Page 130 of The Circle

“But you’re not lying now.”

“I have omitted some details out of respect, some out of custom, and some out of my inability to remember them, I’m sure, but to the best of my ability and knowledge, I have given you all the truth I have to give.”

She chews for a moment at the inside of her mouth. “Did you bury your brother?”

A question I was not expecting.

“We did. We had him flown back to South Africa and buried next to my mother.”

“What about your dad?”

“He was gone long, long before. It didn’t feel necessary to do more.”

She considers this. “Did you ever pay back the two hundred fifty thousand you owed my uncles?”

Another unexpected and, dare I say, cheeky question.

“That was between Danny and your Uncle Russell. And, yes, I think so.”

Another pause.

“Did you love my mother?”

I don’t know why I didn’t anticipate it. It’s such an obvious thing for her to ask. But I didn’t, and it takes me a moment to suppress my want to sugarcoat the answer.

“Your mother was lovely, but no. I didn’t love her. Not in the way you mean. Not like I love Christine and Danny. But I had, and still have, great admiration for her, and the kind of love that accompanies such an admiration. She was one of the boldest people I ever knew. And she did the bravest thing I’ve ever seen a person do in my life and will likely ever see. And for that, I will feel a kind of love for her that I can’t describe until the end of my days.”

The low-hanging sun casts a majestic orange over the bluff. I wait.

“What happened to the diamond?”

And here it is. The one question I have made myself well prepared for.

I reach into my backpack and withdraw the box with the triangle etched on the top, place it on the ground in front of her. She stares at it. Then, gently, she opens it and looks at the glistening geometry sitting inside. She reaches out to touch it, but then pulls her hand back as if it might harm her.

“It’s yours,” I tell her. “It’s yours to do with as you wish. You may keep it, sell it, chop it into a thousand smaller pieces, toss it into the ocean right now, do with it whatever you like. We want you to have it. It belongs to you.”

She stares at it as the sun drops deeper into the horizon. She looks up at me, then back at the diamond. It must be strange to have heard the tale this day, the story of how we came to be here and she came to be at all, and then to see this mythic stone of creation looking back at her. Something like finding a real-life unicorn.

After many freighted moments (or, at least, moments which feel freighted to me), she reaches out her delicate hand and closes the box, pushing it toward me.

“It’s not mine,” Andra says. I say nothing, allowing her the chance to offer more if she wishes. “It’s not mine,” she repeats. “It’s yours. And Christine’s. And Danny’s. It’s not mine.”

I take her in, golden-blonde hair rivaled only by the golden-yellow dress she wears, and in the encroaching darkness, I let her see me grin. Not smile exactly, because that’s not the truest reflection of what her wisdom calls up in me, but there is a satisfaction that we have done our jobs so far in raising her that gives me pride. Both in her and in what we have achieved.

“All right,” I say, putting the box away in my bag. “Is there anything else then? Before we head back?”

She mulls it over, then says, “So, Christine and Uncle Charlie had an affair too?”

“... Honestly, I have no idea. Maybe? Not quite, I don’t think? Eh... That’s all not really... Know what? Maybe don’t bring that part up to your other Dad. Just to be safe.”

… NOW.

Christine, Danny, and Lizzycome to meet us as we walk up.

But what I notice more is who is not there.

“Hey,” Christine says, carefully. “You wore it.”