\u201cMom, there are eighteen students and two teachers. We have room checks every night, and I\u2019ll call you before bed. Everyone else is going.\u201d<\/p>\n
I still said no.<\/p>\n
Then Camille finished the school year with straight A\u2019s and placed the permission form on the kitchen counter again without saying a word.<\/p>\n
I lasted three more days.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right,\u201d I finally told her. \u201cBut you call me every night. You follow your teachers. You don\u2019t wander off because somebody wants to go somewhere more interesting, and if plans change, you tell me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camille hugged me so tightly I nearly dropped my coffee.<\/p>\n
\u201cI promise.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the first four days, she kept that promise.<\/p>\n
She sent pictures of palm trees, movie posters, beaches, and ridiculous souvenir sunglasses she refused to buy because they cost thirty dollars. Every night she called from the hotel and spoke so quickly that I barely got a word in.<\/p>\n
Then, on the final day, everything stopped.<\/p>\n
No pictures arrived.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t answer two calls.<\/p>\n
Around seven that evening, I finally received one text.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m coming home.<\/p>\n
That was it.<\/p>\n
No heart at the end. No \u201clove you.\u201d Not even the eye-rolling emoji she used whenever I worried too much.<\/p>\n
I told myself she was exhausted.<\/p>\n
But when the school bus pulled into the parking lot the next afternoon, the girl who stepped off barely resembled the one I had hugged goodbye five days earlier.<\/p>\n
Camille normally threw herself into my arms after spending even one night away. This time, she handed me her suitcase without meeting my eyes, climbed into the car, and stared out the window all the way home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you argue with someone?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCamille\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you please stop asking?\u201d<\/p>\n
When we got home, she took her suitcase upstairs and locked her bedroom door.<\/p>\n
She had never done that before.<\/p>\n
Over the next week, things became stranger. She barely ate. She kept her phone facedown but jumped whenever it buzzed. Twice, I saw her hurry to the front window because a car had slowed near our house.<\/p>\n
Whenever I mentioned Los Angeles, she became angry.<\/p>\n
One evening I asked whether something had frightened her on the trip, and she snapped, \u201cI said nothing happened. Why can\u2019t you leave it alone?\u201d<\/p>\n
I tried convincing myself this was ordinary teenage drama. Maybe a boy had embarrassed her. Maybe she had argued with a friend. Maybe someone had posted an unflattering picture.<\/p>\n
But embarrassment didn\u2019t explain the fear.<\/p>\n
And it definitely didn\u2019t explain why she looked at me as though I had done something to her.<\/p>\n
By the following Friday, I had decided to call Mrs. Keller, one of the teachers who had accompanied the students.<\/p>\n
Before I could, she called me.<\/p>\n
\u201cMarissa, I wanted to check on Camille. How is she doing after everything?\u201d<\/p>\n
I was standing at the kitchen sink.<\/p>\n
My hand stopped under the running water.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter what?\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a pause.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe hasn\u2019t told you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTold me what?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs. Keller became very quiet.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe principal said your family had been informed. We thought somebody from the office called you.\u201d<\/p>\n
A plate slipped from my wet fingers and hit the bottom of the sink.<\/p>\n
\u201cInformed about what?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs. Keller took a breath. \u201cOn the final afternoon, the class visited a working studio. At some point during the tour, Camille disappeared from the group.\u201d<\/p>\n
My knees weakened.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow long?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout twenty-five minutes. We were searching the entire area when security contacted us. They had found her outside a restricted soundstage.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy was she there?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs. Keller hesitated. \u201cAn actor named Julian Cross was filming inside. Camille apparently tried more than once to convince security to let her through.\u201d<\/p>\n
I knew the name. Almost everyone did.<\/p>\n
Julian Cross had spent the past twenty years in movies. He was the kind of actor whose face appeared on magazine covers even if you didn\u2019t follow celebrity news.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would Camille care about him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know. She became extremely upset when security refused to let her inside. They warned her that if she tried again, they would have to involve the police. Afterward, she refused to explain herself.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the time we ended the call, my hands were shaking.<\/p>\n
I went straight upstairs.<\/p>\n
\u201cCamille.\u201d<\/p>\n
No answer.<\/p>\n
I knocked again. \u201cOpen the door.\u201d<\/p>\n
After several seconds, the lock clicked.<\/p>\n
She stood there holding her phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho is Julian Cross?\u201d<\/p>\n
Her expression changed immediately.<\/p>\n
Not guilt.<\/p>\n
Defiance.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo they finally told you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat were you doing outside his set?\u201d<\/p>\n
Camille unlocked her phone and shoved it toward me.<\/p>\n
On the screen was a photograph of Julian Cross.<\/p>\n
Dark brown hair. Green eyes. A slightly crooked smile.<\/p>\n
Then Camille swiped to a picture of herself.<\/p>\n
I stared.<\/p>\n
There was a resemblance.<\/p>\n
Not enough to prove anything, obviously, but enough to understand what had happened inside my daughter\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look alike,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCamille\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at his eyes. Look at his smile.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSimilar-looking people exist.\u201d<\/p>\n
She had prepared for that answer.<\/p>\n
She pulled up another page.<\/p>\n
\u201cJulian filmed a movie in our county sixteen years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Something tightened in my stomach.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was there for almost four months. That was exactly when I would have been conceived.\u201d<\/p>\n
I finally understood.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think Julian Cross is your father.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it. I think you\u2019ve known.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have never met that man.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camille gave a bitter laugh. \u201cOf course you\u2019d say that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause it\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never showed me Dad\u2019s picture. You barely tell me anything about him. Every time I ask, you start cleaning something or changing the subject.\u201d<\/p>\n
That hurt because she was right about one part.<\/p>\n
I did avoid those conversations.<\/p>\n
But not for the reason she believed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour father was not Julian Cross.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen show me a picture.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stopped.<\/p>\n
The only photographs I had were buried in an old box I hadn\u2019t opened in years.<\/p>\n
Camille saw my hesitation and mistook it for proof.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou let me spend fifteen years believing my father walked away when maybe he never even knew about me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is not what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t know what it felt like standing outside that set thinking my father was thirty feet away.\u201d<\/p>\n
My chest hurt.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re right. I don\u2019t know what that felt like. But I know who your father is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen why did you hide him from me?\u201d<\/p>\n
For the first time in years, I told her everything.<\/p>\n
I told her his name. I told her how deeply I had loved him and how excited he had initially seemed when I found out I was pregnant. Then I told her how he changed his mind, stopped answering calls, returned two letters unopened, and eventually changed his number.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t tell you those details because I didn\u2019t want you growing up wondering why you weren\u2019t enough for him,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd because, if I\u2019m being completely truthful, saying it out loud still hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camille\u2019s eyes filled with tears, but she shook her head.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat could all be another story.\u201d<\/p>\n
After that, something cold settled between us.<\/p>\n
She stopped following me around the kitchen while I cooked. She took dinner upstairs. Behind her door, I heard Julian Cross interviews playing late into the night.<\/p>\n
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