The Half-Truth (Drowning Book 2)

by Claire Svendsen

  I'm sitting up now, the blanket wrapped around me. Leaning against the warm body of the story telling, hand holding boy.

  "You're right," he says. "It is a dumb story but you see she could never have saved her sister."

  "Why not?" I ask.

  "Because she never had a sister."

  "But that doesn't make any sense," I say.

  "I know," he puts his hand gently on the top of my head. "But you see sometimes it’s okay to believe in something if it makes you feel better."

  “Like an imaginary friend?” I say.

  “Exactly. Somebody who is just there for you and you alone. Someone who loves you more than anyone else. They make you feel better when you are sad and comfort you when you’re alone and then, one day, you figure out that you don’t need them anymore. Do you understand?”

  “Not really,” I say.

  The stupid story is over and now I hurt again. I want my parents and I want to leave this horrible place. I start to cry again.

  The boy hugs me and beckons over a man in a uniform.

  "We're going to get you to the hospital now, okay?" he says.

  I shake my head. "I want my Mommy and my sister."

  "I know. Your Mom will be here soon."

  He looks at the boy and shrugs as if he's just told a lie.

  "I'm going to give you some medicine now, okay? You be a good girl and lie back."

  I do as he says and squeeze the boy’s hand tight as the other man puts a needle in my arm. I scream but soon it doesn't hurt and then the world starts to fade away.

  "You'll be alright Ana," the boy says.

  "Good job Mark." The uniform man pats the boy on the shoulder. "You did a great job calming her down."

  The boy shrugs. "Poor kid," he says. “You didn’t find the sister, did you?”

  “No. You were right. There was no sister here.”

  45.

  I splutter up out of the water, gasping for air. Noah doesn't rush in to see if I'm alright. No one is here to save me but this time I don’t need saving. I've been saved before by so many people. This time I'm saving myself. The water is cold and I let it drain out. Wrapped in a towel I sit on the toilet, shaking. What I saw, were they memories? Or were they another lie? I've been wracking my brain for the reason I was drawn to that stupid old monastery. Was it something from my past? Something so awful that I buried it beneath a million lies and now I can’t even tell what the truth is anymore?

  I dress and slip out of the room. Noah is still on the bed in his clothes, snoring gently. I fight the urge to go over and give him one final kiss goodbye. I’m pretty sure I’m never going to see him again but I can’t risk waking him. I know he’ll be mad. That he won't understand. But at least I'm not going to turn myself in. Not yet anyway. I need to find out the truth once and for all. I'm going to break down this stack of lies and peel away the layers until there is nothing left but the cold, hard facts. And I won't let them break me. Not this time. Not ever again.

  I pick up the keys gently from the bed, making sure they don't rattle. Noah's wallet is on the side table. I open it and find a stack of cash. I take it all. He has his credit cards and I don't know how much gas the truck will need to get me where I’m going. I don't leave a note. Just shut the door as quietly as I can. I don't want Noah to follow me. I have to do this on my own.

  Outside it's still dark. I climb up into the truck and start the engine. It grumbles to life after a few coughs. My heart pounds as I wait for Noah to come charging out of the room but he doesn't. I manhandle the truck into drive and pull away.

  I'm kind of lost but I know that I'm heading in the right direction, towards the rising sun. I keep to the speed limit and make sure not to attract any unwanted attention. Now isn't the time to get pulled over by the cops for something stupid. Eventually the truck starts to run low on gas and I pull in at a Mom and Pop station. No one pays any attention to me as I pump my gas and go in to pay.

  There is a stack of maps on the counter. I buy one and sit out in the truck, eating a chocolate bar and planning my route. I'm not too far from where I want to be and I estimate that it should take no longer than two hours to reach my destination.

  The roads are busier now but I don't mind. I listen to the radio, scanning the news for any mention of my name or Noah's stolen truck. There is nothing. There is also nothing about the dead bodies of Samuel and Norma out in the woods. I guess they haven't been found yet but soon they will be. I don't want to lie anymore. I'll tell the truth, as soon as I know what the truth is.

  The sun is hot now and the air conditioning in the truck is subpar at best. Eventually it starts belting out hot air so I wind down the windows. If I was someone else I'd just be a normal girl out for a drive. Going to get my hair done or hang out with my boyfriend. Maybe go to the park or the movies. But that sort of life seems so far from anything I've ever known. No normal life for me. Not now, not ever.

  Finally I pull up outside the little gray house. Just as boring and non-descript as it ever was. Except Mom has planted a flower garden and she has a stone bird bath and a feeder. I open the door to the truck and hear a dog bark inside the house. They never let me have a dog. What the hell is going on?

  46.

  I'm fully entertaining the fact that my parents have moved without telling me when I see Mom lurking around behind the blinds. I know it's her because she's wearing those stupid glasses, the ones she used to think made her look sophisticated. It didn’t work. The women of her book club still treated her as an outcast. Only now I realize that maybe that had more to do with me than her. My mother had the crazy child. The one all the other parents talked about behind my Mom's back. So now I just feel guilty.

  I'm considering driving away and forgetting about this whole truth thing when she opens the door. I stare as she starts to wave. But she's not just waving, she's beckoning frantically. She's motioning to the garage and the door is opening. I guess she wants me to pull inside so I do. The old truck shudders to a stop as I park next to their Cadillac. Then the door closes behind me. I’m trapped in the stale heat and the dark before the door to the kitchen opens.

  “Don’t just sit there,” she says. “Come on.”

  “Okay,” I say, feeling like a child again.

  It’s been two months since I’ve seen my parents. I forced Noah to move back here to be close to them and they promptly stopped talking to me. First it was the phone calls. Mom just let them go to the answering machine. Then she refused to answer the door. They’d been so kind after the fire. They were there every day in my hospital room, telling me that everything was going to be okay, that they were proud of me. They never said things like that before. I wasn’t sure what I’d done that warranted such praise but I lapped it up like a kitten that got into the milk for the first time. They even seemed to like Noah. Dad used to go down to the cafeteria with him and they’d sneak me back candy and snacks. I thought that things were finally going to be perfect. Everything normal. I should have known I didn’t stand a chance at normal.

  It was when I told Mom I was pregnant. That’s when her face fell. She choked on her coffee and stared at me like she’d just seen a ghost. I didn’t mention Julia or the fact that I thought my baby was her spirit but maybe she knew anyway. Normal mothers are supposed to be ecstatic over their only daughter’s pregnancy. Mine acted like I had cancer.

  She came with me to one appointment. Just one. And she asked the doctor how long I had until an abortion would no longer be considered an option. I just stared at her, wondering how she knew. I’d had dreams about killing my baby ever since I saw that first sonogram but I’d never told anyone.

  Now there she was, saying the very words I'd wanted to say but had been too afraid of. Only I knew that her reason was very different from mine. She wanted me to have an abortion because while I was pregnant, I couldn't be on my medication. And everyone knew what that meant. Sometimes crazy Ana would be full on crazy Ana again. But I'd been doing so well. Things had bee
n so normal. I felt like I didn't need the pills to make me that way. What with Noah and Norma both grounding me, I was going to be okay. I didn't want to kill my baby because it meant I couldn't take my medication. I wanted to kill my baby because I was afraid that she was Julia.

  In the car on the way home I told her that I wasn't going to let her bully me into getting rid of the baby.

  "Is this really what you want?" she said, her eyes on the road. "To take care of a living, breathing human being who is going to be totally dependent on you from day one?"

  "Why? Are you saying that I couldn't do it?" I snapped.

  "There are times when you can barely take care of yourself. You know that. Don't play games with me Ana. I know you. And I know that you're not going to be able to do this. What's going to happen when you go off your meds? Don't you remember what happened over the summer?"

  "That wasn’t my fault," I whispered.

  "Wasn't your fault? You’re lucky they didn't press charges. You'd be in jail right now if it wasn't for Dad's lawyer. Three people died. Whose fault do you think that was?"

  "It wasn’t mine," I shout.

  She gripped the steering wheel. I half expected her to pull over and toss me out of the car. It wouldn't have been the first time.

  "I know you don't like to talk about these things. I know it upsets you. But Ana, don't you see? Having a baby is dangerous, for you and your unborn child. Don't do this to us. I'm begging you."

  I looked at her, expecting to see that face she got when she was mad. The one where she pursed her lips and her mouth looked all puckered. Instead she was crying.

  "Mom, everything is going to be okay," I said. "You have to trust me."

  "I wish I could," she whispered.

  And that was the last time I saw her. She dropped me home and hugged me hard.

  "I hope everything works out,” she said. “I really do."

  I didn't know that meant she was cutting herself off from me. If I had, then maybe I would have tried harder to defend myself. Maybe if I hadn't been so mad at her, I would have called her the day I decided to get the abortion and she would have helped me go through with it. So at the end of the day she was right. I want to tell her that. And that I'm sorry.

  47.

  "Come inside, hurry," she says.

  "I don't understand. Did you know I was coming?"

  "Noah called. He's looking for you."

  I don't know why she doesn't want Noah to find me and I have to wonder exactly how much he told her about what happened out in the woods. But if he told her the truth then I'm pretty sure she wouldn't be ushering me inside. He must have told her something else.

  In the kitchen a black and white Collie dog jumps around my feet. I pet it, letting the silky fur run through my fingers.

  "Pepper," she says. "Cute, isn't she?"

  "Yes," I say, crouching on my heels and hugging the dog.

  She’s clean and warm and licks my face happily.

  "How come you got a dog?" I say, trying not to sound hurt.

  "She's good company," Mom says. "And I need the exercise. She makes me take her for walks."

  "You do look good," I say, noticing her trim waistline.

  "Thanks."

  She doesn't say that I look good and I know it's because I don't.

  "Sit," she motions to the kitchen table. "Let me make you something to eat."

  I'm not hungry but I sit anyway and let her make me a sandwich. She doesn't ask why I'm here and I don't ask her what Noah said. It's just like old times, except she keeps looking at me. She never really looked at me much before.

  "You seem different," I say.

  "Oh?" she slaps mayonnaise onto the bread. "Different how?"

  "I don't know," then it dawns on me. "You look happy."

  "Well I guess I am, although I've been worried sick about you. But I quit the pills and the booze."

  "Really? Wow. I'm impressed."

  "Don't be. It wasn't easy. I was hell to live with but you know what? It was worth it. I can't remember the last time I felt like myself and finally I do."

  "That's great," I say, feeling jealous.

  That's what I want, to feel like myself again. Only I can't remember who that is or what she feels like anymore. I've spent my whole life living a lie and bouncing from one medication to the next. My mind is a cluttered mess of half-truths and hallucinations. How can I ever possibly cut through the crap and find out who I really am?

  "Eat," she says, putting the sandwich on the table and tipping a pile of potato chips into a bowl.

  I do, not realizing how starved I am.

  "What did Noah say?" I finally ask.

  "He wanted to know if I'd seen you. I told him of course I hadn't, that we weren't exactly on speaking terms but then he already knew that. I'm sure he thinks you won't really come here. Which is good," she smiles. "That means we have time."

  "Time for what?"

  "Time to finally be honest with one another."

  "Really?"

  "Really."

  48.

  We sit on the couch, mother and daughter. Not on the same couch mind you. She's on one and I'm on the other. She's kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet up under her like a cat. She’s recently had a pedicure, her toenails painted blood red. Pepper is sitting next to me, a big soppy grin on her furry face.

  "How come you never let me have a dog?" I ask. "You know I always wanted one."

  She looks at me sadly and I start to wonder if this truth thing was all just bullshit.

  "You were too sick," she finally says.

  "Too sick for a dog? They take dogs to visit people in the hospital, a dog could have helped me."

  "Not having a dog was the least of your problems," she says.

  We sit in silence for a few minutes. The only question I need answering, the one I seem unable to ask.

  "You don't look well," she finally says. "You need to stop doing this to yourself."

  "Doing what?"

  "Torturing yourself."

  "I'm not torturing myself," I say.

  "Punishing yourself, hating yourself. Whatever it is, it has to stop. Therapy hasn't helped. The only one who can bring you back is you."

  "Bring me back from where?"

  Pepper starts to lick my hand. I look at my mother, now so much younger and prettier than I remember, and wonder what she would be like if I was the one who had never been born.

  "The madness," she says gently, then leans forward. "Ana, you never had a sister."

  The air is sucked out of the room. I can't breathe. Blood rushes to my face and my cheeks are hot. The words ringing over and over again in my head. I never had a sister. How can that be true? I've come here to set things straight, to get to the bottom of everything but this isn't what I was expecting. I've come to the realization that since Julia died, she hasn't been haunting me. That all these years I wasn't hearing her ghost in my head. It was my own illness that made her real for me. But I know I had a twin. We played together. We did everything together. I know we did. And I know that I killed her.

  "I know this is hard to hear," she says. "I should have told you sooner but the doctors thought you'd come to the realization on your own. I thought after the fire last summer that it was finally over. You'd killed your demon and you were free. But the moment you told me you were pregnant, I knew. You had that look in your eye. The one you used to get as a kid when you'd tell me that Julia was going to do something bad and I knew. I just knew. You hadn't got rid of her at all. She'd just become something else. A baby growing inside you that you'd project all your madness onto."

  She comes and sits beside me and I can't even move away from her. I'm frozen, forced to listen to her words. Trapped in a body that is still as a frozen pond.

  "It's not fair," she says. "To subject a child to that. You know it. I know you do."

  She takes my hand in hers. I'm powerless to stop her.

  "All I've ever wanted is a normal life for you and I thin
k you're starting to want that too. I can see it in your eyes. You have questions, that's why you came here. You know I'm the only one who can help you. Now why don't you let me?"

  And the thing is, I actually do want her to help me. She does want what's best for me, I know it. She won't hide the truth from me like Noah or sugar coat it like Norma. But God, Norma. I killed her. I killed Samuel. I killed them all. I start to cry.

  "It's all right," she puts her hand around my shoulder. "I won't let anything happen to you."

  "That's what Noah said," I gulp. "And look how that turned out."

  I stand and walk to the window.

  "I've done things Mom, horrible things. Things so bad that I can’t even tell you about them but I came here to find out the truth. I knew you were the only one who could help me."

  "I am helping you," she says.

  "Then why are you lying to me?" I spin around and shout at her. "How can you deny that Julia was ever a part of this family? That she was ever alive? Maybe I'm not the sick one after all. Maybe you are. Denying your own daughter ever existed? Come on Mom, that’s ridiculous."

  "I'll prove it to you."

  She leaves the room and I stand there looking out across the yard. It's neat and tidy. There are no stray leaves or scraggly weeds. It's like Mom found her mind and went all OCD on the place. I see her let Pepper out the back door and the dog runs around like a crazy fool. She jumps across shadows and chases a blackbird. Then she gets zapped by an invisible fence and howls out in pain before slinking away. Typical. I bet Mom wishes she had one of those for me. Zap the shit out of my brain every time I mention something she doesn't approve of, like the twin sister I know I had.

  She eventually comes back with a big cardboard box of photographs. Some of them topple onto the floor as she struggles under the weight. I pick one up. I'm three or four, playing in the sand at the beach. Dad has helped me build a giant sandcastle. It's lopsided and half falling down but we are beaming. I don't remember that day. At least I don't think I do. There is a red plastic pail and two tiny spades but no Julia. Wouldn't she have been there? I pick up another. In this one I'm older, four or five. We're at the fair. I've just come off the bumper cars and I'm holding a big cloud of blue cotton candy and waving. But Julia is not there either.