Mist drifts down the mountains like a slow-motion avalanche, coating the redwoods in a veil of silver as we coast the highway. The beauty of Redding will never grow old, and I usually feel a serenity take over as I enter the sleepy town. But as Julian steers his ‘54 Bel Air, anxiety ripples up my arms.

My father should be working, so he has no idea I’m here, and I need it to stay that way.

When we pull up to the cabin, we scope the place out for any signs of him, and when it looks clear, I head inside while Julian keeps watch. 

A gut feeling tells me we might find answers in my father’s storage shed. So, I search through his mail until I find the invoice and then carefully place everything back exactly how I found it. On the way out, I take one last glance around. The cabin is still decorated with Miranda’s touch, and part of me wants to trash the place, but I won’t. 

“Did you find it?” Julian asks when I slip back into the car.

“Bingo.” I hold up the envelope.

“Alright, alright, alright. Let’s go see what pops is hiding.” 

∆∆∆

The public storage shed is across town and off the beaten path, hidden in the trees. The property is old, the paint on the sign is fading, and the storm drains drip with rust marking prior water leaks. It’s unlike the newer facility we passed in town, which is probably why my father chose it. This is most likely the type of place where you can pay cash, and no one asks questions. 

My assumption is proven correct when we scope out the office, and no one is on duty, so I help myself with spare keys dangling on a corkboard with assigned numbers. When I locate the one matching the shed number on the invoice, I snatch it, and off we go on a treasure hunt.

“What do you think we’ll find?” Julian rubs his hands together and blows on them. Fog floats away from his mouth. He should have worn a jacket instead of a puffy vest.

“Part of me hopes we’ll find nothing.”

“And the other part?” 

“I’m not sure. I just know I can’t shake the look in my father’s eyes from two days ago. It was as if someone else was staring back at me. Something else had taken over, and we haven’t talked since then.”

“Good. And he better not come around again, or I’ll kill him.”

“Julian…” 

“I mean it. If he lays another fing—”

“He won’t,” I cut him off. “You didn’t see the look in his eyes once he realized what he was doing.”

“Don’t make excuses for him.”

“I’m not.” I shove the key in the lock, and with a click, the rusty garage-style door comes loose. “But he is my father. I know remorse when I see it in his eyes, and no matter what the DNA results come back with, I know he loves me.”

“Well, he has a funny way of showing it.”

“I taunted him,” I grunt as I roll open the door. “I fed him lies about us humping like rabbits in high school.”

“Wait. Us as in you and me?”

“Yes.” I step inside the dim space, and Julian follows.

“But why? You know damn well I’d never touch you with my dick. You’re like my sister.”

“I don’t know why I said it.” I shrug and turn on the flashlight on my phone. “I guess I just wanted to piss him off. He was rude to Moses, and I was angry.” 

“Mujer… mujer…” Julian rubs his brows in a deep sigh. “This Moses really has you under some spell.”

“I like him. A lot.”

“I’m aware,” he says, and I ignore the roll of his eyes as I locate the light switch on the wall and flick it on. 

The fluorescent bulbs above us flicker a few times, and then everything is illuminated in bright white. Brown boxes are scattered about, and I notice the familiar furniture from before the fire. There’s the antique buffet table we used in the entryway to display our family photos, and there’s an armoire from my parent's bedroom. I recall hiding in it as a little girl while playing games with my mom. 

The more I look around, the more I realize these are all items that had apparently burned in the fire. How is it possible? Turning towards the nearest box, I rip it open and dive into its contents. I suck in a breath because it’s full of photographs from my childhood. None of them are in photo albums. Instead, it’s just piles of print after print—memory after memory staring back at me.

“I… I don’t understand.”

“What do you mean?” Julian peers over my shoulder. 

“My dad said all of our photos burned in the fire, yet here they are.”

“Oh… shit.”

“Yeah.” I abandon the box and tear open another. 

There are many unsealed envelopes inside, so I sit on the nearest box and sort through them. However, my confusion grows as I read over a copy of a home loan application from five years ago. Then I find an approval letter and the deed to a house.

“Why does my dad have a loan application, an approval letter, and the deed to a home for a woman named Linda De Marco?” I glance up at Julian. 

“Let me see.” He plucks the stack of mail from my hands and sifts through them. “There’s a utility bill here. It’s recent.”

“Ok…”

“So this Linda De Marco must still live in that house, and your dad knows her because he keeps her mail here.”

“But what does this all mean?” I motion around the storage shed. “Why is all of this hidden here, including furniture and old photos we supposedly lost in the fire?”

 He flips the utility bill to face me, his finger pointing at the address on it. “How about we drive to Eureka and find out? It’s only two hours away.”

“What if the answers aren’t there?”

“What if they are?”

“I don’t know…” I look away while twisting an envelope. So, Julian crouches in front of me and takes my hands.

“I know you’re scared, but I’m right here. No matter what we find, no matter what the DNA results come back with, you are still Val.” 

“Fine. We’ll go,” I whisper.

∆∆∆

It’s not a surprise when no one answers the door. Whoever lives here is probably at work. This means we have time to kill, so Julian and I rent a hotel in case this mission runs late. Then we grab dinner in town as we wait for the evening to arrive. We left Redding in such a snap decision that we left behind so many closed boxes.

This is bothering me as I dip a chip into nacho cheese.

“We should have packed those boxes.”

“Hm?”

“All those other boxes. We just left them there.” I abandon the chip, and it sinks into the cheese.

“We’ll go back.” Julian shrugs. The diamond stud on his ear lobe glints under the hurricane lantern hanging above the table. We’re eating in a sports bar with old baseball cards preserved in the epoxy glazing on the wooden surfaces. He takes a sip of beer and sets it down on Barry Bonds’s face. “This is just phase one of the dismantling of Angelo Rossi.”

“I’m not trying to bring him down. I just want answers.”

“Val.” Julian pushes the basket of chips aside and reaches across the table to grab my hand. It’s so much larger than mine and several shades darker. It’s also cold from him holding his beer, but the gesture is warm, and so is the look in his brown eyes. “Angelo has lied to you not only recently, but based on what we found in the storage shed, he’s been lying your entire life.”

“There has to be an explanation.”

“Yeah, that he’s a damn liar and a kidnapper.”

“We don’t know that.” I pull my hand away and sit back against the squeaky faux leather booth cushions. “He’s still my dad. I still love him, and I need answers.”

“Well, then…” he glances at his watch. “Let’s go get them.”

We ask for the tab, and I offer to pay since Julian has graciously driven me around for hours and been my wingman in this crazy ordeal. It isn’t until we stand from the table that I feel the effects of the beer I was drinking. Then we hit the road for this mystery house owned by Linda De Marco, who I’ve never heard of, but who my father apparently knows.

The roads are slick from an earlier drizzle as we return to Linda’s neighborhood, where all the homes look identical aside from the colors and garden beds. Dusk is surprisingly gorgeous this evening as remnants of the fading sun send streaks of blood orange through the swaying trees lining the sidewalks. Yet my stomach churns so fiercely I might vomit as I grip the door handle.

“I think I should go alone,” I say as Julian parks the Bel Air a few houses down from Linda’s. 

“Like hell you are! We don’t know who this woman is, and she could be a total psycho who puts a gun to your head.”

“And if she does, there’s not much you can do about it.” I shrug.

“Oh, I certainly can! I’ll Rambo her ass to the ground.”

“Ugh. Fine. You can come with me.”

“Like I need your permission.” Julian opens the door and steps out before I can retort. I hate him sometimes.

Light from the front bay window seeps onto the pristine, manicured lawn where blades of grass shimmer with drops. Someone must have just watered it, and two cars sit in the driveway, so somebody is home now. I take Julian’s hand as we approach the walkway and grip it so hard he complains.

“Damn, mujer. I kinda like having my bones intact.” He massages his knuckles. 

“I’m nervous.”

“You don’t say…”

However, halfway up the path to the door, I halt, and Julian thuds into my back. Then, I yank him down as I drop to a squat. 

“Jesus, Val. A little warning.”

“Shh.” I hold a finger to my mouth and nod to the bay window. “A little kid was standing there.”

“So?”

“So what if he saw us?”

“We’re about to knock on the door. The kid is gonna see us regardless.”

“What if we…” I glance up and take a quick survey of the property. “Take a peek in the windows first?”

“Hell no. What if the neighbors see us?”

“Julian, please. Do this for me.”

“Fine, but just remember you’re asking a brown man to peep into a white woman’s window.”

“We don’t know if she’s white.”

“Trust me, whoever lives in this Stepford Wives neighborhood is white.” 

We crab-walk up to the bay window like a couple of thieves, but there’s not much to see aside from a nicely decorated living room. There’s a giant cream-colored sectional sofa with a grey, velvet throw blanket draped across the chaise, and the periwinkle walls hold a collage of framed art that match the colors of the knick-knacks on the fireplace mantle. 

Not a single thing is out of place. Everything has a purpose, and it reminds me of the decor in my father’s cabin.

“Let’s keep moving.” I nudge Julian. “Find a better angle.”

Continuing our crawl, we sneak past the window and onto another one around the corner. This time we can see into a dining area, and my eyes widen at the sight of a blonde woman sitting at a table with the little boy I saw moments ago and two little girls.

“Damn. She’s a MILF,” Julian says, and I smack his chest. “What? She is. But those boobs have got to be fake. Look at them heaping out of that tight tank top.”

“Quit drooling,” I say, but then my breath hitches right as a very familiar man appears with a tray of roasted chicken and fixings. He’s all smiles, and they’re all clapping as he settles their dinner in the middle of the table. “No…”

All the blood avalanches from my head to my toes, and I grab hold of Julian to steady my ankles. 

“Damn, this is more twisted than I thought,” Julian says.

Except I barely hear him since my gaze remains glued on my father as he bends to kiss the blonde woman. When he places his hands on her cheeks, there’s a gold wedding band glinting under the chandelier's light. The next thing I know, I’m being tackled to the ground, and Julian has his hand clamped over my mouth.

“Are you nuts? I bet they heard you scream,” he hisses, and my eyes widen because I don’t recall screaming. “We gotta get out of here.”

We scramble to our feet, skitter across the lawn, and rush down the street to Julian’s 54 Bel Air. As we peel out of the neighborhood, I crane my neck and stare at what we leave behind. 

The truth is, I don’t know what the hell we just witnessed, but what I do know is that I have no idea who Angelo Rossi is.

My father is not the man I thought he was.

And my heart is broken.