An Affair of Deceit by Jamie Michele

it is my good fortune to live it.”
    Together, they stepped onto the gray gravel pathway that wound snakelike through the garden. He wasn’t terribly knowledgeable about plants, for he asked Fei for identification of nearly everything he saw. Abigail’s lower back became sore as she watched the pair amble through the yard. She sat down with her back to the cool stone wall and listened. Riley and Fei’s footsteps crunched gravel at regular intervals that were broken by conversation about the natural habits of gardenias and ginkgoes. Finally, their shoes struck wood.
    Abigail perked up. It sounded like Riley and her mother had reached the pavilion, the place where their talk would surely venture into the more interesting territory that Riley had come to broach. Abigail poked her head up just enough to catch sight of her prey. They had indeed entered the pavilion and were sitting side by side on a padded wooden bench that overlooked the pond.
    “Mrs. Li, I get the sense that you were expecting my visit this morning,” said Riley.
    Her mother nodded. “My daughter informed me that you might be along.”
    Riley smiled and looked down at the pond, probably at the brightly colored carp that always gathered at the water’s edge when humans were nearby. “That’s good. I didn’t want you to be surprised.”
    “I am rarely surprised, Dr. Riley. What would you like to know?”
    “When was the last time you spoke with your husband?”
    Husband?
That struck Abigail as an odd word choice. She couldn’t imagine her mother still viewed Peter Mason as herhusband, not after all these years, although she didn’t honestly know if they’d ever formally divorced.
    “It has been some time since I last saw him.”
    “Can you say more precisely when you last spoke directly with him?” Riley pressed, clearly realizing that Fei had not answered the question he had asked.
    “It would be difficult to say.”
    Difficult to say?
Abigail nearly shouted out in disbelief. How could her mother forget the last time they’d seen her father? It had seared itself into Abigail’s memory, although at the time she’d only thought he was leaving on a business trip. He’d given Abigail a brief hug and a stern admonition to be a good girl. She was always a good girl, so she’d giggled, but then nodded seriously as he recited further directions. He asked her to speak Mandarin with her mother, to practice her wushu every day, and to keep the rice pot full. She did everything as he asked. A week later, still several days before he was due to return, her mother abruptly announced that they were moving to America without him. Her mother said that he’d join them later. But Abigail refused to leave him behind. She’d always been a respectful daughter, but she turned against her mother, doing everything in her eight-year-old power to prevent the move from happening. But the move was inevitable—and immediate. A day later, with most of their belongings abandoned, Abigail and her mother were on a plane to Washington, DC, never to see her father again.
    For years afterward, she’d replayed her last moments with her father over and over again in her mind, hoping to figure out what she’d done wrong. Later, she determined that her mother may have been at fault, for it was she who’d left Taiwan without him. Blaming her mother didn’t make her feel much better, but it did give her a more visible target for her anger.
    Surely one of them had done something to keep him away. Yes, they’d left their home in Taiwan without him, but they’d moved to America, his homeland. Undoubtedly, he could findthem if he wanted to. He had their address—he sent those checks, after all. Why wouldn’t he come home to them?
    Abigail never could figure it out, but she didn’t believe that her mother had actually forgotten the most devastating week of their lives—unless it hadn’t devastated her as it had Abigail, in which case Abigail was furious with her all over