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Prologue
When I was little, I suffered from frequent night terrors that led to a fear of sleeping with my back exposed. My father, awoken by my cries, would lift me from my bed and carry me in to sleep between my parents in their already too-cramped bed. I don’t recall the nightmares, but if I close my eyes, I can still feel the weight of his arm around me, the solid presence of his chest against my back, and the vague awareness of feeling safe, warm, and protected.
These days, I no longer need to close my eyes to remember how it felt to be loved. I only have to slide my hand across the cool sheet to find another hand reaching for me, or whisper Daddy in the dark to feel his arms enfolding me.
I came to the city in search of answers. What I found was a love I could not have known had the truth been made plain to me from the start. Yet had I known the price I would pay in my pursuit of the truth, I’m not sure I would’ve gotten on that bus.
But I did, and now there’s no going back for either of us.
Chapter One
I remember holding my mother’s hand in front of an immense portrait of George Washington the first time I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was four years old. My toes pinched in my Velcro sneakers after hours of wandering through galleries, and I couldn’t stop squirming in my itchy corduroy overalls.
Exasperated, my mother turned to my father and said, “You take her.”
He hoisted me up and carried me off to the Egyptian wing, past the reflecting pool and into the Temple of Dendur.
“Look, Paige,” he’d said, pointing to the remains of a small statue encased in glass. “That’s the priestess Tagerem, Ra’s God’s Wife. Ra is the Egyptian sun god. He rides a chariot across the sky during the day, making the world bright.”
At the time, it had made perfect sense to me, because I knew men could be gods. My father was surely a god, for he was the star around which my entire world revolved. I beheld his kingdom from atop his strong, fatherly shoulders. Up there, it was possible to witness things that would’ve otherwise gone unnoticed by one so small.
Fourteen years later, I would’ve traded every inch I’d gained through puberty for a similar perch. Rising to my toes, I craned my neck to catch a glimpse of the wall of hieroglyphics over the blockade of onlookers, to no avail.
My father had warned me that weekends at the Met could be crowded. Crowded was an understatement. My bus had arrived at Grand Central Terminal a few minutes after I was supposed to meet him in the lobby. By the time I joined a ticket line, I was already twenty minutes late. I looked for him at the information kiosk, where we’d planned to meet. When I didn’t see him, I sent a text. Ten minutes and zero responses later, I headed into the Egyptian wing in the hopes that he’d gotten bored and gone inside without me.
That was half an hour ago.
Abandoning the packed temple, I took a seat on the stone lip beside the reflecting pool and pulled out my phone. No new messages. My knee bounced under my opposite ankle. I was starting to freak out. Maybe my dad had left his phone at home or forgotten to charge it. He probably thought I’d stood him up.
Or, perhaps, he hadn’t shown up at all.
With no other way to contact him and nowhere else to go, I was in trouble. His address was unlisted. I didn’t know anyone else in New York, and the money in my bag wasn’t enough to cover another bus ticket, plus food. There had to be an ATM somewhere in the museum. I’d hoped to save the bulk of my graduation money, but if push came to shove, I could always use some of it to rent a cheap hotel room or a bed at a hostel.
I was about to send my dad another text when I heard a breathy, “Oh my God,” coming from a small group of well-dressed women idling nearby. “Is that really him?” they whispered. I could almost smell their arousal.
The throng parted, and there he stood, daylight bursting through the clouds. My father was the sort of handsome that made people’s necks snap as he passed, the kind you had to rub your eyes to believe. My mother used to say he didn’t just make art, he was art. A walking, talking, living, breathing work of art.
He was the sun. It hurt to look at him.
“Hey,” he said.
Smoothing my lychee-scented lip balm, I curtailed my grin into a modest smile. “Hey.”
He sat on the stone bench beside me. I was at a loss for additional words, but it didn’t seem to matter. His smile was as warm as midsummer, his hazel eyes tinged gold. Not a hint of pretense or a tinge of disenchantment to be found. Just wonder, pure and refreshing, like a mouthful of spring water.
I swallowed, forcing the feelings down. It was far too soon and six years too late to be thinking such thoughts about a man who had abandoned me when I was twelve. I’d agreed to visit him in the city, but I didn’t want him to think this would be easy.
“Have you been here long?” I asked matter-of-factly.
“Only an hour.”
I winced. “Sorry. My bus was late. Did you get my text?”
“I did.” He scratched at the stubble along his jaw, having folded his shirtsleeves up to reveal the network of veins that snaked his forearms like tributaries. I used to trace those veins with magic marker, all the way up to his shoulders, transforming his skin into a map of the Nile River.
“I waited for you in the lobby,” I said. “Then I decided to walk around in case you’d already come inside.”
“I know. I watched you buy your ticket.”
