Between the Lies

by Michelle Adams

  She takes a heavy breath in and sets the picture down on the table. She crosses her hands in front of her, plays with the band on her ring finger. ‘Where did you find that?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I tell her.

  She looks at the picture again, pushes it away as if it’s all too much. She can’t look at me. Can’t look at the picture. She moves to the door, then stops herself. She’s scratching at her forehead, making it red.

  ‘Just tell me, Mum.’

  ‘I can’t.’ Eyes to the door. ‘We should wait until your father gets home.’

  ‘No,’ I say, slamming my fist against the table. I’m up on my feet, aware of a blurring of my eyes, a thickness in my throat that makes it hard to swallow. It’s the truth, I think. That’s what I can feel choking me. I am close to some sort of truth for the first time. I’m about to find out what they have been keeping from me. ‘I need you to tell me now. I’m wearing a wedding ring in that picture too. Am I married?’

  Her hands are shaking as she brings them up to her face. She wipes her fingertips underneath her eyes, a tear escaping. ‘I really think we should wait for your father to get—’

  ‘Mum, just tell me,’ I interrupt.

  She slumps into a chair, hangs her head in her hands. I remain on my feet. ‘No, Chloe. You are not married.’ The scar on my head throbs with each beat of my heart. Her voice is all of a quiver. ‘At least not any more.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ I begin to cry too, my throat burning, my cheeks hot. I feel like I might faint. Not any more? I was married? I had a life and a partner and a … I feel a cloud of dizziness approaching, so I cling to the table, palms flat against the surface. My mother moves to comfort me, steady me. I pull away. ‘And the boy?’ I whisper, my voice breaking, my whole body overwhelmed as I ask a question to which I think I already know the answer.

  She gazes at the picture, tears streaming down her face. Yet she is defiant as she looks up at me. ‘Chloe, I’m so sorry we kept it from you. That little boy was your son.’

  SIX

  Was.

  Past tense.

  I run from the room as best I can, the pain in my leg no longer present. Numb. I hear my mother, then Jess, calling my name. I stagger through the hallway, bumping into the frame as I open the front door and leave. I can’t move fast, but still I am quicker than they are, edging towards the gate. I tell myself that I need to remember the code, that I need to escape, get out, get away from this place. They are liars and I don’t want to be around them. But as I struggle up the driveway my mind is all muddled. What did I write down in the bible? What were the numbers? I stab at the buttons over and over but the gate remains shut. I grab it, desperate, rattle it as I hear Mum approaching behind me. I have to leave this place, but when I feel her hands on my shoulders, when I sense her effort to comfort me, I crumple to the wet ground.

  We stay there for a good while, drenched by heavy rain, tears streaming from my eyes.

  Once we are back inside, in the warmth, she tells me that my son’s name was Joshua. That I had a husband called Andrew. She explains that when I woke up and couldn’t remember what had happened, they didn’t have the strength to tell me they had both died. Joshua was killed in the accident that somehow didn’t take my life, and Andrew had passed away a week before. When I ask how Andrew died, she hesitates, an uncomfortable knot in her throat bobbing up and down in place of an answer.

  ‘We’re not sure, Chloe.’

  ‘But you must know how…’ I try to ask, but she shakes her head, rests a hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Let’s not go into all of that now. Your father is much better at explaining these things than I am. Let’s leave it to him. But I can show you something that I think will help.’

  In an attempt to pacify me she pulls another photo album from the cupboard, one that was hidden behind a box of old paperwork. Inside I see pictures of my life with Andrew, the husband I can’t remember. I see myself caring for Joshua, a son I never realised I had. I see a life they’ve hidden from me for months. In the pictures we are laughing and smiling. In one, Andrew is in the swimming pool in my parents’ garden, teaching our son to swim. My father is standing by at the side, his arms across his chest, watching the fun as it unfolds. In some of the pictures Ben is in the background, looking on, watching me.

  While I look at the album, my mother makes a telephone call, explaining the situation to my father. He is coming home, she tells me. Right away.

  Jess hugs Mum and keeps telling her it will be all right. I want to scream at her: I’m the one she should be comforting. But when she tries to talk to me, reaching for my hands, telling me that she is sorry, all I can think is how beautiful my family was, the pair of them just like angels. They both had blonde hair, tanned skin, as if Andrew might have shared some distant Scandinavian heritage with Joshua. But then there is another thought, one that quiets me, makes me cautious about what I say: that every single person in this house had the chance to be truthful but didn’t take it. I thought perhaps I couldn’t trust my father. I now know that I can’t trust any of them.

  I concentrate on looking at the rest of the photos in the album, taking in the details. I see shiny grey eyes, thin noses, pointed and well defined at the tip. They look so alike, this man and this boy. The loss of these strangers is like a pain in my gut, a twisting cramp spreading out like a wave. Even though I can’t remember them in life, I can feel their absence in death. It is as if in their place something else has claimed me, a close relation to death that I know from this moment forth is never going to leave.

  A little later, rejecting their kindness, I go upstairs to take a shower. I think maybe it will offer some relief, comfort in the heat of the water. But when I take off my clothes and stare at my body I see the evidence of my past. Silver scars run across the surface of my belly, red threads around the back of my legs. A little paunch, despite my weight loss after the accident. As I stand under the shower, allow the water to wash painfully over my head, I close my eyes, try to remember what it felt like to be pregnant, my life as a wife and mother. But as the steam swallows me up and the water streams across my face, it’s a different memory that comes to me, arriving in broken flashes.

  I remember the rain hitting the windscreen, the winding course of the road, pulling hard at the steering wheel. I remember the slip of the tyres on the slick surface. I was speeding, desperate. Crying, wiping my eyes. Wipers batting left and right. Losing control as I pumped the brakes, crashing into a mass of trees. The crash? The night I lost my baby?

  I shut off the water and slip under the bedcovers, my skin still wet from the shower. I don’t want the images of that night in my head. I shut my eyes tight, praying for a dreamless sleep that doesn’t come. I stroke my right hand against my soft, wrinkled, empty belly. What else is there left for me to do now?

  What else is left?

  It’s Mum who braves her way upstairs to find me. I am exhausted, my throat hoarse, my eyes swollen to the point of pain. I am silent. ‘All cried out,’ she tells me, as if I have no spirit left to put up a fight. She holds me and I let her, just so that I know I’m not alone. But even with her slight arms wrapped around my shivering body, I find no peace.

  She picks out some clothes for me and suggests I get dressed. After she leaves I stare at myself in the mirror again, wondering who I am. Who I was before all of this. The same gaunt face that I came to recognise in the hospital as my own stares back at me. I still don’t know it. I don’t know the person behind these eyes. I might be less broken than I was when I first awoke, but my eye sockets remain dark and deep, my cheek and lip still red and scarred. My clothes are ill-fitting and loose. I have lost so much weight. But I no longer see the broken pieces of a woman who nearly died. Now I see the evidence of a car crash that stole my son’s life. I can’t bear to look at myself any more.

  * * *

  When Dad arrives home the three of us are sitting in the kitchen, our eyes dry but stained red from tears. I am quiet
now, unsure what to say or do. I feel empty and numb. We hear the rumble of tyres as he pulls into the driveway, the heavy clunk of the car door. Mum stands up to greet him, first out of the kitchen.

  ‘Come on,’ Jess says to me, tucking her chair under the table. ‘He’ll want to talk to you now.’

  He is quiet as he arrives in the house, but as I follow Jess from the kitchen, I can hear my mother apologising, telling him that she is sorry for being so careless. She promises that she hadn’t been drinking when she put the album together. ‘No, absolutely not,’ she says for a second time when he says he doesn’t believe her. I watch her help him with his coat and gloves, putting them away in the cloakroom. I think of what Jess told me earlier, about the difficulties in their relationship, but I push the thought from my mind as their conversation trails off to a whisper. This isn’t about them. This is about me and the things I have lost. They share a series of cautious, embarrassed glances as I arrive in front of them.

  My father is hesitant at first, unable to even move, like his feet have sprouted roots and he physically can’t shift. The space between us hangs like an abyss neither of us seems able to cross. I hold on to the table for support. I can feel his eyes upon me. He looks as if he could be sick. As if maybe he has been sick, so pale, so drawn. One hand reaches up to loosen his tie. Mum beckons to Jess and they hurry away into the dining room, closing the door behind them.

  ‘Why didn’t you…’ I stammer, unable to find the words. I take a shallow, shaky breath. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that I had a child?’ It comes out as a whisper, a voice as broken as my past.

  He takes off his glasses, finds the strength to take a step towards me. He has aged since this morning. The weeks of dishonesty have taken a toll on him as well as me.

  ‘Why?’ I push. ‘Tell me why.’

  He stutters at first, his dry tongue desperate to wet his lips, moving in a sticky, serpentine motion. ‘I’m very sorry that we kept the truth from you, Chloe. I thought perhaps it would be for the best.’

  I shake my head and it loosens a tear. ‘How could you decide that? What right did you have?’

  ‘None,’ he admits. He rubs at his face. I hear the dry skin of his hand grating against his beard. ‘But when you couldn’t remember them, it seemed somehow kinder. How could I tell you that people you had no memory of were dead?’ He drags his fingertips across his sweaty forehead, the way he did in the hospital after I first woke up, worry burrowing its way inside like a worm. ‘I just didn’t know what to expect, or how you might react if I told you the truth. I was scared, I suppose, of how you would handle it.’

  ‘But it was my right to know.’ My chin begins to tremble. ‘I needed to know, Dad.’

  He walks away from me, circles a little before sitting on the bottom step of the stairs. He pulls his shirt from inside his waistband, loops his tie over the banister. ‘If the truth be known, Chloe, I suppose I was scared you’d blame yourself.’

  I swallow hard, the taste of blood rushing into my mouth from where I have nibbled nervously at the wound on my lip. ‘Why would I have blamed myself?’

  A moment of silence. Neither of us breathes. ‘Chloe, I haven’t told you much about that night because … well, we simply don’t know the truth. But there was another car involved, and it is assumed that it ran you off the road.’

  ‘I crashed because somebody hit my car?’

  ‘Maybe. That’s the hypothesis the police are working with. But who can be certain if you can’t remember? The other driver is quite adamant that he isn’t responsible for the crash.’ He sucks on the stale air around us, air heavy with lies. What is he suggesting? ‘You know that the police want to talk to you. I have been trying to stall them, telling them that you aren’t well enough. I keep the gate locked so they can’t just turn up in my absence and take you by surprise, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult. I just don’t know what we’re going to tell them.’

  I don’t understand. It doesn’t make any sense to me. ‘I’ll tell them the truth, Dad. If they want to talk to me, I’ll tell them the truth.’

  ‘But you don’t know what the truth is, and I’m afraid the police won’t see it simply as a case of amnesia. They’ll think you are trying to hide something.’

  ‘Why would they assume that?’

  ‘Because on the night of the crash you left here in such a terrible state. You were finding it so hard, really struggling after Andrew’s death. You blamed yourself, because only a few weeks before he died you’d chosen to leave him.’

  Unlike the gradual remembrances in the shower, this fact hits me like a punch to the face. I left my husband? How can that be? We looked so happy in the pictures my mother showed me. Why would I have chosen to leave?

  ‘You’d been living with us here for several weeks. You were sick of him. Of his drinking, his disappearances, and the effect it was having on Joshua. And then he died, and we just … well, we all thought that maybe he’d done something stupid. Then, only a week later, after leaving here in such a state, you had the crash and Joshua was killed. He went straight through the windscreen of the car. How could I tell you that, Chloe? Put that into words?’

  I bring a hand up to my mouth, feel my knees buckle. My eyes glaze over and I hit the floor. He rushes to my side, cradles me against him. I don’t fight.

  ‘You say you don’t remember what happened, but there are details of this accident that only you can explain.’ He pulls me close, but all I can think of is Joshua, a child I can’t remember, going through the windscreen of a car I crashed. ‘I’ve tried to keep my mouth shut, Chloe, not tell the police anything they don’t need to know, but it’s hard to ignore the facts.’ He shakes his head. ‘My God, Chloe … you were so upset. You blamed yourself for Andrew’s death. You kept saying that it was your fault, that you shouldn’t have left him. That was another reason why I didn’t want to tell you, because I didn’t want you to have to mourn for a man you had mourned once already.

  ‘And while it’s true that there was another car on the scene, crashed off the road when the police got there, the owner of that car is adamant that he wasn’t even there. He claims his car had been stolen.’ It’s too much. I can’t keep up. ‘The prosecution will argue your case, but the defence will blame you as a way of reducing the other driver’s sentence, say that you were upset, that you were driving recklessly. It’s all so upsetting for us, Chloe. I want only to protect you.’

  I don’t understand what he’s telling me. Surely I did nothing wrong. If a second car ran me off the road that night, where were all his doubts coming from? But then I remember the flashback I had in the shower, the rumble of a distant past making itself heard. I was crying in that memory, driving too fast. I was desperate, weeping, couldn’t see for the rain. I was driving recklessly, wasn’t I?

  ‘Dad, I think I remember some parts of that night.’

  He turns to me, eyes wide. ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes, I was driving, and it was raining.’ I wipe my eyes on my sleeve. ‘I was going so fast, and—’

  He shakes his head, and I feel his grip tighten across my shoulders. My collarbone throbs under his weight. ‘I don’t think you really remember anything, Chloe. The brain creates images of things, attempts to put them in order when we cannot consciously do it ourselves. Right now I’m more concerned that the police want to talk to you and I don’t know what we are going to tell them.’

  ‘But it seems so real. If you help me, maybe I could remember more.’ I have to know. I have to know if this accident really was my fault. ‘We could go over what you know and what I remember, and together work out what happened and—’

  He doesn’t let me finish. ‘Marriages go through difficulties, Chloe. Yours more than most. I don’t know what happened that night any more than you appear to. But what I do remember is the terrible state you were in when you left this house. I know the police have their suspicions about your intentions.’

  ‘My intentions?’

  ‘You said
you could never forgive yourself. That you couldn’t live with the guilt.’ He shakes his head, buckling under the memory. ‘You were just so terribly upset.’

  ‘What are you saying, Dad?’ Is he trying to tell me I was so upset I couldn’t concentrate, or that I crashed deliberately? ‘Are you trying to tell me that I crashed on—’

  ‘Don’t say it. Don’t let yourself imagine it to be true. When it comes to that night, all I know is that you not knowing what happened will make it easier to convict the other driver. He could have stayed. He could have helped you. But these flashes of ‘memory’—he puts the word in bunny ears to make me understand that he doesn’t really believe that’s what they are—‘aren’t going to get us anywhere. Especially not with the police. It would be better if you couldn’t remember anything at all, because that way you can’t incriminate yourself, can you?’

  I shake my head, completely lost. I don’t know if what he is saying is right. Is it possible that I wanted to crash my car? With my son inside? What kind of mother would do that?

  ‘I’m right, Chloe, you know it. So that’s what we’ll tell the police, OK? Now that you know the truth I might as well tell them you are well enough to speak to them. But we must maintain that you don’t remember anything. Not before, during, or after the crash. We would hate for them to draw conclusions, Chloe. We don’t want to give them any reason to even consider taking you to court.’

  ‘To court?’ For a second I lose my breath.

  ‘Of course. If they think you are liable, what’s to stop them putting you in front of a jury? Could you imagine hearing the details of how Joshua died over and over again? It would be much easier if you simply can’t remember anything at all.’

  I can’t concentrate on what he is saying. ‘I feel sick,’ I tell him. The swell of it rises in my stomach, a heaviness surging to get out. I see the image of my son flying through the windscreen, landing in the wet undergrowth, leaves stuck to his skin just like in my dreams. Real, imagined? I don’t know. My fault? My choice? It’s too much to process.