“Aren’t you a big person.” My voice was caustic, muffled in my knees.

“Cass, you’re a little . . . emotional. I don’t mean it in a bad way. But I have to ask . . . have you been seeing a doctor? Maybe talked to Dr. Brant since you left Houston? I just feel like you could use medication or something . . .”

My head snapped up. “You’re telling me to get medicated?” Penny slunk away as our voices rose, tail in between her legs. “Oh great, and now you’ve scared the dog!”

“You scared her,” Alex fumed, also standing. “Anyway, okay, I’m sorry I brought up the medication thing. But maybe you should. Talk to someone, I mean.”

A laugh bubbled out of my chest. “Talk to who? I can’t wait to see them on JMC dishing about me.”

He threw his hands in the air. “Okay, never mind! But just remember, Cass, not everyone is around to sell you out. You have to trust somebody sometime. And if not me, who else do you have?”

22.

Sunday

Merry

When I dragged myself out of bed on Sunday morning and started down to the kitchen, I could hear the digital murmur of voices on a television whispering through the hallway air. I paused in front of Sunny’s closed bedroom door to listen. She must have fallen asleep watching a show and let it go on all night. I made my way downstairs.

Raul was cutting a fresh loaf of bread, still steaming from being pulled from the oven. When he saw me, his face broke open with a grin. “You always have perfect timing,” he said. “It’s as if you know that the food is ready.” He dabbed a pat of butter on a piece and placed it on a plate in front of me. I bit into it, the melted butter smearing on my top lip and the hot bread burning the roof of my mouth. “Mmm. Heaven.”

“Will Soleil be down soon, you think?” he asked.

“Her? On a Sunday? It’s more likely she’ll be eating this bread at noon.”

“I heard her rummaging around in the den last night,” he said, sawing a slice off for himself. “Then knocking around in her room early this morning. I think she’s been up.”

“How strange.” I chewed another bite. “What does a lady have to do for some strawberry jam?”

“Who says you’re a lady?” He winked and leaned over for a kiss. It would be cheesy for anyone else to say it, but from Raul it was beautiful. He worked long and erratic hours and still baked for me.

“Don’t distract me with your dreamboat ways.” I hopped up from the chair, popping the last bite into my mouth and speaking around it. “I’ll grab Sunny so she can get this bread before it cools down. Cut me another piece, will you? And don’t skimp on my jam!” I took the stairs two at a time, in an inexplicably good mood.

When I knocked on Soleil’s door, the TV sounds muted. “Sunny?” I spoke through the wood. “Fresh bread! Want some?”

There was some muttering.

“I didn’t hear that. Can I come in?”

I swung open the door, expecting to see my fourteen-year-old in her hideous pizza pajamas, lying sideways in her bed watching sitcom reruns. Instead, she was on the floor, surrounded by photo albums open to various pages and had turned the TV screen off.

“What’s all this?” I asked. They were my old albums. I wondered if maybe she was digging up past photos of herself to share on social media. Kids these days are always looking for ways to feel nostalgic, even though they haven’t lived long enough to earn the right.

“Nothing,” she muttered.

“Raul made fresh bread. Come downstairs and have some,” I offered.

“Yeah, okay.” She made no effort to move.

I turned on my heel to leave, but one of the albums caught my eye. It was small and green, a fat book that had a cellophane sleeve for one print on each side. “I haven’t looked at this in a while,” I said, returning to the inner part of the room and perching on her bed. The book looked the same as before, when I had it in my hands. “I should’ve started going through these right after I found out.” Flipping the page, there was a shot of Cassidy, chewing gum. A photo of a billboard with our album cover on it. The Gloss girls in Times Square.

I thumbed backward a little, seeing yellowed pictures I’d clipped from tabloids, of Grant and me. It had been silly to cut them out, let alone save them, but nineteen-year-olds can still harbor childish tendencies. I smiled at them and kept flipping back. I knew that I wouldn’t see what I didn’t want to see in the album, that there were no traces left of him there, and that I had protected myself from the past very well. But the thought never left my mind; it was just diminished, shrunken in a tiny corner, and when I remembered that I wouldn’t have to remember, it sprang up again. I slapped the album closed.

“I’ll see you downstairs,” I said.

“Wait.” She turned the TV back on. It was paused on an old episode of Behind the Music. I swallowed reflexively and turned my eyes to her. I knew this episode. I’d lived it.

“My dad,” she said.

“You don’t have a father.” The stupid Instagram post where she talked about being a bastard. The headache from Friday. I couldn’t have possibly thought it would be swept away so easily, could I?

“It’s Grant Kidd, isn’t it?”

I squinted at her. “Honey . . .”

“The timeline matches up.” She pressed play and the picture on the TV jolted forward.

Merry Gloss had a number of PR issues that the other girls took issue with—most notably her romantic entanglement with then-married Grant Kidd of the Grammy-nominated alt-rock band Illuminated Eyes, for which Gloss was an opener in 2001. Grant had been famously married to Hollywood bombshell Marisa Marcheesa when Merry and Grant started their torrid affair while on tour . . .

“Turn that off,” I snapped, reaching over and grabbing the remote from her hand. “It’s trash.”

“I deserve to know,” she insisted. “I know I’m not really fatherless.”

“We won’t discuss it now. Come downstairs and eat. But don’t believe everything the tabloids want to sell you.” I slammed the remote down on the floor, where it bounced on the carpet and skittered under her bed.

Raul was concerned when I returned to the kitchen. “You left so happy and returned with a storm cloud over your head.”

I swept by him, ignoring the perfectly brown toast with the perfectly red strawberry jam and stalked to the coffee machine to pull myself an extra-strong cup.

“Maybe she should know,” he said quietly. I had told Raul, of course.

“She’s not the picture of discretion, is she? She’s too young and has a motormouth and she will learn when she’s eighteen.” I slammed the cup down on the counter and shoved it under the spout. “Or old enough to show some sense. Which may be never.”

“She is asking now,” Raul said gently. “I do not want to interfere too much, but she is my daughter now. And I think it would be wise to let her know more about herself—and to let her know more about her mother.”

I watched the coffee pour as he stepped next to me and clasped my shoulders. His lips were feather-soft as they touched my temple. “I will go out to find some new running shoes and will be gone for a few hours. You and Soleil can have the house to yourselves.”

I nodded, thinking.

How do you live knowing the real version of yourself, while every other person in the world thinks they know a different version of you? Can the fake persona eat your real self, mimic so many of your truths that her falsehoods become your reality?

Raul was right, though. I did not want my daughter to know the constructed version of Merry that was out in the world. I wanted her to know me. But how much could I tell her?

ONCE THE TESLA was out of the garage, I went back up to Sunny’s room. “We need to have a talk,” I said.

She sulked. “I don’t think what I did was wrong.”

“Justine had to clean up your mess—”

“You’re the one who should be saying you’re sorry!”

“Do you know how much of a headache this has been, for years—”

We both stopped and glared.

“There is no point in trying to dig up the past,” I said. “Your father did not stick around. I raised you myself from the first doctor’s appointment. Emily is more of a father than he was. So I would appreciate it if you would drop it.”

Her voice rose into a whine. “It’s not fair! Everyone else has a dad.”

I held up a hand to stop her from going further. “I know you won’t drop it, so I am willing to give you enough information that you stop telling people that you are a . . .” I didn’t want to say bastard.

“Mom.” Her brow furrowed. “Everyone else has a dad. Even if”—she raised her voice higher as she saw me take in a breath—“Even if they’re divorced or adopted or whatever, they know. I don’t get why you won’t let me know about my family history.”

“All I can tell you right now is that your father is not Grant Kidd. I’m sorry.”

“But the timeline—”