A Mother's Lie

by Sarah Zettel

  Today was not one of those days.

  She ordered a giant blueberry muffin and a large coffee and joined Dad at the table. He watched her take a slurp of (the surprisingly not too bad) coffee.

  “Should you be drinking that?”

  “Less caffeine than a Diet Coke,” she said as she peeled the paper off the muffin and pulled off the top. “And no chemical sweetener.”

  “Oh. Uh. Okay.”

  “So, like, why are you even here?”

  He was taking too long to answer. She hated his silences. They usually meant he was trying to figure out how to spin-meister some kind of bad news.

  “Dana, I need you to talk to your mom for me.” He said it really fast, like he was afraid he was going to lose his nerve in the middle of the sentence.

  “Why?”

  “Well, it’s complicated, but there’ve been some mistakes, and there’s some stuff I need to talk to her about. Money stuff. But she won’t talk to me. I think she’s mad about this weekend and…well, everything.”

  Wow. This is some serious bullshit. “You can call her.”

  “She won’t pick up. Dana, I’m so sorry to have to drag you into this. I don’t want to, but…you’re smart. You’ve always understood how things are. I have to take care of Susan and my k—Marcus and Patty. You’ve always had your mom. They’ve got nobody but me. I can’t let them down. You understand that, right?”

  He wasn’t looking at her while he talked. He kept looking across the lobby, toward the reception desk, or toward the door, or over at the security guy. Or at the happy guy who was taking selfies and thumbing his phone.

  “I did not want to tell you this, I really didn’t, but…I don’t have a choice anymore.” He swallowed. “Your mother…she’s committing fraud, Dana.”

  “The fuck?”

  “Watch your mouth!” he snapped.

  “Like you have ever cared!” she snapped back.

  “Listen to me! I am here to warn her, and you! She’s running a scam, and she’s maybe stealing from her boss—”

  “She would never—”

  “Dana!” Now he did touch her. In fact, he grabbed her wrist and held on. “Your mom has always had secrets. I knew that when we were together. That’s why I never…why we never got married. I couldn’t trust her. She’s done some stuff, some really, really bad stuff that she can’t let the cops or anybody know about…”

  “What are you even talking about?” Dana yanked her hand back, twisting hard to break his grip. She knew what he was doing. He wanted her to take all his hints and put them together so she could get the bad news without him having to do something hard, like actually explain it to her. Except this time he wasn’t just hinting about blowing off another weekend.

  Dad rubbed his hands together, like he was the one who felt hurt. “She’s always been really weird about money. Really controlling and secretive. I thought it was because of how her parents raised her, but now, it’s looking like it might be something else.”

  “I am not going to listen to this.” Dana scrabbled for her bags.

  “Dana! Please! Just tell her what I told you, and tell her I have to talk to her, or this is only going to get worse.” He reached for her again, but she stopped him with one hard glare. “I know you think I’m never around, but that is not my fault. She wanted to keep me away from you so I wouldn’t ever tell you what she’s really like. But you’re not a kid anymore. She’s got no right to keep secrets from you. Dana…”

  You do not get to talk this kind of horseshit! Dana opened her mouth.

  “Dana, she killed a man.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Suddenly, Dana was looking at a stranger. She did not know this man. She did not understand what he was saying. Except that he was lying.

  “She never hurt anybody!” The pink-hands man huddled on the sidewalk—that didn’t count. “She was saving me!”

  “No, not that,” Dad said quickly. “There was another time, in a place called Abrahamsville, before you were born.”

  “What has this got to do with anything? You start telling me you got some money thing going down, and then you…you…”

  “Your mother is stealing from me, Dana,” he said. “And from other people too, and if I don’t do something, I’m going to get in trouble for it. I don’t want you—”

  Dana planted both hands on the table and leaned forward, getting right up in his face.

  “I do not know what is going on with you,” she spoke carefully. She did not want him to miss a single word. “But I do know you have never done anything but cover your own ass. You do not get to pretend you care so much about me now!”

  His jaw hardened. His eyes flickered toward the lobby again. Dana whirled around, but all she saw were anonymous people coming and going—carrying flowers or balloons or pushing people in wheelchairs or stopping at the desk.

  “I’m going upstairs,” she announced.

  “Dana, your mother has got to take responsibility for what she’s done before it hurts you. You have to make her understand how she has got to listen to me.”

  “Whatever!” Dana sneered, rage turning her deliberately, intensely bratty. She marched away and did not look back.

  Back in the room, she was about to tell everybody what just happened, but then she saw that Mom was curled up in the recliner, her head pillowed on her arm, sound asleep. All her plans fell out of her, like she’d torn a seam open.

  Jeannie, on the other hand, was awake, lying on her back and blinking at the ceiling. The TV was on—some Sunday-morning talk show with perfectly groomed hosts sitting with ferns and politicians. There wasn’t any sound. Jeannie put a finger to her lips and pointed at Mom asleep in the recliner.

  “I guess she was a little tired,” Jeannie said softly.

  “Yeah.” Dana set her bags down carefully on the bed. What do I do? Do I wake her up? I can’t, but I…Jesus. What do I do?

  Dad was messed up. She’d known it pretty much since day one. But this was a whole new level. And it couldn’t be true.

  “Something wrong?” whispered Jeannie. “I mean, something new?”

  “I…uh…no. Not really.” She reached into the bags, trying not to let the plastic crinkle too much. “I got you some stuff. Socks and…this.” She shook out the nightshirt. Jeannie smiled. “I hope it’ll fit okay, and I thought maybe you’d want a nail kit…I’ll just put it all in there.” She carried the bags over to the cupboard. “Um. Unless you want to change now or anything?”

  “No, no. I don’t want to disturb your mom.”

  Dana nodded. She saw a blanket on the cupboard shelf and pulled it down. She laid it over Mom. Mom muttered something and shrank down underneath it. Dana stared at her, trying not to feel so lonely.

  “I know we don’t know each other,” said Jeannie softly. “And I know you don’t…but, well, if you want to talk, I’m listening.”

  Jeannie waited. She did not look good. Her cheeks were all pasty and sunken in. But Dana had to tell somebody, or her head was going to explode.

  Dana folded her arms. “My father is a hyperprivileged jerkwad who wants to blame everybody else for his screwups.”

  “That happens.”

  “He wants to pretend he lives on some kind of Leave It to Beaver island where nobody’s ever had an outside kid. And he blames Mom for having me. He’s said so.”

  “God, I wish I wasn’t in this bed. I’d make that fucker pay.” They were talking in stage whispers, but somehow that just made Jeannie’s threat sound more intense. Curiosity lifted above Dana’s anger for a second.

  “Like, what would you do?”

  Jeannie grinned. “Nothing too much. Just strip him to his shorts.”

  “You could do that?”

  “Have you been listening to one single thing your mother’s said? Yes, I could do it. Once. Probably. It’d depend on how stupid your father actually is.”

  “He ghosted my mom right after she found out she was pregnant.”

>   “That’s pretty stupid.”

  “Like, what would you have to do?” Dana didn’t mean it. Not really. It was just something to talk about and a way to cover the memory of Dad’s stupid lies. She killed a man.

  She was not afraid of her mother. Mom loved her. She could not be afraid.

  Jeannie shifted onto her side and crooked the arm that wasn’t hooked up to the IV under her head. “If you’re going to try to hook somebody for more than a quick score—you know, if you want to keep milking them—you need two lies. You need the little lie and the big lie. The little lie gets them to trust you. Once they trust you, then they’re ready to believe the big lie.

  “If I wanted to get your father to trust me, I’d be telling him things like how I was so sorry for him, and how everybody was treating him so unfair, and that none of this was his fault. I’d keep saying I wished I could help. Little lie. Then, I’d make him think I could get him something he wanted, only he’d have to give me something first. Big lie.” She stopped and squinted at Dana. “Dana, do not go getting ideas. Your mother’s got enough problems. I’m just a bored, old, sick woman talking because I’ve got nothing better to do.”

  I know that. I do. Dana pulled out her phone. No new messages. She put it back. Mom was still sleeping. Jeannie was still watching her.

  “Dad said…he said Mom did some…really bad stuff back when she was with you. Like stuff the police maybe shouldn’t know about.”

  Jeannie reached over to touch Dana, but the IV tube wouldn’t stretch far enough, so she just curled her fingers around the bed railing. “Do not let him get into your head, honey. Your mom did what she needed to survive. Just like the rest of us.”

  “Yeah, but was there something…you know, big? I’m only asking because Dad’s getting angry and, you know, he said some stuff…” She stopped. “You said something about Abrahamsville before and how you were…you know…” Crap. I sound just like Dad!

  Jeannie rolled flat on her back. “No, that was nothing,” she said, but she was talking to the ceiling, not to Dana. “That was where things finally went bad and we split up, like I told you.”

  “You’re lying.” Dana hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but there was already too much inside her to hold back one more thing. “Just like everybody else.”

  “No, honey…”

  “Which is it, huh? Is this the big lie or the little lie?”

  But she’d been too loud, and Mom shifted and blinked. She shoved the blanket down, trying to stand up before she was even all the way awake.

  “Dana?” Mom knuckled her eyes. “Everything okay?”

  “Fine,” said Dana, doing her best to sound all sweetness and light. “Just talking to Grandma.”

  Dana waited for Jeannie to say something, to tell Mom she was the one lying now.

  But Jeannie just lay on her back and smiled.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Beth opened her mouth to ask more questions. It was impossible to trust her mother when she smiled. But an orderly came in with a breakfast tray, and a nurse came in with meds, which Jeannie acted like she was dutifully swallowing, although with her you never knew. Then the doctor came in—not Dr. Yasim from the emergency room, but a gray-haired Taiwanese woman who introduced herself as Dr. Chen—and Beth had to give her the pills she’d found in her mother’s things. Then they all had to listen to Jeannie try to lie about them being “prescription.” The doctor did not believe her any more than Beth did and began a solemn lecture about how she wasn’t here to make any judgment calls—she just wanted to provide Jeannie with the care she needed and she couldn’t do that if Jeannie wasn’t open with her.

  That was when Beth’s phone buzzed. It was an email from Kinseki, with the subject line “Amanda Pace Martin.” There was an address in Schaumburg, a telephone number, and a photo.

  “…I know, I know,” Jeannie was saying. “But the pain…it’s so bad. I had to do something.”

  “And how is your pain now?”

  Jeannie squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. The doctor made a note on her clipboard.

  Dana circled the bed and came to stand beside Beth. “What’s going on?” she whispered.

  “Rafi.” Beth blanked the phone. “Checking in. Wants to know if there’s anything he can do. You okay?”

  Dana shook her head, and Beth put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “Me neither,” she whispered.

  The silver lining of all this was that Dana barely protested when Beth said they should go and let Jeannie eat and rest. Also, thankfully, Jeannie did not kick up any more fuss about being left alone. Probably it had something to do with the doctor promising she’d be put on an “enhanced pain-management schedule.”

  She also didn’t seem to notice that Beth had taken her little flip phone. But she would.

  They caught a cab back home. As soon as they pulled away from the curb, Dana laid her head on Beth’s shoulder. By the time they’d gone a block and a half, she was snoring.

  Beth smiled and looped one arm over her daughter’s shoulders. Moving carefully, she pulled her own phone out with her free hand and thumbed it until she brought up Kinseki’s email and the photo he’d sent with it.

  It was a screenshot captured off Facebook, and it showed a selfie of a slender white woman. She’d had her face done at least once, and her hair was dyed ash blonde. Beth was pretty sure both her scarf and her bag were Hermès, which meant she had plenty of money to spare.

  And there, behind her, was a blur in the shadows, but a blur Beth recognized. It was Todd, grinning, with his eyes fixed on Ms. Pace Martin.

  Beth shut off her phone and leaned her cheek against the top of Dana’s head. Oh, Dangerface. What do we do now?

  Beth supported, guided, and cajoled her half-awake daughter into the apartment and her bedroom. Dana toppled face-first onto her bed, the picture of teenage drama in exhaustion. Beth smiled at the fierce love that rose in her.

  Dana grabbed the corner of her bedspread and rolled herself up in it.

  Beth turned off the light and went into her study and closed the door.

  I should wait. She flipped open her laptop and brought up Kinseki’s email. Her nap in Jeannie’s hospital room had done very little to clear the fog out of her mind. Sleep, shower, food…get my head together first.

  But she did not have time. Everything was shifting around her, and she didn’t know enough to make a new plan yet.

  One thing she did know for certain: Wherever Todd was, he was not just sitting around waiting for her call. Hers or Jeannie’s.

  And there was still Doug, and all those calls, lurking in the background. She did not have time to get her head together.

  Beth squinted at the number Kinseki sent in the email. She punched it into her phone and tried to think through a message for the voice mail she was sure she was about to get forwarded to.

  So she was caught by surprise when a woman picked up on the third ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Um, yes,” Beth stammered in her professional voice. “I’m trying to…trying to reach Amanda Pace Martin. My name is”—Which one?—“Star…”

  “Star?” cried Amanda Pace Martin. “Oh my gosh, hi! I’m so glad to finally get to talk to you! How’s your dad doing?”

  Beth was suddenly and absurdly glad this was not a video call. She in no way wanted this woman to see the expression on her face.

  She swallowed hard and fought to think up something generic. And fast. “Um, yeah, he’s good. Really good.”

  “Oh, good.” Amanda Pace Martin sighed happily. “I miss him so much, but I’m only out here in London one more week, and then I’m home for six months! He’s been so sweet and supportive about it too. He calls me every day and sends flowers. Oh gosh, I still have to thank him for the roses! It’s just so…oh, I don’t know, like, old-school romantic!”

  “Yes, he’s always been like that.”

  This was surreal. She literally could not think about what she was hearing.
All she could do was react. The truth. Jeannie had been telling the truth.

  “I’m just so glad he finally felt like he could tell you about us being together. He said losing your mother hit you really hard.”

  “Uh, yeah. Yeah. I still can’t believe she’s gone.”

  “You must know your father is so proud of you. He talks about you all the time. My daughter, Star, speaker to billionaires! How’s the weather out in San Francisco?”

  “Uh, a little uncertain today.” Beth looked out the window toward Lake Michigan. “We might be in for a storm.” I have to steer this…somehow. “Um, listen, Ms. Martin…”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Amanda, Star, Amanda!”

  “Yeah. Right. Sorry. Amanda. I just, this might be a little awkward…”

  “Oh, go ahead—you can say anything.” Beth pictured Amanda crossing her legs and leaning into the phone, getting ready for new confidences. “Now that we’re talking, I want us to be completely open with each other!”

  “Yeah, me too.” Beth hurried to the study door and locked it. Now was not the time for Dana to come peeking in. “Has Dad ever mentioned a woman named Stacey Walsh? Or Felicity Brandt?”

  “Oh God, that bitch!” Beth heard her slap her hand over her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry, Star!”

  “No, no, that’s okay. I just…”

  “She hasn’t been harassing you, has she? Your dad was afraid she might.”

  “No, not yet anyway. But I’m just”—What?—“worried. Dad hasn’t said much—you know how he is…”

  “Oh, I do know. He’s so protective. It’s one of the things I love about him. But listen, you cannot believe anything that woman says. She’s been hounding your father for money. I keep telling him he needs to cut her off, but he feels so responsible…He won’t even think about talking to my lawyer. But maybe if you and I can double-team him. Especially if she’s been in touch…Has she been in touch?”