“Another couple of hours,” he says softly.
“Where are we going?” I murmur.
“Middle of nowhere,” Ness says. “The last place anyone thinks to look.”
I try to fall back asleep, thinking on this and other puzzles. Half the time when I crack my eyes, Ness is staring at his screen. The other half of the time, he’s staring at me. The darkness, the shuddering of the plane, the cabin to ourselves, my sleepy brain, a morning spent with his daughter, his pensive mood, all swim around me. An old memory returns—a collection of disjointed memories—all the impossibly long nights spent awake at summer camp, confiding to strangers in whispers for hour upon hour, never wanting to sleep, and falling for other girls my age with reckless speed, promising each other we’d be best friends forever.
“We had a daughter,” I say, out of nowhere. I leave my eyes closed. The darkness is a safe place.
Ness says nothing.
“She came premature, and they couldn’t save her.”
I dab at my eyes with the blanket, and Ness’s seat squeaks as he adjusts himself. I feel his hand on my foot. A friendly gesture. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“It’s just that… I would love to have a daughter who hates me,” I say. And I find the courage to open my eyes. Tears stream down my neck. I wipe them away as quickly as they come. I’m trying to make him feel better, but I’m making us both feel worse.
“It’s just a phase kids go through,” Ness says. “Everyone assures me she’ll grow out of it.”
“You could wait for her to grow up, or you could meet her halfway,” I say.
“I try.” Ness closes his laptop, leaving us to the dim emergency lights. “I only get her every other weekend, and her mom often schedules camps and sports to fill those up. I’ve watched her grow up from the bleachers.”
“Does she take to strangers easily? Because she…”
I don’t know how to say what it felt like for her to bond with me so quickly, that it was part flattering and part sad.
“I saw the two of you napping in the guest house,” Ness says. “Does she do that sort of thing a lot? Maybe not that exactly, but she does like it when I’m seeing someone. And she’s always crushed when they don’t stick around.”
“They,” I say.
“People I’ve dated since my wife left me.”
“They don’t stick around, or you don’t have them back?”
Ness shrugs. “It’s complicated. What’s funny is that I think Holly just wants me to be happy. I think it’s selfless on her part, that she wants some fairy tale for me, not for her.”
“Why does she think you’re not happy?” I ask.
“You’re asking a lot of questions. Is this for your story?”
I consider this for a beat. He’s asking me if this is on the record or off the record. Do I want to know but not be able to report what I find? Or would I rather wait and find out by other means and be able to write what I discover? It’s the riddle of the non-disclosure agreement all over again.
“This is for me,” I finally say. Which feels dangerous. Like I just crossed a line that shouldn’t be crossed—sliding from reporter to acquaintance. Maybe even friend. But I don’t see an oil magnate across from me right then; I don’t see the subject of any story. Just a man, a father, someone I’ve spent too much time around the past few days not to empathize with.
“I’m not an easy person to live with,” Ness tells me. “I try. Man, I try. I don’t want to be like my father, but we are who we are.” He shrugs. “I can’t sit still. I have so much I want to do, and I don’t feel like I have time for it all. I have a hard time delegating, an even harder time trusting people. Here’s the thing: Vicky cheated on me. Another parent she met at a PTA meeting. And when she left, I gave her everything she asked for, custody, the houses she wanted, the money she demanded, because I figured the affair was my fault for not being there. My fault for being a bad father.”
“Why do you think you’re a bad father?”
“Because it runs in the family.” Ness turns toward the window, where the moon bounces off the top of the clouds and lets in the faintest of ethereal glows. He’s little more than a silhouette, but I see him wipe his cheek. “Even my grandfather, who was a good man through and through, wasn’t a great father to my dad. I didn’t tell you the full truth about that the other day. It’s not that he was abusive, just absent. I think the same propensity to feel overwhelmed with guilt allowed him to let someone else raise his kid. Or maybe, like me, he was scared he’d screw it all up.”
“What is it you’re chasing?” I ask. “What’re you looking for?”
“Redemption,” Ness says. And the answer comes so fast, that I know he has asked himself this very question countless times. “I want to leave behind a better world than the one I was given. And like I told you the other day, I was given a world in a lot of pieces.”
“Your grandfather bought up shoreline and protected it to redeem himself. How will forging shells help anyone?”
Even in the dark, I can see Ness stiffen. I hate myself for saying it. I’m more curious about him than the stupid shells in that moment, but the conversation hemmed us in like a lee shore in a storm.
“Why does this no longer feel off the record?” Ness asks.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I lean forward and place a hand on his knee. “I really am. That wasn’t me being a reporter… just me being confused.”
“No, that’s okay.” Ness straightens himself in his seat, puts his laptop aside. I lean back in my own seat. “Of course they aren’t real,” he says. “The problem with those shells is that they’re too perfect. Maybe that’s why Arlov had to have them around. I don’t know.”
Before I can press him on this, Ness reminds me that we’re talking off the record. And then he flashes a mischievous smile brighter than the moon. “But if you want to get back on the record, I’ve got something you can print. A scoop just for you. Something I’ve never told another reporter.”
“What?” I ask.
“The story of my name.”
I try to hide my disappointment. “I know it,” I say. I can’t remember where I heard it, somewhere in all the hundreds of interviews and articles I’ve read about him. “Your middle name is Robert. Your father thought it would be cute, since you were born around the time he tried to make the company more green. What I’d much rather hear about—”
“No, the Wilderness thing? I don’t know who put that together, but it’s a coincidence. My grandfather on my mother’s side was named Robert. The real story is less interesting. Well, to most people, I imagine. But when my mother told me how I got my name, it led me on a trip where I discovered the single greatest thing she ever taught me about my father.”
I wait. And damn him, he has me curious.
“I was named after a monster,” Ness says.
“You were not,” I say. “You mean the loch?”
“Yes, precisely. Loch Ness. And my mom swears it’s the truth. The two of them spent their honeymoon on the Isle of Man, and they visited Scotland and the loch, and she said my father was taken with the lore of the place. But even more with the tourism. Have you ever been?”
“No.”
“I went. I wanted to find out what my father saw when he came up with this name. It seemed mysterious to me. It haunted me. All I had were a few hints from my mom, where they went, some things he said. So I went there by myself hoping to find out where I came from. Where I really came from, you know? Not my name, really, but to get to know my dad. And it hit me on my third day there. A woman in a cafe recognized me. You know what she did?”