Liz hugged her father as she had done so many times before, but this time was different. It was the first hug where she knew the truth and he was no longer burdened with his dark secret.
“Oh, Lizzy,” he said, still holding her tight. “I know what I did was wrong, but can you understand that I did it for the right reasons?”
Before Liz could answer, before she could tell him that it would take time but they would be okay, Shane pulled himself up on his cane. The gasps and grunts of his struggle drew all eyes to him.
“Shane? Friend?” her father said, his hand falling on Shane's arm as an offering to help him up.
“She may forgive you, but I’m not sure I can,” he hissed, ripping his arm away and falling back into the chair.
“But, Shane, it’s okay,” Liz insisted. “I’m okay.”
Lauren rushed to Shane’s side, seeming to understand something the rest of them didn’t yet.
“I know you’re fine, Liz, but this man, this Bingham… He had his child stolen from him. All these years he had to wonder. He never knew where you were or if you were safe. That’s a terrible thing for a father to bear.” Strong, rough Shane let out a sob. His entire face grew red with the emotional toll this conversation had taken on him, had taken on them all.
“But he was a bad man,” Ben argued, hurt reflecting in his eyes. “He hurt her.”
“No, he hurt her mother. And maybe he would have hurt Liz one day, but maybe not. It wasn’t your place to judge him. Only God can do that.”
“No. You’re wrong.” Ben dropped his voice into a rattly growl. “I will never regret doing what I did. If he… If he had hurt Liz, that would have been because I had failed to act.”
“You failed, Ben,” Shane said, standing again with Lauren’s help. “But not in the way you think. I had my own child hidden from me. The pain, the agony I endured every single day… it was a thousand times worse than getting my knees shattered by that snow machine.”
Lauren shot Liz an apologetic look as she left the room to comfort her husband.
Liz felt her heart drop to her stomach. Had she forgiven too easily? Was Shane right?
Dorian spoke up. “Sometimes loving someone means risking it all. Your father did what he had to so he could keep his promise to your mother and keep you safe. Imagine what he’s risked all these years.”
“But what Shane said…” Liz ached for her friend, to have his old wounds torn back apart when he’d only just begun to heal. At the same time, she wondered if she could ever heal now that her past was a festering sore on display for all to see.
Dorian rose and put his hand on her shoulder, guided her back to the couch. “Sometimes there’s more than one logical truth,” he said. “There’s more than one way to understand things. Actually, that’s most of the time. And in cases like those, you need to rely on your heart.”
Ben sat for the first time since he’d arrived at the cabin, choosing Lauren’s chair over Shane’s.
“So is Liz older than she thought?” Dorian asked when they were all settled.
Ben looked to Liz. He seemed calmer now that Shane had left the room and Dorian had assumed control of the conversation. “Yes. You’re thirty-one.”
Liz took this in. She’d missed her thirtieth birthday—blown right past it actually. But being older than she’d thought was a small letdown in the grand scheme of all other differences that had come to life.
“How did you keep it a secret?” Dorian wanted to know. Liz did, too.
Her father shrugged as if it were no big deal that he’d spent the last twenty-eight years guarding such big secrets. Even though Dorian asked the questions, Ben continued to address his answers to Liz. “We were new to town. You’d always been a small child. I started you in Kindergarten early to help even things out. You were four according to your birth certificate, but you’d actually just turned seven.”
“And nobody realized she was ahead socially or academically?”
Ben never once took his eyes from Liz. “You were a sweet child, a calm, mature child, so no one ever questioned it. No.”
“But she was three when you took her. Surely she already had memories in place. Surely she asked questions.” Dorian raised both hands to his mouth as he waited for the answer.
“Yes, she asked lots of questions at first, but eventually they stopped. I knew I had to keep her away from anything that could trigger her memories and make the questions start again.” He’d started to talk about Liz in third person for the first time during that conversation, and she wondered if it was because he felt guiltiest about this particular part of the lie.
Dorian began to ask another question, but Liz stopped him by placing a hand on his knee. “Horses,” she whispered, recalling the brown and white face that had flashed in her memory many times these past couple weeks.
Ben’s voice faltered. “So you do remember?”
Liz shook her head. “Not until Dorian started asking questions, and then I saw a photo with Mr. Hooves.”
“Your favorite toy. You cried for it every night for weeks. I felt so guilty. You loved horses just like your mother.”
Her mother. She’d never know this about her. How much had been hidden about her life as well?
“My… my mom was a rider?” Liz asked.
“Oh, yes. She worked at the stables, competed in equestrian trials, and you were her spitting image. You could ride before you could walk, you know—at least that’s what she said. I hadn’t met you yet, not back then.”
A sense of loss wrapped itself around her and refused to let go. She couldn’t get the picture of that horse out of her mind, couldn’t stop wondering if it had been special to her and her mother. If she dug deeper, would she find her own memories of her time with her mom? She hoped so. It would be like a gift getting those years back, having time with her mother that she’d never known about before.
“We never rode…” she said sadly. “I wanted to go to the pony ranch with my friends, and you always said no.”
“I couldn’t risk it. That was the hardest part of it all—knowing I was keeping you away from something you loved so dearly, something you were born to do. But that’s also why I got us involved in the sledding community. I knew you loved animals and thought maybe the dogs could make up for it.”
“But I never liked sledding,” Liz said, feeling the air rush from her lungs in an unintentional sigh.
“No, but when you were little, you rode our first Akita like a pony. Do you remember Goliath?” Her father chuckled, but she couldn’t even bring herself to smile. All her best memories were based on lies, and all the things she’d loved so dearly during her early life had been intentionally omitted by a man who said he loved her more than anything.
She felt the tears spring up once more, but fought to keep them sealed behind her eyes. “I’m sorry. This is a lot to take in at once.”
“It’s okay if you’re overwhelmed. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I never knew how, and I never wanted you to doubt that you are the most important person in my world.” Ben continued to sit, but she could sense how badly he wanted to rush to her, to comfort her. What had always come so naturally for the two of them now felt like a line that couldn’t be crossed unless done so carefully and with permission.
She needed to give him that permission. His choices had hurt her in some ways and helped her in others. He was a flawed man, but he had always done the best that he could for her.
She quirked an eyebrow and tried her best to grin. “A million times around?”
“Even more than that. Always. You were always meant to be my little girl, Lizzy. And I was always meant to be your dad.”
Dorian shook his head his voice a refrain of terror. “But Warwick… Bingham… he’s not going to give up until he gets revenge.”
“If he does, I’ll know I deserved it. What I did hurt him deeply. There’s no denying that. But he had hurt your mother so much for years. I know an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, but sometimes being blind is better than staring down an ugly truth.”
Liz reflected on these words. So many people had been hurt, lost. Maybe she could still make things right.
Somehow.
Some way.
Maybe she could be both Elizabeth Benjamin and Jane Bingham.
Instead of being no one, maybe she could be two whole people, so that no one had to be alone any longer.