Liar

by Lia Fairchild

  Her innocent eyes scrutinized me. “Do you think that’s something I can do?”

  I smiled and nodded. “I’d bet money on it.”

  ***

  Heads turned our way as we walked through the restaurant to a quiet table near the patio. Gray wore a dark blue dress that hugged and accentuated her curves. On the drive over, that dress had tempted my eyes from the road every few minutes.

  When I’d picked her up, she’d appeared refreshed and positive. It gave me some hope that the night would go well. We needed to find our way back to that closeness—so close that Gray trusted me to share what was going on with her.

  The crowded restaurant still felt intimate and quiet. Our waiter sported a beard I deemed too long for him to be in food service. He brought water in a carafe and set down a basket of bread. We both stared wide-eyed until he told us the specials and left.

  Gray leaned forward. “How do we know none of that is going to drop off into our soup?”

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  We laughed quietly while we opened our menus. “Let’s avoid the soup then,” she said.

  “The skirt steak looks good.”

  Once we ordered, a quiet fell between us. With the exquisite visual before me, I didn’t miss the conversation. I studied my subject, my mind’s eye sketching the richness of her eyes, the fullness of her lips, the swell of her breasts.

  “You’re staring,” she said, but it took a moment to register.

  I fixed an impish glare on her. “Do you mind?”

  “Not really.”

  Her infectious smile not only put me at ease but also had me wanting to skip the meal and go back to my place. Our food arrived a moment later, and we fell into more casual conversations. I asked Gray about work and told her we’d finally found a new doctor to take the space that Dr. Wallace had left. Thankfully, I’d yet to hear back from her after that last exchange. One less person trying to tear us apart.

  “Oh,” she said, popping her attention up from her salmon. “I didn’t tell you that Charlotte dropped her suit against Nathan.”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised he didn’t tell me, but I wondered when Gray found out. “That’s great news.” I cut at my steak, deciding not to pry. “I’m sure he’s happy to be getting his life back on track.” I looked up when she paused, waiting for her reply.

  “Yeah…I guess. I know he’s relieved it’s over and Charlotte is gone.”

  “But?”

  “I don’t know. I just think it’s going to take him some time to…adjust. Charlotte did a number on him and now…” She picked up the water in front of her as if that were the end of her sentence. “Speaking of Charlotte and office space, remember that guy Carter she tried to hook me up with?”

  “If I remember right, it wasn’t exactly about ‘hooking up,’ but yes, I remember. How could I forget?”

  “You know what I mean. Well, he did call me last week. I totally forgot to tell you.”

  “Hmm. You forgot? So, what did the accountant with the fancy hair have to say?”

  She grinned and swallowed her food. “Wow, you’re good with details. Is that the artist in you?” she asked playfully. I assumed she was stalling to make me jealous. “You’ll be happy to know that he already found an office space.”

  I smiled then reached over to hold her hand. “I am happy. Because I didn’t like his fancy hair.”

  We wrapped up our meals, skipped dessert, and headed upstairs to their piano bar. Gray seemed to like the idea, and it would provide another neutral setting for us to be together. The place appeared even darker than the dim lighting of the restaurant. The piano player, a middle-aged woman who looked like she’d stepped out of Woodstock, situated herself in the back corner of the room. The “flower child” belted out a cool jazz number I recognized.

  The moment we sat down, my phone rang—a call forwarded from my service—so I excused myself to take it. Edna, a retired government worker, often called me when she was lonely. Each time I’d explained that after-hours calls were only for emergencies. I set up an appointment for her the following week, went to the restroom, and then returned to the piano bar. A glass of white wine sat on the table in front of Gray.

  “Did you order that?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

  She stared straight ahead at where people had gathered around the piano. “Why do you ask?”

  “Come on, Gray. Don’t play games. What’s with the wine?”

  She turned her head, narrowing her eyes on me. “Are you asking as my shrink or my boyfriend?”

  One phone call and everything changed. “It’s a fair question, don’t you think?”

  “Not really. I’m an adult. I can do what I want.” She picked up the glass and took a sip, continuing to watch the performance.

  “You’re the one who told me you gave up drinking…so I think it is a fair question.”

  “I stopped because I wanted to, not because I had to. If you recall, it was the least of my problems.” She took another sip and flagged down the waitress. “Let’s get you a beer. You seem to need a drink more than I do.”

  “No, thanks.”

  We sat without talking while she finished the glass, and I tried to figure out what to say. A few minutes later, two men walked toward us, heading for the exit. One of them locked in on Gray with a focused stare as they approached. He nodded and Gray held up her glass.

  “Thanks for the drink,” she said.

  My face heated in an instant; it made no sense because the guy disappeared out the door. More likely her deceit stung. “So, he bought you the drink?”

  “He must have thought I was here alone when you were outside.”

  “You didn’t have to accept it.”

  She turned to me with brows pulled together. “Hey, the waiter just came and dropped it off. When I looked up, the guy nodded. And, yeah, maybe I didn’t have to drink it, but I’ve had a rough couple of days, and if I want a little bit of relief then that’s what I’ll do.”

  “Please don’t get upset. I wasn’t trying—”

  “Trying what?” she cut in. “To tell me what to do? To judge me?”

  I shook my head, hoping to avoid a scene in public. The music died down, and the pianist rose for what appeared to be a break.

  “What then?” she continued.

  “I think we should go.” I stood, looked down at her expectantly, and held my hand out to her.

  She rose without taking my hand and walked past me toward the door.

  I didn’t bother asking if we should extend the night. Instead, I went back to her apartment. The quiet of the car gave me time to decide how to handle her. My experience with Melissa had all but paralyzed me with Gray, afraid to say and do something fatally wrong.

  I pulled to a stop in front of her building, then I turned in my seat to face her.

  “This is the most quiet you’ve been since the day we met,” she said, inspecting her hands in an odd way.

  “Honestly, I’m afraid, Gray. I don’t know what to do or what to say.”

  She lifted her head but didn’t turn to face me.

  I sighed, reached out to take her hand. “Can you at least look at me?”

  An empty expression came my way, and my chest tightened. I could see it in her eyes: I was losing her. She was slipping away…just like Melissa had slipped away. Only weeks ago, her eyes had held a carefree optimism. This woman in front of me seemed too much like the one I’d followed to the Blue Moon the night of our first session.

  “I love you, Gray, and I just want to help you. To get us back to where we were. But I don’t know how to do that. I’m torn between the man who loves you and the doctor who brought you to me. Please, tell me what to do.”

  My pleading shook a response from her. “I’m sorry, Daniel. I don’t know what to say. I know what your fears are. I know what you’ve been through. I’m not her, but right now I just need space. I thought I could push it all out of my head and just be with you tonight,
but I couldn’t do it. I can’t…I just can’t look at you and not feel.”

  I understood what she meant all too well. It was why I’d pushed her away when Jessica had died. I took her face in my hands. “That’s how you get past it. You acknowledge it and feel it and understand where it came from. Then…only then, can you move on.”

  She turned her head as I held it, gazing up toward her apartment at the light on.

  “You can’t skip over it, Gray. You can’t pick which steps will happen and which won’t.”

  She pulled away from my grasp. “I guess I’m not strong enough. Before…I was. Now…I don’t know.”

  “I won’t give up on you, so please don’t give up on yourself.”

  “Alyssa’s home. I should go.”

  “Gray?”

  “I’m sorry, Daniel.” She opened the door to get out. “Just give me some time.”

  A frustrated sigh exploded from my lungs, and just before she shut the door, I called to her, “Gray, you will not outrun this!”

  CHAPTER 21

  --------------------------

  Gray

  “Tell me everything.” I sat across from my father at the same coffee shop we’d met at the year before to attempt to repair our relationship—a broken relationship I’d blamed on my father for years.

  With his arms across his chest, he contemplated my request. “Why are you doing this, Gray?”

  I had learned to lie to protect myself. From memories. From pain. From feeling anything at all, because shutting it out was easier than trying to filter out the bad. It became a reflex, a habit, and—at some point—an inherent part of my personality. And even though I’d attempted to shed my outward lies months ago, the effects were forever lingering. It’d taken me this long to finally understand that the one person you can’t lie to is yourself. If my dad hadn’t told me the truth about Noah, it would have come out. I’d felt it creeping up on me every day, like a stalker in the night. “I just need to…see. I’ve got this dark cloud in front of me, and it’s blocking everything out.”

  He sighed and sipped his coffee. Worry drained his expression.

  “I know you were protecting me, and I punished you for it. I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t know. And I never blamed you for any of it. Not Noah. Not our relationship.”

  I nodded, pushing back the guilty tears that stabbed at my eyes. This man took years of abuse from me—the only child he had left—to protect me from the horrible pain that, in the end, I couldn’t escape. “I guess I just need to know that everything I remember about being with Noah was not a lie. The connection I felt…I still feel…to him seems so real to me.”

  He leaned forward with his elbows resting on the table. “Gray, honey, you were the best damn sister that boy could have ever asked for. You were just too young to handle that kind of responsibility.”

  I held my arms against my chest, already feeling my heart racing. “I took care of him, didn’t I? I know I did.”

  “You did,” he said, nodding. Then he stared past me as if recalling what happened. “When your mom died, your grandma practically moved in and took over. And she was strict, telling me what to do. Not letting me drink or go out. She did most everything for Noah while I worked and took care of you. But then you became her little soldier. Part of me didn’t approve, but I just didn’t have it in me to say anything.” He turned back to me, checking my reaction. “I’ll never forget when I had to get that second job. I’d overheard you two in the bathroom with Noah. She was teaching you how to give him a bath and telling you it was time you started taking over for her.”

  That surprised me, yet when he said the words I had a vague memory of that day. “Then she had a stroke,” I said softly.

  “Yep. Almost like she knew it was coming.”

  I stepped into my mind, searching for more memories of Grandma helping me with Noah. Only small flashes of moments came to me. “So, that’s when I started taking care of him?”

  “Yes. I was proud of you, Gray. And sometimes, I truly did forget how young you were. Maybe I even got a little lazy at times, knowing I could count on you. But then, you started doing some things that scared the hell out of me.”

  “Like what?” I needed to hear whatever he had to say, no matter how much it pained me.

  “It started as little things here and there. I’d catch you in a lie, or you’d try to manipulate me into something. I didn’t think much of it. Figured it was standard kid stuff. Then…we started having…incidents with the sitters.” Pausing, he gave me a look of uncertainty.

  I feared what more would be revealed. With every word he spoke, the person I thought I used to be faded. But the die was cast, and there was no turning back. “Please, go on.”

  “Somehow they always ended up doing something wrong, and when I’d let them go, every single one of them said you were lying. The worst of it involved Ms. Fitz. You remember her?”

  I concentrated for a second, pulling a faint memory of a fragile little woman in a gray jogging suit. “A little.”

  “She took you and Noah to the park. You’d hid Noah in the bathroom and told her you couldn’t find him, that it was her fault for not paying more attention. She’d admitted later that she had been reading. You even told her that you’d called me and the police and that she would be fired and arrested. When she went frantically searching around the park for Noah, you snuck him out and ran home. Poor woman called me in tears and quit that day. The next day I heard you telling Noah that Ms. Fitz wouldn’t come back, and how you’d had to get rid of her.”

  An image flashed in front of me. “Wait here, Noah,” I’d said, closing the stall door in the bathroom. The memory dissolved as quickly as it came. I leaned an elbow on the table, rubbed my hand over my face, and stared in shock at my father. “Didn’t you think something was wrong with me? Did you ever ask a doctor or do anything?”

  He scrubbed his chin the way he’d done when I was a child—a tiny gesture that told me there were some things I’d remembered right. “Maybe I should have, but I didn’t. Not until…your brother died. When you were in the hospital.”

  “Tell me about that day. No matter how hard I try, I can never remember being in the hospital.”

  “You were sedated and sleeping for a lot of the time. You were so distraught when you first woke up that it was the only thing to calm you down.” He paused as if trying to recall something. “I think it was a psychologist who gave me her card that day. Said I should call if I wanted her to talk with you. The day I brought you home you were distant, wouldn’t let me hug you or talk to you. And the first time I said Noah’s name you flew into a rage. Every time after that, too. Your aunts and I just learned never to mention his name. I figured you wouldn’t talk to anyone else either.”

  “If we didn’t talk about him, when did you realize I’d blamed you?”

  “I tried to give you time. I didn’t know what else to do. But you began to make comments, hint at things, and then Noah’s birthday came. I found you out back having a party for him—talking to him like he sat right there in front of you. I didn’t know what to do. So I sat down and tried to talk to you. For once, I was going to make you talk. That’s when you started yelling about what I’d done.”

  “What I thought you’d done,” I corrected.

  “Yes. And since that day the story never changed. I never corrected you. I made sure Grandma, Becca, and Barb all stuck with the story. I was so scared for you, I didn’t see any other way.”

  “I don’t even know what to say.” What could I do with the information? A huge part of what I knew to be my life was a lie. My family had all lied to me, and yet how could I fault any of them?

  “You don’t have to say anything. It’s over and done. There’s nothing any of us can do to change it.”

  A melting pot of emotions churned deep inside me. While everything he’d told me had happened because of my own actions, I couldn’t help but feel victimized. I wondered what Daniel would thin
k about that reflective observation. The room around me spun and closed in on me. “I have to go now.” I started to stand, but Dad took hold of my wrist.

  “Gray, wait.” His insistent eyes settled me back into my chair. “Before you go, please let me say this.” His eyes glossed over as he spoke. “I’m sorry for everything you had to endure. No child should have to lose their mother that way and then be put through what Grandma and I put you through. I don’t know if lying all these years was right or wrong. I don’t think we’ll ever know. But one thing I know for sure is that you can’t blame yourself, and you can’t take this on alone.”

  His words, intent on comfort, only did the opposite, as my breathing grew shallower with every second. I pulled my arm away and stood on shaky legs. If I’d felt any empathy for him in that moment, the slew of emotions stampeding across my heart trampled it.

  I left the coffee shop and walked to my car on autopilot. Before opening the door, I glanced at my phone and saw a text from Alyssa. She reminded me we were to shop for groceries for their apartment so she and Laurie would be stocked. Dammit!

  Turning on my heel, I headed back the way I came, but instead of returning to the coffee shop, I turned left down Cole Street. Two blocks down on the right sat a pool hall, so old and rundown it appeared out of business. A faded Open sign hung in the window, so I grabbed the handle of the dilapidated door and entered. Inside the place was smoky and small. An old jukebox played in the back at the end of a row of six pool tables. An elderly couple sat at the bar at one end. I took a seat at the other.

  A tall, skinny bartender set a cocktail napkin in front of me. “What can I get you?”

  “A new life,” I said without thinking.

  His brows rose. The couple looked up.

  “Scotch, neat, and make it a double, please.”

  Without a word, he sidled over to the glasses and plucked one out to pour my drink. He set it in front of me while I texted Alyssa:

  Be home in about twenty minutes and we’ll go. Please have a list ready.