Watching him, I couldn’t help thinking that he actually thought he was on a vacation with his daughter, and his enthusiasm was sometimes a little infectious.

He didn’t tell me much more about Kathryn and nothing about where we were going, because he said Kathryn wanted it all to be a surprise. Instead he talked about moonshining and told me stories from his days in the enterprise, his successes and mishaps and avoiding the law. Evidently there were laws about selling alcohol, all of which were an abuse of rights, he said.

When he wasn’t telling stories, he was trying to convince me to play one game or the other—I spy, find the pine cone, poker with an old deck of cards and pebbles as money. It took some convincing on his part to persuade me to play, but as I did I found some comfort in the distraction, particularly since I almost always won once I learned the rules. As the days passed, I began to see that Wyatt was a kind man with a good heart who rarely showed any deep concern.

In fact, the only time he became uptight at all was when he talked about Kathryn. I didn’t see it at first, but I began to notice that lines sometimes formed over his brow when he spoke about her. He seemed fiercely loyal and deeply caring of her, but there might have been some fear in those lines as well.

In the middle of the second night, I scratched out a note on an old piece of paper I’d found outside. There were no pencils or pens I’d seen so I used a piece of charred wood from the fireplace. In the note I gave my name and said that Wyatt Lowenstein, a moonshiner, had kidnapped me and was taking me somewhere to meet my real mother, Kathryn. I also wrote that my real father was a senator from Nevada named James Ringwald who was now dead.

I tried to think of what else might be useful but couldn’t think of anything. I didn’t want John or Louise to worry about me too much so I added one more line: Please don’t worry. Wyatt is a kind man and is taking good care of me. He said I can come home soon.

I folded the note up and hid it under the mattress. If they found it, they would at least be able to assure Louise that I wasn’t being mistreated.

At dusk on the third evening, which was actually the fourth night of my kidnapping, Wyatt cleaned up the cabin, wiped the truck down with great care, and led me through the woods, south, to a small clearing. A blue car was hidden there under branches—our ride home, he said, with a big grin.

Home. The word frightened me.

Thirty minutes later we were back on a main highway, again headed south. Two days later we were in Louisiana, and I was curled up in the front seat, blindfolded.

He’d explained that I had to wear the blindfold so that I wouldn’t know where they lived in the event I decided I didn’t want to stay. The authorities would force me to tell them where they lived and they couldn’t risk that. And I had to lie down because if anyone saw a girl wearing a blindfold in a car they might be suspicious and call the cops. They couldn’t risk that either.

On one hand, that made sense to me. On the other hand, I already knew their names—wasn’t that enough information for the authorities to go after them?

So why the secrecy?

But I still chose to believe that I really would be able to leave if I wanted to, so I had no problem lying down blindfolded. I didn’t want anyone to hurt Wyatt, however strange that might seem. In fact, I even wondered whether I should have given his name in the note I’d left. If it led the authorities to Wyatt, they might put him in prison, like he said.

He might have been wrong in taking me the way he did, but part of me didn’t blame him. He and Kathryn had only gone to terrible trouble and risked so much because they were so eager to have me back. Part of me felt desperately wanted and maybe that’s what being a daughter was supposed to feel like.

“Okay, sweetheart. You can sit up and take the blindfold off.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now. We’re almost home.”

I pushed myself up and pulled off the blindfold. The sight that greeted me through the windshield was unlike any I’d ever seen.

It was late afternoon, dusk, and a bit gloomy. We were on a narrow, gravel road with tufts of grass growing down the center. But it was the thick blanket of trees that struck me. Huge trees, with drooping branches and vines as far as I could see. The road dropped off into deep, wide ditches on either side as if they’d been dug to protect the road from the tangle of encroaching trees.

“Where are we?”

“Home.”

I stared at the huge trees on my right and saw that the gravel road was built up, higher than the ground, which looked wet. No, not just wet.

Flooded with water.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“The swamp,” he said. “You’re going to love it. Lots of water. We have lakes, rivers . . . Our house is just around the corner.

I immediately thought about what little I knew of swamps and images of snakes and beady-eyed alligators strung through my mind. The sound of the road crunching under the tires somehow worsened the sudden fear that gripped me. I felt totally isolated and far away from anything that was familiar or safe.

And then we were around the corner and driving down a dirt driveway.

“End of the line,” Wyatt said. “This is as far as the road goes. We already passed the last house half a mile back. We have all the land you could dream of down here. You’ll see.”

We passed a square outbuilding with a sloping tin roof. No windows that I could see. Maybe it had something to do with moonshine because barrels were stacked behind it. Three old trucks sat out front, one of which was on blocks, missing its rear wheels.

We passed a swing set—metal tubes that formed a teepee with hanging chains that held two tires. A small woodshed sat by itself just past the swing set. Maybe a toolshed. The ground was partly grassed, partly bare, without any care given to it. Bushes and trees grew up here and there, wherever seeds had happened to fall.

It was hard to believe that I was somehow connected to such a strange place hidden away in the swamps. It was all so foreign.

An old, white house with a porch loomed between the trees ahead, to our right. Windows across the front, a black roof, three steps leading up to a porch—about what I might expect in a house.

What I didn’t expect was the large, paper sign with the words Welcome Home written in red that hung from the porch’s roof. Nor the sight of the dark-haired woman wearing a flowered dress with long sleeves, standing under it, watching us intently. Nor the short boy who stood next to her.

“That’s your mother and your brother,” Wyatt said.

I don’t know what I expected because up until that moment I had only thought of ‘mother’ in terms of an idea without putting any face or body to it. But now I was looking at her and I panicked.

What if I didn’t like her? What if she wasn’t as kind as Wyatt? What if she was disappointed in me?

What if she wasn’t my real mother?

“Don’t be nervous, sweetheart. It’s going to be just fine, you’ll see.”

Wyatt brought the car to a stop at the end of the driveway fifty feet from the house, put the shifter in neutral, and turned off the engine.

I stared up at the two people on the porch, mind suddenly blank. The blond-haired boy was staring in wide wonder, and I could see the strangeness of him immediately. His head seemed a little large for his body, and his face looked . . . well, I didn’t know quite how to think of it except . . . off.

I shifted my eyes and looked at the woman. Kathryn. Who was peering at me through the windshield, looking as tense as I felt. For a moment I thought she might be frightened.

This was the mother who’d gone to such great lengths to find me?

Maybe she was afraid . . . I was, wasn’t I? Maybe a voice in her head was telling that it was all too good to be true. Or that I was too skinny to be her daughter. Or maybe she was afraid that I wouldn’t measure up to her expectations for the daughter she’d dreamed about for so many years. Or maybe she was just nervous.