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"Okay," he said. "It's not a bad thing to want to protect and defend someone you love. Believe me, as I've said many times, in the end, the truth will find a way to show itself. It always does. I'm only sorry you have had to bear this secret in your heart, bear it all alone."
I couldn't stop it now. I was crying harder. He kissed away my tears and held me tighter. Then we turned toward the house.
"I'll do what I can," he promised. "Don't you worry anymore."
I looked up quickly and thought I saw the curtains in the attic move.
I don't know how my legs carried me the rest of the way into the house, but they did. When we entered, my mother was right there, waiting. She looked at my father and then at me and moved quickly to embrace me.
"What happened, Michael? Is she okay?" she asked my father.
"She'll be fine," he said. "Everything will be fine," he assured us both.
My mother kissed me, too, and then I started up the stairs to my room.
I can't do this anymore, I thought, when I reached the landing and looked at the attic stairway. It's got to end. Besides, my father will help Karen now; he'll help us both. I walked to the stairway and up to the attic door, where I took a deep breath before opening it.
I entered. "Karen?" I called.
She wasn't sitting on the sofa or waiting by the window, nor was she hiding in any dark corner. Nothing was out, not an old dress or an old hat. The attic was just the way it was before she had come.
"Karen?"
I walked in farther and then started to move around the attic. She didn't appear, step out from behind any furniture now that she knew it was only me.
"Karen?"
I stood there, looking into the shadows and waiting, but I didn't see her or hear her.
For a moment, I thought I had imagined it all. She was never there. Then I remembered what she had told me about how she could hide herself in the armoire in the corner. I went to it, paused, and opened it abruptly.
It was empty.
I spun around, looking at everything again, and then I hurried out, down the stairs and to my room. I went quickly to my copy of The Diary of Anne Frank and rifled through the pages, but there were no notes, no letters, no explanations at all.
My mother came up and then to my doorway. She knocked on the open door to get my attention. I turned quickly, expecting to see Karen.
"Zipporah? Were you just up in the attic?"
"Yes."
She turned and looked at the stairway. "Why?"
"It was our place, our secret place, where we confided in each other, where we became close friends."
"Oh. Yes, of course. You poor dear. Are you all right, honey?" my mother asked.
I looked at her, at the book, then back at her, and nodded.
"Yes," I said. "I'm okay now," I told her, even though I had no idea if I was or wasn't and wondered if I ever would be again.
13 Too Late to Fix the Mess
At breakfast, neither of my parents said anything more about what I had told my father after we had returned from Darlene Pearson's house. He had gotten up quickly, spoke little to me, and then left earlier than he usually did. From the way he and my mother exchanged secret glances, I suspected it was because he was off to do something as a result of what I had told him. My mother was home and didn't have to go to work until three. She volunteered to take me to school, but I told her I would be fine on the bus. I didn't want her chasing around and thought she would need to rest for her hospital shift.
When I arrived at school, I put my things in my locker as usual and set out for homeroom. I was moving in a daze and didn't realize that as I was walking through the hall, Dana Martin had come up beside me.
"Wake up," he said, nudging me. I paused to look at him and then kept walking. "You and I definitely need to meet tonight," he said when we approached my homeroom door.
