She paused for a moment before resuming.
“We didn’t have a computer then, but we did have an old encyclopedia set. It was missing a couple of volumes; a used book store had given the set to Dad for fifteen bucks. Sometimes, I would read those books when I was bored. I would pull a volume off the shelf, turn to a random page, and read about the Korean War, or cryptography, or brown bears. One day, a few months after Dad told me that I was a princess, I tried looking up Remuria. Of course, no such country existed. I don’t know why it mattered so much to me, but I cried. I was so mad at him for lying to me about that. When I told him there was no Remuria, he insisted that there was and that I really was a princess. He said the encyclopedia was wrong. He said that he planned to write to the publisher, to complain about the oversight. I knew he was lying still, but I joined the lie, helping him plan what he was going to write. We would demand an apology, and request that they put out a new edition with a long section on the history of Remuria. Dad said they would probably put our names in there, as the last living descendants of Thomas the Brave.”
Zoe smiled.
“He was a good dad,” Zoe finished. “And I’m going to miss him.”
She went back to her seat by Mom. It was Mom’s turn to give comfort, and Zoe’s to receive it. I waited for a moment to see if anyone else was going to go up there to speak; when it seemed that nobody would, I shifted to get out of my seat.
Trevor beat me to it, popping up and stepping to the lectern. I settled back in my seat and waited, hoping to God that Trevor wasn’t about to embarrass himself, or worse, embarrass Mom. My little brother stood for a while without saying a thing, his lips moving almost imperceptibly as if he were reciting a prayer to himself, a secret one for him and him alone.
“Dad and me, we never did get along, I guess. Mom used to say that we were like oil and water. I think we were more like bleach and ammonia. Mix us together, and you get poison gas.”