Michael’s face collapsed, the shock in his eyes tripling. “What?” he whispered.
“You heard me.”
“No, of course not!” He raked a hand through his graying hair, agitated. “How could you think that? I’m your father. I would never do anything to hurt you.”
Hope whispered through my heart even as my brain shook its head in skepticism. “That’s what I remember.”
“Memories can deceive. We remember things that didn’t actually happen.” Michael leaned forward, his face softening. “What exactly do you think happened?”
I gnawed on my bottom lip. “I was playing by the lake. Someone came up behind me and pushed me. I remembered turning around and seeing a flash of gold. A signet ring. Your signet ring.” My gaze dropped to said ring on his finger.
He glanced down and rubbed it. “Ava.” He sounded pained. “I was the one who saved you from drowning.”
That was the part that didn’t make sense. I’d passed out, so I hadn’t seen who’d saved me, but the paramedics and police said Michael had been the one who called them. Why would he do that if he was the one who pushed me in?
“I came over to speak with your mother about the divorce, and no one answered the door even though her car was in the driveway. I went around back to see if she was out there, and I saw—” Michael swallowed hard. “It was the worst few minutes of my life, thinking you were dead. I jumped in and saved you, and all the while your mother…she just stood there in shock. Like she couldn’t believe what had happened.” His voice dropped. “Your mother wasn’t well, Ava. She didn’t mean to harm you, but sometimes she did things out of her control. She felt so guilty afterward, and between the divorce and criminal charges…that’s why she overdosed.”
Pain ripped through my head. I pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to sort through my father’s words and my own memories. What was real? What wasn’t?
Memories were unreliable. I knew that. And Michael sounded sincere. But had I really been that off base? Where did those visions come from, if not my memories?
“There’s another instance,” I said shakily. “Third grade. I brought home an essay from Mrs. James’s class and showed you. We were in your office. You looked at me and said I was a carbon copy of Mom and you…you pushed a pillow into my face and tried to suffocate me. I couldn’t breathe. I would’ve died, but Josh came home and called for you, and you stopped.”
The story sounded ridiculous beneath the bright lights of the conference room. My head pounded harder.
Alarm spread across Michael’s features. “Ava,” he said softly, calmly, like he didn’t want to spook me. “You never had a teacher named Mrs. James.”
My heart crashed against my chest. “I did! She had blonde hair and glasses, and she gave us sugar cookies on our birthdays…” Tears prickled my eyes. “I swear, Mrs. James was real.”
She had to be real. But what if she wasn’t? What if I’d made everything up and thought they were memories? What was wrong with me? Why was my brain so messed up?
I couldn’t breathe. I felt crazy, like nothing in my life was real and I’d dreamed it all up. I pressed my palms into the table, half-expecting it to dissolve in a shower of dust.
“Honey…” He reached for me, but before he could touch me, the door banged open.
“That’s enough. Stop lying.” Alex strode in, his face like thunder. Of course he had this place wired. “I had my people investigate after Ava told me what she remembered,” he said coldly. He did? He never told me that. “You’d be surprised how much—and how quickly—one can find out with the right amount of money. She did have a third-grade teacher named Mrs. James—one who reported suspicious bruising on Ava’s wrists when she came into class the next day. You claimed it was a playground injury, and they believed you.” Alex’s eyes burned with disgust. “You’re a good actor, but drop the mask. We’re onto you.”
I stared at Michael. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. “Is that true? You were gaslighting me this whole time?”
“Ava, I’m your father.” Michael rubbed a hand over his face, his eyes bright. “I would never lie to you.”
I looked between him and Alex. My head pounded harder. There was too much going on, too many secrets to reveal. But in the end, I had to trust myself.
“I think you would,” I said. “I think you’ve been lying to me my entire life.”
Michael’s face remained anguished for several more seconds before it twisted and morphed into a hideous mask. His eyes gleamed with delighted malice, and his mouth spread into a mocking smile.
He didn’t look like my father anymore. He didn’t look human at all. He looked like a monster straight from my nightmares.
“Bravo.” He slow-clapped. “I almost had you,” he told me. “You should’ve seen yourself. I swear, Mrs. James was real,” he mimicked, laughing. The ugly sound raised every hair on my body. “Classic. You really thought you were crazy.”
I gave a subtle shake of my head when Alex moved toward Michael. I wanted to run and hide, but adrenaline pushed the words out of my mouth. “Why? I was a kid.” My chin wobbled. “I’m your daughter. Why would you do those things to me? Tell me the truth.” I tightened my jaw. “No. More. Lies.”
“The truth is subjective.” Michael leaned back in his chair. “But you want to know so bad? Here’s my truth—you’re not really my daughter.” He flashed a humorless smile at my sharp intake of breath. “That’s right. Your bitch of a mom cheated on me. Must’ve been one of those times I was away for business. She always complained I wasn’t around enough, like it wasn’t my fucking business that put the roof over her head and kept her nice and warm in designer clothes. I’d always suspected you weren’t mine—you look nothing like me, but I figured, hey, maybe you just have a strong resemblance to Wendy. I took a secret paternity test and lo-and-behold, you really aren’t mine. Your mother tried to deny it, but there wasn’t much she could do with the evidence staring her in the face.” His expression darkened. “Of course, we couldn’t mention that in the divorce proceedings. Those things always leak, and we would’ve both lost face.”
There were few things worse than losing face in Chinese culture. Except, of course, trying to murder your daughter.
“If I’m not your daughter, why did you fight so hard for custody?” I demanded, my tongue thick in my mouth.
Michael’s lips curled into a sneer. “I didn’t fight for custody for you. I did it for Josh. He’s actually my son. Test confirmed it. My legacy, my heir. But since no one other than your mother and I knew you weren’t mine, you and Josh were a package deal. Unfortunately, courts almost always side with the mother except in extraordinary circumstances, so…” He shrugged. “I had to engineer an extraordinary circumstance.”
I felt sick, but I stayed frozen while Michael unraveled the tangled web of our past.
“I was lucky your mom was stupid enough to leave you alone. Honestly, that was negligence on its own. But I snuck into the house, intending to plant evidence of her ‘drug addiction’， and I found you playing by the lake instead. It was like God dropped the opportunity into my lap. Sometimes, courts side with the mother even if she’s a drug addict, but trying to drown her child? Guaranteed win for me. Not to mention, it’d be punishment for her. So I pushed you in. I was tempted to let you drown for real.” Another flash of teeth. “But I wasn’t that cold-hearted. You were just a kid. So I fished you out, told authorities I saw Wendy push you in. She kept screaming she didn’t do it, but you wanna know the real genius of my plan?” He leaned forward, his eyes sparkling. “You were the one who implicated your mother.”