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She could remember—barely, just barely—her Papa reading her stories. Wide picture books with crisp, colored pages. She liked the Madeline books—she had a whole half shelf full of those—she liked the knowledge that Daddy and Papa had been to some of these places, Paris and London and the whole wide, grand world outside of Westchester. She liked Dr. Seuss, with his rhymes; for a long time, her favorite book was The Sneetches and Other Stories. But she liked the animal books best. They didn’t always talk, which was how Papa said the rest of the world saw animals, but when they did it felt like she wasn’t alone. She dragged a battered old copy of Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present around with her until it fell apart, and she cried until Papa sewed it back together again.
As she got older, the stories grew thicker, and Daddy read them with her—James and the Giant Peach, and for six months she wandered around outside speaking to any insects she could find about whether or not they could grow big and fat on any fruit, not just peaches, which didn’t grow in New York—The Incredible Journey, and she pretended she was Tao the cat as she played in the woods beyond the house, who had gotten separated from her dog friends and was trying to get back to them. Where the Red Fern Grows, Charlotte’s Web, Dolphin Island.
But Papa didn’t read her the longer stories with Daddy as she got older. As she got older, Papa put the picture books down and told her stories. They were silly little things at first—a purple telephone that kept dialing the wrong number, a bird that kept asking different animals which way the sky was. His stories were shaky, hesitant things, the way Papa was sometimes shaky and hesitant, but he grew stronger, and eventually, his stories filled out and expanded with him.
Daddy read to her from the chapter books; Papa made up stories about prophecies and cities underground, about alien worlds and creatures that snatched children away, but how she could find her way back to them if she was ever taken. Papa told her a story about a little girl who wanted a dog (she found this story very relatable) but didn’t know that every night her father turned into a wolf and sat outside her room guarding her from the moon that wanted to steal her away. He told her a story about a star who fell in love with the sun, and tried to eat up all the other stars so it could grow as bright and prove it was worth of the sun’s love, and how the sun told him she loved him anyway (Daddy hated this story; he insisted that the sun was also a star, and not even a particularly big one). He told her stories about swordsmen and pirates, goblins and astronauts.
Papa told her the myths of his childhood, the rabbi of Prague who wrote the name of God and brought a clay man to life to protect the Jews of the city, how the Queen of the Ants caused King Solomon to be cast down into a strange place where no one knew him and taught him the value of humility. He told her about Rübezahl the wild man, and how Nina must never call him by that name if she met him, because he would fly into a rage and curse her. He told her stories he’d read, stories about King Arthur and his Round Table, about beautiful Guinevere and heroic Lancelot. About Peter Pan and Wendy and all of the Lost Boys, and eventually Daddy read her the original Peter and Wendy, and she was disappointed to find out that most of the stories of the lost boys Papa had made up for her.
Papa told her stories about his life before she was born; the time his mother almost lost him in the Dusseldorf market; the time Daddy had won him a giant stuffed otter at the carnival and a fortuneteller had told him that his child was going to be happy and brilliant and wise (Nina liked this story); various tall tales about how he met Daddy for the first time, all false, she suspected, because Daddy would roll his eyes and laugh and gasp along with Nina when Papa told her these stories. He told her a story about how they’d met when he’d rescued Daddy from falling off a bridge chasing a butterfly, and another story about how they’d met in the land of the fairies and he’d rescued Daddy from becoming the Fairy Queen’s slave, and another story about how they’d met when he’d rescued Daddy from a fire he’d set by being negligent about a candle. (Most of these stories involved him rescuing Daddy somehow.)
Papa told her stories about herself. Or, not herself exactly—a little girl who talked to animals, who was beloved by her parents, who loved to read and play football and climb trees. A little girl who broke her leg trying to see if she could fly, a little girl who the stags would let ride on their backs, a little menace-girl, a little angel-girl. Papa told her cautionary tales about little girls who refused to go to bed, or wash behind their ears, and Nina giggled when he did, because Papa would make them about her, but so exaggerated they became funny. A girl who stayed up until dawn when Nina only stayed up until eleven. A girl whose hair was a tangle the size of her head again when Nina’s tangles were always very small and manageable. And when she laughed, Papa kissed her crown, so she didn’t really see a reason to stop getting into trouble.
Papa told her stories about his scars. Some he wouldn’t talk about, but for a very few he would smile and say, “That scar I got when I tried to help my mama lift a boiling hot pot of water. That scar I got when Charles taught me how to ride a bicycle.” (Later, much later, when she would no longer be put off by fictions, he would tell her a hazy, indistinct version of the truth. About the camps and how she must never let her people or any people suffer that kind of oppression again; about the alpha and how she must never hurt anyone she loved like that, or let anyone she loved hurt her. But that won’t come for years and years, and if she ever thinks to wonder why he has so many scars, Daddy is always there to distract her with tickles, and being tickled is very distracting.)
She loved her Papa. She loved his stories. She loved reading with Daddy, too, but her Papa’s stories were living creatures, they changed and grew and sang and twisted in response to her questions, her mood, how many times she’d heard the story before.
But her very favorite story was the one Daddy told her, the only one he didn’t read from a book.
It was another story about her. “It’s about how you saved your Papa’s life,” Daddy would say. “Once upon a time, a very bad man had taken your father away from me. And he knew about my power, and he shielded your Papa so I couldn’t find him. But he was pregnant with you at the time, and even though I couldn’t find his mind, I could find yours. You rescued him, because I loved you so much I could sense you from far away, even before I met you, and he’s safe now, thanks to you.”
“And you,” Nina would say sleepily.
“And we’ll keep him safe together, won’t we?” Daddy would ask, and Nina would nod, and sleep would descend over her like a gauzy curtain sweeping her into dreams.
She loved that story because she suspected it was true; she loved that story because Daddy and Papa were heroes, they fought Nazis and protected mutants like them and her, they saved people, and they saved each other, and Nina wanted to be like them when she grew up, just like them, and this was apparently a small way she already was like them, was a hero, had saved her family.
Nina loved stories; she told the best ones to her friends, who were the most well-read animals in Westchester County—but this one she kept for herself, a secret between her and Daddy, a pearl held close to the heart.
And with her family, she wrote a story herself—one of childhood realized, of innocence blossoming. One embedded in each pen-stroke and dot in “happily ever after.”