puts on the blue dress shirt and all the clothes so he looks like an elder from the ward. He shaves and combs his hair with water. Even not standing next to other people he is I think the biggest man I have seen.

"I'll be back," he says and I tell him to wait, that I can come along, but still he makes it so I can't go anywhere, so I can only move a little bit.

That day I hear more calling and I sit silently by myself. I shift my legs under me. I stay in the shade. I squint at the sun and watch the line of shadow move along the ground. When Father comes back it's almost dark.

"Where did you go?" I say.

"To search for you," he says. "I joined a search party."

"But you know where I am," I say.

"So they wouldn't be suspicious," he says, and unlocks my hand. He starts to unpack some food he's brought in a plastic bag.

"I don't know," I say. "I don't know if you're really my father."

"I understand that it's confusing," he says. "We had to give you up. Your mother was ill and when she passed away I couldn't care for you. It was temporary. You see that."

"My mother?" I say.

"You and I are together now," he says. "That's what matters, here. Things will start getting better from right now, but I need your help."

"What about Della?" I say.

"Who?"

"My sister."

"Oh," he says. "Yes. I don't know her by that name. We won't forget her, we'll be back for her. We just have to wait for things to settle a little bit before we go after her. Right now I can only take care of one daughter. Aren't I taking care of you?"

He unfolds a piece of newspaper that has my picture on it, and my sister's and my foster parents'. He lets me read the article before he takes it back.

"They aren't bad people," he says, "but they have to let you go, they have misunderstood things." He lights a match and burns the newspaper away. "If I weren't your father," he says, "how could I have walked right into your backyard and walked away with you and no one said a word? It was the right thing to do, it made things right, and that fact is why we're together, why you knew better than to cry out or draw attention. I need you to be brave, Caroline."

"All right," I say.

There is something fun and something scary in these first days when we're getting to know each other again. Already I am dressed like a boy with a knit cap and blue jeans and sneakers. I wear a football jersey Father gave me that has the number 55 on the front and on the back. Sometimes we stay in the shelter in the hills and sometimes even in the city. We never sleep on the streets or at the homeless shelter but sometimes Father finds a friend like the clerk from the Boise Co-op who has a small apartment with a couch and records. I am not to say a word when we stay there.