The doctor came out of the operating room at about six in the morning to tell us that Dad had come through his surgery successfully. “We got the kidney,” He said with a tired smile, “And it looks like we got all the cancer with it. It’s going to be a rough road, but this part is over.”

Lucy and I were exhausted. We took a taxi back to the house. It was still inside as we entered, like there was no life in there at all. It smelled faintly like pine needles and coffee. The boards creaked beneath my feet as I walked into the kitchen.

Lucy followed behind me. She stretched her arms over her head and yawned loudly. She shifted her weight from side to side, “Well, I reckon we should go to sleep.”

An idea had suddenly swept me. I turned to her and put my hands on my hips, more awake than I’d been all night. “You go ahead, Lucy,” I told her, “I’m going to go into the attic.”

“For what?” She made a face. Her nose twisted and her bottom lip poked out just a bit. Lucy had always been afraid of the attic.

“You don’t have to come,” I laughed, “But I want to have a look. There have to be… things there…” I trailed off, then said the rest quickly, “That I want to see.”

“Like what?” She blinked, looking at me as if I were out of my skull.

“Oh, Lucy!” I stamped my foot, “Things that were Mummy’s! You know he’s hidden them! I want to see!”

“Mum’s?” She looked confused.

“Lu, I know you were little and you don’t remember her, but I do! I think I do! I might! I think about her all the time lately and I wonder. I think I remember things, but I’m not sure and if I can find something…anything…that was hers maybe I’ll be able to remember more.”

My little sister nodded with sudden understanding, “All right,” She answered gently, “Do you want company?”

“That’s up to you. You’re tired, aren’t you?”

She grinned. Lucy was forty-six years old, but she was still beautiful, especially when she smiled. “Nothing coffee can’t fix!” She swore as she glanced at the machine on the counter, “You taught me that!”

My sister and I tore through that attic and searched for any remnants of our mother.

“I feel naughty," She told me as she flipped open a dusty hat box, “Like I’m not supposed to be doing this."

“He wouldn’t like it," I agreed, “But I don’t really care. She belongs to us, too, Sissy," I felt a ping of anger spread through my chest and run up my neck. Heat spread across my face, “She belongs to us as well. He can’t keep her to himself anymore. It’s not fair."

Lucy nodded and began to thumb through the contents of the box. After several minutes, she paused, “Oh, my,“ She said softly, running her fingers gently over a post card, “Have a look.“

She handed it to me. It was a glossy black post card with a picture of red wine and the words, “J’taime”. I flipped it over and read what was written on the back.

“Dear Philip, Paris is no good without you. I miss you. Hurry. Love forever, Sharon.“ I checked the post date. They were eighteen years old.

My father had told me once that they’d lived in Paris briefly after they were married. I read the words again, “Look at the date. It was right after they were married.”

Lucy took the card from my hand, read it and grinned, “Let’s see what else we can find.”

There wasn’t much else. Some old photos, many reminders of our childhoods, some of Gran’s gloves and hats, but not much of our mother. Not much at all.

Daddy came home a week later. Oliver and Alexander came on the weekends to help out. After two more weeks Daddy told us he was fine with his nurses and more or less tossed us out. Relieved, we returned to our lives and our husbands.

“Did you ask him about your mther?” Oliver asked me.

“No, I didn’t want to upset him, especially considering what he’d been through.”

Ollie didn’t ask anything else.

I put the post card I had stolen from him in a glass frame and I hung it in our bedroom on the wall beside photos of our children when they were little.

A year passed. I spoke to Dad maybe three or four times, but I asked him nothing. Lucy came to the wood one day all alone. Her eyes were wet and swollen. “I just spoke to a doctor, Sil," Her bottom lip quivered, “He was at a football game and he collapsed."

“Dad?" I felt my heart stop, “Is he all right?"

“Oh, Sil! He’s all right! Sort of! He’s home, but the cancer’s back!" She wailed, “It’s in his lungs this time! Stage three again! Oh, Sil…it’s bad! It‘s so bad! We have to go!”

The two of us drove again to Edinburgh. With no time to wait, he was in surgery when we arrived. Half of one lung was coming out and a quarter of another, plus he was going to have to undergo chemotherapy and radiation. Oliver and Alexander followed after the next evening, both of them uncharacteristically quiet, even as the four of us sat in Daddy‘s kitchen and played cards to pass the time while we waited for word from the hospital.

Of course I was upset about Dad having cancer again and I was worried about him having the operation, but I wasn’t thinking about that so much as I was that I hadn’t asked him what I wanted to know. Damn it! I decided that I wasn’t going to allow him to die without telling me everything he knew about her. He was going to give her back to me. He had to. I was going to make him and I didn’t care if he liked it or not.

Oliver was the only one who knew my plan. I woke up early eight days after his operation and left by myself for the hospital so I could see Daddy alone. He was in his bed, pale and weak, in a green gown with oxygen shoved up his nose. I had hardened myself to it before I got there. “Daddy?” I pulled a chair up to the bed, “How are you?”

“Silvia!” He did his best to smile, “You’re here!”

“I am,” I replied softly. “Tell me, Daddy, are you up for talking?”

“It’s not so easy to breathe,” He admitted, “But I can. What do you want to talk about?”

I was terrified. I felt exactly like I did that night in the kitchen when he’d glared at me and I’d been scolded and sent to my room. I felt stupid and small and ashamed. But I wasn’t a confused five year old child. I wasn’t small or stupid and I had no reason to be ashamed. I was angry. I knew I shouldn’t be. I knew it wasn’t proper, but there he was in his bed, half dead, doing what he could to smile, and all I could think of was the cold look he’d given me that night I’d wandered into the kitchen. Part of me wanted to cry. Part of me wanted to punch his face.

I wasn’t kind or gentle about asking him. I leaned forward and placed my hands squarely on my bare knees, looked him in the eye, and I came right out with it. “No more bullshit, Dad. I don’t want any excuses, I don’t want any lies. You’ve dodged cancer once and it doesn’t look like you’re going to have an easy time doing it the second. You have information I want.“

“What are you? Interpol?” I couldn’t tell if he was annoyed or trying to be funny. “What do you want to know? “

“I need you to tell me about my mother.”

He looked very confused, “What?”

“You’re dying,” I said coldly, “Whether you survive this and beat the cancer or not, you’ll die sooner or later and when you do, you’re going to take all that’s left of my mother with you and leave me without her forever. I’ve let you have her all to yourself all my life, now you’re going to give her back to me. Do you understand, Daddy?” I was shaking. I leaned forward some more, moved to the edge of my chair and hissed, “You’ve had her long enough! You’re not going to die and take her with you! I won’t allow it!”

My father looked older than I could ever have imagined someone looking. He slouched with a sigh. “Well, this is not what I expected. All right, Silvia. I’ll tell you all about her. What do you want to know?”

I was taken aback with how easily he’d agreed. “Everything,” I told him, remembering a conversation I’d had with Alexander’s first wife, Melissa, years ago, when she’d used the same words to get information from me, “I want to know everything.”