Lies You Wanted to Hear

by James Whitfield Thomson

  “Thanks. I’m sorry. I kept wanting to say something, but the timing never seemed right.”

  “Sure, I understand.” It was only in the past week or two that I’d been able to step outside myself and see how gingerly people were treating me. No one wanted to see me crumble before their eyes. The fact that I was able to accept Jill’s apology and not react to it with withering venom or abject tears seemed like a small step forward.

  Matt and the kids had been gone for a little more than two months. The Pinkertons still had several detectives on the case, but there wasn’t much for them to do except to keep circulating the fliers in various cities and towns and hope they got lucky; a father raising two small children on his own didn’t automatically raise people’s suspicions. Thorny and I were talking about it, and he said he understood the detectives’ dilemma. With new names, Matt and the kids could be anyone. I said it didn’t matter if they changed from Drobyshev to Betz or Smith or whatever, the kids wouldn’t say their last names much anyway, but they would still be Sarah and Nathan. It isn’t just the last name, Luce, Thorny said, he’s probably changed their first names too. I hadn’t allowed myself to think of that before. It seemed unspeakably cruel; Matt was erasing the children’s past lives entirely at the same time he was erasing me.

  I had spoken to Carla briefly on the phone a few times since the abduction but hadn’t been to see her. One day she called and said she wanted to get together, it didn’t have to be a therapy session in her office, she’d be glad to come to JP simply as a friend. I was moved; she sounded a little undone, as if she felt partly responsible for what had happened. We went for a walk around Jamaica Pond. It was odd seeing her outside the confines of her office. I had flashes of anger as we talked, but mostly I was despairing, portraying myself as Matt’s lawyer had in the deposition—bad wife, bad mother.

  Carla stopped and held my gaze. “It’s not your fault, Lucy.” I didn’t believe her, but it was nice to hear her say.

  “There had to be something I did that pushed Matt over the edge.” I picked up a rock and tossed it into the pond. “Sarah’s broken wrist, I guess. I shouldn’t have—”

  “Stop blaming yourself, Lucy. What Matt did was wrong. It was an act of insufferable hubris and spite. When the law catches up with him, he’s going to pay.”

  “If they ever catch up with him.”

  “Come on, don’t give up hope.”

  “You have to help me, Carla. I try to be strong, but how can I go on?”

  “Do you want to start coming to see me again?”

  I nodded, and she said, sure, as often as I like; she’d call when she got back to the office so we could set up an appointment. As she was leaving she gave me a hug.

  “Have you been writing in your journal?”

  “No, not a word.”

  “It’s terribly painful, I know, but it’s one of the best therapies there is. Don’t hold back. Write whatever comes into your head.”

  That evening I got out the journal I’d started when I was going through the breakup with Matt. Carla was right; it had been great therapy and had helped me to sort out my thoughts and feelings about my failed marriage. I’d found it much harder to lie to myself with a pen in my hand. Things became much clearer when I saw myself making the same excuses over and over, or tried to avoid writing some truth I knew in my heart but didn’t want to put into words. I guess that’s why I had avoided writing anything since Matt took the kids.

  The last entry I’d made was a few days before the abduction. I had written about how well Amanda had been doing since her drunk driving arrest. As I leafed back and read over some previous entries, a sickening thought came over me. What if Matt had found the journal in my desk drawer that night he came into the house with the kids? There was so much there to condemn me, so many ugly thoughts about him, all my doubts and insecurities about being a parent. Maybe that was when he decided to steal them.

  I picked up a pen and wrote:

  8/16/83 (2 months & 6 days gone) Please, Matt. Please bring Sarah and Nathan home. I won’t press charges. I won’t ask where you’ve been. I promise I’ll be a good mother. Just let me hold them again.

  That was all I could manage before I broke down.

  8/19/83 (2 months & 9 days gone) I went to see Carla today. I talked and cried and raged at Matt. Raged at myself. I should have known what he was up to. He was so anxious to get away. I never should have let him take the kids to Disney World. If I hadn’t been so fucking blasé and had insisted he call me every night, maybe…

  The phone in the hall just rang, “the kids’ line” as I call it now. I ran to pick it up, and it was some woman looking for a Mr. Fletcher. She apologized when I told her she had the wrong number, and I said it was okay. I’ve been trying to learn not to take my anger and disappointment out on other people. Every time that phone rings my heart starts beating a hundred miles an hour. I no longer believe that Matt will come to his senses and bring the kids home, but I keep thinking Sarah will call. I taught her the phone number in case she got lost. She’s very smart and could have easily remembered the digits, but I wanted to make it fun and see if I could turn our phone number into a word the way businesses do in their advertisements. Call 1-617-PLUMBER or 1-800-RENT-A-CAR. Our number is 244-6673, which spells BIG NOSE. Sarah giggled when I told her, and she made up a rhyme: Big nose, ice snows, jiggy wiggy piggy toes. But I didn’t explain to her about dialing one first or an area code. I didn’t teach her about calling collect. I had warned her about the dangers of talking to strangers, the usual stuff you say about not taking candy or getting in someone’s car. But I never said, Be careful of Daddy too. He’s angry at Mommy and might tell you lies and say mean things about me and take you far away.

  Sarah Caroline Drobyshev. Nathan Alexander Drobyshev. Where are you now? Who are you now? Sometimes I want to stuff some clothes in a sack, close the door behind me, and wander the country, searching for you.

  ***

  One of the truths I couldn’t dodge in my journal was that Griffin and I no longer fit. For me, he was a constant reminder of everything I’d done wrong. It was foolish to blame him for ruining my life, but he was the catalyst, and I harbored a secret belief that I’d get the kids back if he were gone. He had started spending most nights at his own apartment now, and our lovemaking was scant and lifeless. We tried to talk about the future but couldn’t sustain it. At least he had enough sense not to suggest we have a child together. Sometimes he’d come by after work and go out in the yard and do flips on the trampoline in a dress shirt and tie. Our only real connection seemed to be through the puppy.

  Griffin tried to talk me into going to Nantucket for the long Labor Day weekend. I made excuses, saying I didn’t want to deal with the crowds or sit in traffic, but I simply couldn’t imagine leaving the house for three days with the telephone untended. He kept pushing and I pushed back, but he had no desire to keep the fight going. We had come to a crossroads and both of us knew it.

  He said, “I’d like to make it easy for you, Luce, but this is your call. I don’t want to be the one to say it first.”

  “Say what?” I gave him a sad smile.

  He smiled too. He opened a bottle of wine and poured us both a glass as if we were celebrating. “You could shame me into sticking around if you want.”

  “I know. For a little while anyway.” I lit a cigarette. “Are you relieved?”

  “Actually, I was trying to fall in love with you.”

  “That may be the most honest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “Never a bad time to start good habits, as my Uncle Baxter used to say.”

  “Is that the uncle with the Siamese named Minx?”

  “The very same. I’m amazed you remember. Can you believe that old cat is still going strong? Twenty-three years old and blind in one eye, but her fur’s still as silky as a kitten.”

  I
laughed. “You and your stories, Griffin. Do you have any idea which ones are true?”

  “I try not to get hung up on minor details, baby. Life’s better that way.”

  I think we both felt a sense of relief that it was over, our losses dwarfed by the realization that we no longer had to try.

  ***

  The morning after Labor Day, I stood by the open window in the kitchen, smoking and drinking a cup of coffee. Stray leaves and twigs were scattered on top of the trampoline, the swings on the monkey bars rocking gently in the breeze. Sarah always wanted you to push her as high as she could go, squealing with delight as the ropes jerked at the top of their arc. Frodo was in the yard digging a hole under the maple tree. Beyond the fence Nancy Prince’s tomatoes were bright red on the vines. When the kids were still here, Nancy’s daughter Lindsay, who was eight or nine, would occasionally come over and play with Sarah and Nathan in the yard. The blinds on the windows on the second floor were raised, and I could see Nancy sitting on the edge of a bed braiding Lindsay’s hair. I refilled my coffee cup and cinched the tie around the waist of my bathrobe and sat on the porch steps in front of the house, watching the children go by with their backpacks and lunch boxes. Two girls smiled and said hi to me then quickly looked away. I didn’t try to hide the tears that were rolling down my cheeks. Today would have been Sarah’s first day of kindergarten.

  ***

  2/4/84 (7 months & 25 days gone) Thorny has been encouraging me to take a vacation, someplace warm and sunny, blue ocean, white sand beaches, and piña coladas. He just wants me to get out of the house to try to take my mind off the kids. The Pinkertons say the case is still open, but I know they’ve stopped looking. Photographs of missing children have begun to appear on milk cartons along with their names and the date they disappeared. It’s part of a nationwide campaign started by the parents of a boy named Etan Patz, who left to catch a school bus in Manhattan one morning and was never seen again. Thorny tried to get Sarah and Nathan’s picture on one of the milk cartons. He was told they were not publicizing “family abductions” at this time. Apparently, there are about 200,000 of these abductions every year, but the focus of the milk carton campaign is on the kids who have been taken by strangers. It makes me angry to think that my case is diminished because I know who stole my kids, as if it’s not a crime but a misunderstanding.

  My old pal Cody crawled out of the woodwork the other day. We went to a movie then to the IHOP after and talked for hours and he made me laugh, which sometimes still makes me feel guilty. Cody is in love with a nineteen-year-old boy, unrequited so far. He says if it doesn’t work out, he wants us to move in together and live in celibate bliss, cook great meals in the evening with show tunes playing on the stereo. I told him it sounds like heaven.

  ***

  On my way into the Star Market, I saw a notice on the bulletin board for a group called GrieveWell. It said that anyone dealing with grief was welcome, but the primary focus of the group was for parents who had lost a child. Their meetings were at the Unitarian Church in JP, which probably meant there wasn’t a strong push toward Jesus and the healing power of prayer. I’d gotten way too much of that from well-meaning souls over the past eight months. I wanted to believe God would send my kids home to me, but when I tried to pray, I felt like a fraud, asking Him for something only when there was nowhere else to turn.

  I waited several weeks before going to my first meeting of GrieveWell. There were two men and six women including me that evening. The group had been meeting for about seven months. People were friendly and asked me if I wanted to tell my story and I said no, maybe next time. Two of the women, one black and one white, had sons who were killed in gang violence; one man’s twenty-year-old son had committed suicide. There was a woman named Winnie who had come to her first session the week before. Her husband and two young daughters were killed by a drunk driver, which I remembered reading about in the newspaper, a guy plowing into them head-on on the turnpike. The driver, whose blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit, was driving with a suspended license and walked away from the accident with only minor injuries. Winnie, who was about my age and very well spoken, was a dean at Wheelock College. She said it was a shame Massachusetts didn’t have the death penalty, which was what the man deserved, but the most he’d probably end up with was two or three years in jail for vehicular homicide. I’m not sure why, but I felt a bond with her—maybe it was her incandescent anger and the fact that she flayed her fingers like me—and I thought we might become friends.

  At the next meeting, Vernon, the man whose son committed suicide, wanted to talk. His wife had recently discovered that her father, who died when she was seven, had taken his own life, but the family had kept it a secret from her. She had been blaming Vernon for their son’s death, telling him he coddled the boy too much and hadn’t taught him how to face the world like a man. Now she admitted there was a long history of depression in her family. Vernon said it felt like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He told us he tried to get his wife to come to the GrieveWell meeting with him, but she wasn’t ready yet.

  “This is a real breakthrough, Vern,” Maureen said. She was the one who had founded the group and acted as its leader. “When a loved one dies, we often look for someone to blame—doctors, God, another family member, the deceased, ourselves. But we have to learn to put that aside. The key to healing is forgiveness.”

  “I’m never going to forgive the man who killed my husband and kids,” Winnie said. “He is to blame. Completely.”

  “Like whoever stabbed my son,” a black woman said.

  Things got heated; Maureen let people vent. Winnie was so filled with rage her whole body quivered. I listened and didn’t say anything, but after the coffee break I decided to tell my story. I left out some of the ugly details like the scene with Matt and Griffin in the bedroom but didn’t try to mitigate my own culpability in the failure of my marriage. I told them I had made mistakes, but ultimately I didn’t know why Matt had taken the kids.

  People were kind and supportive. Most seemed surprised that the police had no interest in pursuing the case. One black woman snorted, saying the cops always looked out for themselves. She said the police weren’t interested in solving her son’s murder; they just figured it was one less gang-banger on the street.

  Winnie was listening quietly. She hadn’t spoken since the break. Finally, she fixed her gaze on me and said, “Excuse me, Lucy, but would you please tell me what the fuck you are doing here?”

  I was stunned, unable to respond.

  “Please, Winnie,” Maureen said. “There’s no need to be rude.”

  “Rude? What could be ruder than her coming here and whining about her missing children?” She glowered at me. “My husband and daughters are dead. You understand dead, don’t you? I watched the undertakers lower their coffins into three black holes in the ground. It doesn’t matter if your kids are in Texas or Arizona or China, they’re still alive. They’re out there somewhere. You still have hope.”

  Several people tried to intercede on my behalf, but I said, “No, wait, it’s okay. I understand what she means.” At least Winnie hadn’t said I deserved my fate. To her, there was a pecking order in the world of grief, and mine was a second-class sorrow.

  I said, “Winnie, what happened to your family is horrific. Unthinkable. That drunk driver changed your life in a split second and shattered your world into a million little pieces. Nothing will ever bring your husband and daughters back again, so you think I’m lucky. I’m sure you wish you could trade places with me because I still have hope. And you’re right, I do. In some ways it’s all I have. I wake up every morning and try to make myself believe today’s the day I’ll get my kids back. Sometimes I can almost see their faces as they come running into my arms. But nights are different. At night I sit at the kitchen table with my cigarettes and a glass of wine and ask myself a simple question: Am I still a mot
her? How can I be a mother with no children to call me Mommy? No little ones to hold in my arms? Maybe their father will come to his senses and realize the kids need me as much as I need them. Maybe he’ll bring them back to me tomorrow. Or next week. Next year. I try not to lose hope. But here’s my question: How long am I supposed to keep hoping? Two years? Five years? Twenty? Give me a number, Winnie. How long do I have to wait till I can be as sad as you are?”

  Chapter 28

  Adam

  Encinitas, California—June 1996

  The graduation party had been going for about an hour. I put a fresh bowl of guacamole and tortilla chips on the picnic table and threw some empty soda cans in the trash. It was a beautiful June evening, the smell of sage in the breeze. The sun lingered over the ocean as if it didn’t want the day to end. The band on the back deck was playing “Maybe Baby,” Sara and her friends jitterbugging on the lawn. Some of the kids were still wearing their mortarboards, tassels swinging to the beat. The band called themselves The Indolents. What they lacked in talent they made up for in style—double-breasted chartreuse suits, flamingo pink shirts, and skinny black ties. The lead singer, Ajit Banerjee, liked to say his one goal in life was to be known as the Bengali Buddy Holly. Ajit had been Sara’s on-and-off boyfriend since the tenth grade. On, as of this afternoon, though that could have changed by now. I was smart enough not to ask.

  We lived in the hills north of San Diego about a mile from the coast. A stand of cypresses hid our small stucco house from the street. Unlike most of our neighbors, we had no garage or swimming pool, but the lot was nearly five acres—a broad expanse of grass sloping down to a grove of lemon trees. Hummingbirds darted among the flowers on the firebush in the daytime. Skunks and raccoons prowled the grounds at night. Real estate developers had offered me ridiculous sums of money to subdivide, but I never gave it serious consideration. This, I often reminded myself, was as close to paradise as I would ever get.