Truth Be Told

by Kathleen Barber

  “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice tense.

  “I’m starting to think there might be some truth to Poppy’s theory,” I said, dropping my voice to just above a whisper. “Do you think Lanie might be wrong about Warren?”

  Guilt flashed through Adam’s eyes, and I realized I wasn’t the only one influenced by the podcast.

  “Adam?” I prodded.

  “Don’t,” he said quietly. “Not you, too. It’ll kill her.”

  “Just between us—”

  “There is no ‘between us,’ Josie. Not anymore.”

  “What’s going on here?” Lanie suddenly demanded.

  Color rose in my cheeks as I turned to face my sister, half-formed excuses coagulating in my head.

  “Nothing,” Adam said, lying with an ease that surprised me. “I was just helping Josie find the salad bowl.”

  Lanie’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, darting from me to Adam. “She couldn’t find it on her own?”

  “Nope, this sister of yours is blind as a bat.”

  Lanie stared at me.

  That was when I realized the soft underbelly of Lanie’s left forearm had a gash, a thin trickle of dark blood sliding down her pale skin.

  “Oh my God,” I exclaimed. “Lanie, what happened to your arm?”

  She looked down at the wound, her face unreadable. “The knife must have slipped.”

  “Jesus, Lanie, that looks bad,” Adam said. “Come on, let’s get a bandage on that right away.”

  She nodded and allowed him to lead her out of the room. I took the salad bowl from the shelf and followed them, my limbs prickling with unease.

  • • •

  We dined on the back porch, as Lanie had hoped, eating salad and green beans and roast chicken, watching the sun dip behind the other houses. I watched my sister closely, uncomfortable with the way she pressed an index finger against her bandage and smiled when she thought no one was looking. What had happened in that kitchen? Had the knife slipped, as she had said? Or had she done that to herself on purpose? Was the incident evidence of the unraveling Adam had described?

  Despite its inauspicious beginning, dinner ambled along pleasantly. Ann entertained us all by reciting a poem she had written for class, and Lanie was, for the most part, a charming hostess. Adam began explaining the Elm Park housing market to Caleb, who gamely nodded along and asked relevant questions even though I knew he cared nothing for real estate. Somewhere in the middle of all this, Lanie reached for the open bottle of wine. Without so much as missing a beat, Adam casually moved it out of her reach. His movement was so deft that I don’t think Caleb even noticed, but I did. I glanced at my sister and realized that her wineglass was not only empty, it was clean—she hadn’t had any wine all night. I struggled to remember if I had seen her drinking at Aunt A’s house after the funeral.

  “More chicken?” Lanie turned to me and asked brightly, no resentment that Adam was monitoring her alcohol intake evident on her features.

  I accepted and complimented her on the food, and she told me she had learned the secret to a perfect roasted chicken from some new cooking show. My head spun as though I had stepped into some alternate dimension. I couldn’t decide what I found more disturbing: the bandage on her arm or the earnest sheen in her eyes as she expounded on oven temperatures.

  And then Caleb mentioned the podcast.

  In his defense, he knew I had wanted to ask Lanie how she felt about the most recent episode, and he hadn’t been privy to Adam’s concerns about my sister’s mental state. I should have warned him. But I had been so busy keeping my eye on Lanie, waiting for her to do anything that felt off-kilter, that I forgot to tell him I had decided not to bring up the podcast.

  And so, as he reached for a second helping of green beans, he casually asked, “Lanie, what do you think about this ‘special episode’ of Reconsidered? Were you just as upset at her portrayal of your mother as Jo was?”

  Adam choked on a mouthful of chicken; Lanie’s face froze. I could see the storm clouds brewing in her eyes, the familiar click of her jaw, and sensed her calm about to shatter. In desperation, I did the only thing I could think to do: I knocked over my iced tea.

  Everyone jumped to their feet, throwing napkins at the mess. I thought that the ruse had worked until Lanie excused herself to refill the iced tea pitcher and never returned. After five minutes, the memory of her bloody forearm compelled me to rise.

  “I’m going to see if Lanie needs any help,” I said casually, trying to contain the panic welling up inside me so as not to alarm Ann.

  “Thank you,” Adam mouthed.

  The kitchen was empty; the iced tea pitcher sat unfilled on the counter. My stomach somersaulted, and I froze, straining to hear any sound of my sister. I told myself that I was being ridiculous—perhaps Lanie had just used the opportunity to take a bathroom break—but between Adam’s concerns, the “accident” with the knife, and the torment that had flashed across her face when Caleb mentioned the podcast, I was certain something was wrong.

  There was a rustle of paper in the living room, and I hurried in to find Lanie sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a bookcase, a large book open in front of her.

  “Hey,” I said tentatively. “What are you looking at?”

  “Adam’s college yearbook,” she said, not looking up. “He transferred from the University of Michigan to Elm Park College after we got engaged, you know.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said, sitting beside her. “That was good of him.”

  She shook her head. “I think he resents me for it. I think he thinks I ruined his life.”

  “Lanie, that’s not true. And, anyway, Adam’s life isn’t ruined. It seems like you guys are doing pretty well for yourselves.”

  She smiled without warmth and looked down at the open yearbook. I followed her gaze, bracing myself to see a picture of young Adam, that carefree smile I remembered so well.

  But Lanie wasn’t looking at the student photographs. She had the book open to the professor headshots. From the center of the page, Professor Leland smiled up at us.

  Lanie’s strange reaction to Adam’s mention of the Lelands replayed itself in my mind. Carefully, I asked, “What’s on this page?”

  She slammed the yearbook shut. “Nothing.”

  “Are you okay?” I asked tentatively.

  “Of course,” she said, her tone free of inflection. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  I wanted to tell her that I was worried about her, but I didn’t want to reveal that Adam had told me she wasn’t sleeping. Instead, I said, “You seemed upset that Caleb mentioned the podcast. He feels badly.”

  She looked away. “You know that saying that we marry our fathers?”

  “You think Caleb is like our father?” I asked in surprise.

  “I think Adam is.”

  I glanced down at the closed yearbook, her fixation on our father’s possible lovers starting to take shape. “Do you think Adam’s cheating on you?”

  She leveled her eyes at me. “He doesn’t exactly have a good track record for fidelity.”

  I swallowed the bitterness that rose in my throat and said, “Adam loves you.”

  “Dad loved Mom,” she responded stubbornly. I was just glad that she hadn’t said Adam loved you.

  Before I could respond, Ann stepped into the living room. “Mom?”

  “Yes, sweetheart?” Lanie said, her voice suddenly sugared. The darkness cleared from her face as she smiled at her daughter. Adam is wrong, I thought decisively. Lanie is nothing like our mother. Our mother had never shielded us from her black moods.

  “Daddy and Uncle Caleb are looking for you and Aunt Josie.”

  We followed Ann back to the porch, where the rest of the meal passed without incident. Soon we were nibbling on cookies and a small posse of neighborhood children was collecting Ann for a game of Ghost in the Graveyard.

  “Don’t forget your coat!” Lanie called after her as she ran down the steps.
/>   “That was wonderful,” I said, standing up to help Lanie clear the plates. “Thank you so much.”

  “Sit down, Josie,” Adam insisted. “We can get this.”

  Adam and Lanie disappeared into the house, each carrying a plate in both hands, leaving Caleb and me alone on the porch. Caleb inhaled deeply and surveyed the trees separating the backyard from the golf course, their leaves just starting to tinge golden.

  “Who knew Illinois was so lovely?” he said.

  “I did,” I admitted. “But I’d forgotten. It’s been ten years since I’ve been here.”

  “A fella could get used to this.” He smiled.

  The evening calm was shattered by the sound of breaking ceramic. Heart pounding, I jumped to my feet and rushed through the back door. Lanie was standing in the center of the kitchen, fragments of plates still vibrating around her feet, the discarded remains of someone’s dinner splattered on her bare feet. Her fists were clenched at her sides, and even from behind I could tell she was shaking with rage.

  “Goddammit, Adam,” she shrieked.

  Adam touched his wife on the arm, saying something soft and quiet to her. That was a mistake. Lanie snatched up the pitcher of iced tea from the counter and flung it at him. He ducked, and the heavy glass vessel hit the wall behind him with a dull thump, and then fell to the ground, cracking.

  “Lanie!” I shouted. “Stop!”

  She whirled to face me, her eyes the familiar manic I remembered from her teenaged years, and my blood went cold.

  From Twitter, posted September 26, 2015

  chapter 16

  I struggled to sleep that night, guilt and worry coursing through my veins. After Lanie had thrown the pitcher, I’d offered for Ann to spend the night with us so that Lanie and Adam could work out whatever was obviously brewing between them, but Lanie declined, insisting things were fine even as her face softened back into its Stepford Wife–esque mask. Should I have done something when I saw Lanie throw that pitcher? Years ago, I had learned the best way to handle my sister’s moods while keeping my own sanity intact was to ignore them, but now there was a child in the mix. How much did I really trust my sister? I would never forgive myself if something happened to Ann. I shook Caleb awake at two, and insisted we drive to Lanie’s house and make sure that everything was okay.

  He blinked blearily at me. “Are you mad, Jo? It’s the middle of the night.”

  “I’m worried. The way she threw that pitcher at Adam . . .”

  “Calm down, love,” he said, stroking my cheek. “Your family is under an unimaginable amount of stress right now, your sister included. So she’s got a bit of a short fuse. I’m sure everything’s fine by now. You can call her first thing in the morning.”

  He rolled over and fell almost immediately back asleep, leaving me alone to turn over each part of the night, looking for clues. We’ve got to protect your sister, Adam had said. What exactly had he meant by that? It almost sounded as though he knew—or at least suspected—that Lanie had done something wrong.

  Lanie’s own words came back to me suddenly: How could I ever admit that now?

  I was becoming more and more convinced that my sister was hiding something.

  • • •

  Caleb’s alarm serenaded us awake to “Come as You Are” at seven o’clock. Five months ago, Caleb had discovered he could set his alarm to music, and we had been rising to the same song ever since. (Incidentally, this was one of the few aspects of Caleb’s presence that I emphatically did not miss while he was in Africa. I liked Nirvana as much as the next person, but not first thing in the morning.)

  I had only managed to fall asleep three hours before, and was therefore not in the mood for an early alarm. Pulling the pillow over my head, I complained, “Too early, babe.”

  “Sorry, love,” he murmured, his voice thick with sleep, wrapping warm arms around my waist and tugging my body against his. “I’ve got a conference call in a half hour.”

  “Who schedules conference calls on a Sunday?”

  “My boss. And since I haven’t been in the office in weeks, I don’t feel as though I have much standing to argue.” He pressed himself against my back. “But I don’t have to really get up for another fifteen minutes.”

  “Wait, honey,” I said as he slipped a hand between my thighs. “Not with Aunt A in the next room.”

  “I can be quiet,” he said in my ear, his hand starting to move beneath mine.

  “I can’t. You’re just going to have to contain yourself.”

  Caleb let out a comical groan. “What I’m going to have to do is take a cold shower.”

  “Maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll take that cold shower with you.”

  “You’re killing me, love,” he said, shaking his head in jest as he climbed out of bed.

  Just a couple more minutes, I thought to myself as I rolled back over to sleep.

  • • •

  When I next awoke, it was ten thirty and I was alone. I shuffled downstairs in search of coffee and found Aunt A seated at the kitchen table, working a crossword puzzle while wearing a floral dress, her graying hair carefully pinned up.

  “Good morning, dear,” she greeted me. “Must have been a fun night with your sister for you to sleep so late!”

  “Oh,” I said, freezing. From the cheerful, optimistic expression on Aunt A’s face, I could tell she wanted details about the dinner at Lanie’s, but the kind of details I knew she wanted—the hugging, the forgiving of past sins—had been overshadowed by the more ominous aspects that had kept me awake all night. Rather than tell the truth and crush her hope, I hedged. “It was nice of Lanie and Adam to have us over. Ann’s sure a doll, huh?”

  Aunt A’s face lit up at the mention of her grandniece, and she began telling me about a dance recital last spring in which Ann—according to Aunt A, at least, hardly an unbiased party—had been the star of the show.

  “Caleb seemed pretty taken with her, too,” I said. “Hey, where is Caleb?”

  “He’s set up an office in the craft room,” she said, gesturing upstairs. “Poor man, it sounded as though he had a bunch of work to take care of.”

  “Yeah, he’s always really busy when he gets back from abroad.” I nodded. “Is Ellen around? When was that Pilates class she was mentioning?”

  Aunt A frowned. “Your cousin is off ruining the good looks God gave her.”

  “Oh,” I said, suppressing a smile as I remembered Ellen’s morning plans. “The Botox.”

  The previous afternoon, Ellen had informed me she had arranged to have Trina Thompson highlight her hair and treat her wrinkles. I had been horrified she was letting Trina—who had been legendary in high school for freaking out during dissection day in Biology—go anywhere near her face with a needle.

  “She’s a trained aesthetician,” Ellen had informed me rather huffily. “Besides, Gabby Aldridge got Botox from her, and you saw Gabby the other day. She looks just like she did in high school, if not better. You might want to consider making an appointment yourself.”

  I had changed the subject just as her probing fingers reached for my forehead.

  “Do you want to come to church with me?” Aunt A asked. “I’m leaving in a few minutes, but I’ll wait for you to shower if you want to come.”

  “Oh, you go ahead,” I said, dropping a piece of bread into the toaster. “I need breakfast and coffee before I can even think about going anywhere. Anyway, I need to look for flights back to New York.”

  “You’re leaving already?” Aunt A asked softly.

  “Unfortunately, Caleb and I both have to get back to work. He can’t operate out of the craft room indefinitely. But last-minute airfare is out of our price range, so I’m sure we won’t be leaving for a few days yet.” I avoided looking at Aunt A’s face as I spoke, already knowing without seeing her that her ever-present smile would have drooped slightly, the prominent worry lines around her eyes deepening as she ingested my impending departure. I couldn’t bear to disappoint her again
, like I must have when I left the first time. But we needed to go. I needed to know that the new me still existed somewhere, safe and happy and blissfully separate from her trainwreck of a past.

  • • •

  After Aunt A left, I carried my toast and coffee into the living room. The old house settled audibly, its walls shifting and groaning, and the floorboards directly above my head creaked. I instinctively shivered, then reminded myself it was just Caleb. The room above me was Aunt A’s craft room, where he was currently working . . . and my mother’s old bedroom. I remembered sitting on this very same couch, listening to her pace around the room. Then she stopped pacing. And then she was gone.

  I turned on the television, cranking the volume up to drown out the house’s ghosts. I smiled when I saw Aunt A’s favorite soap opera, The Bold and the Beautiful, in her DVR queue. I had not seen the show in nearly a decade, but I found comfort in the familiar characters. Aunt A had recorded the show religiously, and many evenings had been spent beside her on the couch, drinking mugs of hot chocolate or sipping sweetened iced tea, depending on the season, engrossed in the tangled affairs of the characters.

  As I pressed Play, I heard gravel crunching in the driveway and footsteps on the front porch. I set down my coffee in preparation for answering the door, but it swung open without a knock. I glanced up and saw my sister’s image reflected in the hall mirror. I studied her face: she didn’t look like a woman who could knowingly send an innocent man to jail. But then again, I knew all too well that Lanie only looked out for herself.

  “Josie?” she called.

  “In here,” I said, reaching out to pause the show.

  She stepped into the living room, a smile flickering across her face, the equivalent of emotional static. “Hey. What are you up to?”

  I waved a hand in the direction of the television. “Watching my stories.”

  A mirthful grin erupted on Lanie’s face; she looked nothing like the unhinged woman I had seen last night, nor the woman on the verge Adam had described.

  “No way. You watch this one, too?”

  “First time in years. Brooke and Ridge are still together, it seems.”