Chapter Forty-Five

After Sophie had gone, Robert spent some time throwing away string and wrapping paper, and examining his new boots. But his thoughts were on his daughter’s odd behavior. Other than the saddle blanket, she had seemed strangely subdued about her gifts. And what was with all the questions she had been asking lately about the civil war? He knew people talked about it sometimes, but it was unlikely the adults of Castaño would say much in her presence, and other than Mateo, she had no friends at school who might pass along things that they overheard at the dinner table. Besides, there were only a few people who knew that he had personally supplied some of the refugee camps, and none of them were in Castaño. His eyes narrowed in suspicion as he thought back over the things she had recently said.

‘Just a book,’ she told him. Well, he would see about that.

He climbed the stairs and went into her room. It was full of books, since it had once been his own bedroom, and someone more experienced in deception could have easily hidden a new one among the old, making its discovery tedious and time-consuming. But there was an art to hiding things in plain sight, and it wasn’t likely that Sophie had yet learned such a thing. That meant that her new book, if she was hiding it at all, was in one of the common places that a child would think to hide something.

He found it on only the second try. It was a paperback, cheaply printed on flimsy paper, as were most new books in the USS, and he didn’t recognize the name of the author. The table of contents read like something from a lurid melodrama and Robert felt suddenly cold. Quickly, he flipped to the index and found his name. And Diana’s and Will’s. He made a mental note of a few page numbers and started looking them up.

Robert didn’t know how long he sat on the floor of Sophie’s room, reading about his past. Not all of it was true, of course. There was hardly a breath of gossip from those years that hadn’t found its way into the pages, including the rumor that Diana and Will were siblings. Robert could only imagine the effect on Sophie of reading such things.

Realizing that time was passing and he had told Sophie to be home in an hour, he stood up. What to do with the book? He had only had a chance to spot-check certain entries and he would prefer to read everything before confronting his daughter. Being only partially informed when he went to talk to her would only confuse things further. But if he put the book back, it would be a while before he would have another chance to look at it. And keeping it for himself was out of the question, since this was probably the book he had seen her reading under the covers by flashlight late at night.

But what was the alternative? He could take the book downstairs right now and confront Sophie with it when she came in from her ride. Of all his options, that was probably the best one from a parental standpoint, but that would mean admitting that he had searched her room. No good could come from demonstrating such a lack of trust when the only cause she had given him was a few awkward questions.

He heard the door downstairs open. Without thinking, he slipped the book back underneath the mattress and went to the top of the stairs. “Back so soon?” he called.

Sophie came to the foot of the stairs and looked up. “You said an hour.”

“Yes, I did, didn’t I?” He wished suddenly that he hadn’t put the book back, and that they could clear the air today and get it over with. But it was Christmas, after all. He would try to salvage the day as best he could. They could always discuss this matter another time.