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her father lowered his gaze. “Rick and Dan? Rick committed suicide in prison, and Ginny told me Dan was paroled after serving six years of a twelve-year sentence.”
    Questions crowded Lorraine’s mind, and she asked the most pressing ones first. “Why didn’t Mom join you here? Surely after five or ten years she could have done so without anyone suspecting.”
    â€œThat was what we planned in the beginning,” he said. “Your mother moved to Louisville and she visited me every six months or so. We were able to keep in touch through a mutual friend.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œElaine Wilson.”
    â€œAunt Elaine?” She’d died when Lorraine was nine.
    â€œEverything fell apart after Elaine died,” her father said. “Ginny would write that she was coming, but each time she’d find some excuse to postpone it. Eventually her visits stopped entirely.”
    â€œBut couldn’t we have moved to Mexico? Then the three of us would’ve been together.”
    He shrugged. “Ginny was afraid that if she left the country for more than a few days, she wouldn’t be able to return. She worried about her parents. She worried aboutyou, too. Your mother loved you beyond everything, and she wanted you to have the best education and all the advantages America has to offer.”
    â€œBut…she told me you were dead.” Lorraine didn’t know if she could forgive either of them for the lie.
    â€œYou were a child and far too young to carry the weight of our secret.”
    â€œBut I’m an adult now. I have been for years. There was no reason to continue hiding the truth from me,” she insisted. No reason Virginia couldn’t have told her and allowed her to form her own judgments, make her own decisions.
    â€œAny blame falls on me, Raine,” he said. He raised his hand to her face, touching her cheek. “I was the one who screwed up. I was the one who got involved in a bombing that claimed an innocent man’s life.”
    â€œBut I needed you,” Lorraine said, fighting back tears.
    â€œI needed you, too,” he said, and gathered her in his arms. They clung to each other for a long time.
    When he released her, Lorraine sat back and tried to collect herself.
    â€œYou must be exhausted,” he said. “Hungry, too, I’ll bet.”
    Her stomach growled, reminding her that, except for a few pieces of melon in Mérida, her last meal had been on the airplane. Yogurt, a banana and some type of forgettable roll. Her father was right; she was both tired and hungry.
    He took charge of her suitcase and led her out of the school. While they walked the short distance to his house, Thomas told her how he’d spent his life here in Mexico. Until nine years ago, he’d worked at various odd jobs around the country, never staying in any one place for long. Then the opportunity had come to teach scienceand math at this private school, a job he thoroughly enjoyed.
    â€œI’m ashamed to admit I didn’t find my calling in life until I was over forty.”
    Already Lorraine could see how easy it would be to love this man. He might have been militant in his youth, but despite the tragic results of his actions, he’d joined the antiwar effort for compassionate reasons. He’d repented his mistakes and was obviously still a good man, but one who’d achieved self-knowledge.
    Lorraine was grateful to have found him.
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    It had been a shock when Lorraine showed up in El Mirador, but one of the happiest of Thomas’s life. His daughter was everything he’d hoped she’d be. Intelligent, beautiful, caring. And so much like her mother.
    His first look at Lorraine had stopped him cold. She resembled Ginny in almost every way. In fact, it was like stepping back and seeing Ginny at nineteen.
    The news that his wife was dead was a hard blow, and he’d need time to assimilate it. Time and privacy to mourn.