The Good Lie

by Robin Brande

  I moved on to a more pleasant topic.

  Jason. Had I imagined him? No way. My lips still felt slightly swollen. I could still taste his mouth. Still smell that hint of soap and aftershave on his neck. God, what a night.

  And what a mistake.

  That’s the problem with temptation: Once it’s right there in front of you, it takes superhuman will to resist it. Which is why you can’t let yourself ever get to that point. You cut it off way before you’re alone in a car with the boy of your dreams, parked near a urinating bum.

  That was where I went wrong. I should have insisted he take me home first. I could have avoided the whole mess.

  So now what? Fix it. You know how you got into that situation, I told myself, so don’t ever let yourself get there again. Easy enough. Just fix it.

  The phone rang at eight-thirty.

  “So,” Posie asked, “did Mr. Sleeze try anything?”

  I guess that nod she gave me before I drove off was not her blessing after all.

  “Kind of.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “You know, just—”

  “Hey, guess what’s in the paper?”

  I privately blessed God for the distraction. “Um, Angela?”

  “She just settled some lawsuit over in California. Three million dollars—three million! Of course, she won’t confirm that, as usual, but that’s what they’re saying. Good for her. Another church gets it in the rear. So to speak.”

  “Great.”

  “You coming over?”

  “No . . .” What was a good excuse to give? That I wanted to watch my brother all day? Check him for signs of trauma? Ask him to his face if my father was molesting him?

  “I think I’ll stick around here today,” I said. “The place is a mess. I need to clean.”

  “Then come over tonight. I’m off.”

  And return home to another scene like last night’s? No, thank you.

  “Uh . . . not tonight, okay? I’m really tired.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Maybe it’s just a bug. I think I’ll stay in this weekend.”

  We hung up and I went back to bed and pulled the covers over my head.

  Really, that fixes anything.

  [2]

  The phone rang a few hours later.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.” I should have checked Caller ID.

  “How are you?” Jason asked.

  “Fine.”

  Great. Was this what we were reduced to? Was this what our conversations were going to be like from now on? Sex ruins everything.

  “Want to grab a bite tonight?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Movie?”

  “No.”

  “Check out books from the library?”

  “Jason—”

  “Lizzie. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. I just have a lot to do.”

  “Like what?”

  Like avoid you.

  “Just . . . stuff.”

  “Well, I’ll come over and help. Your dad’ll probably be happy to see me.”

  “Very funny.” One of those deadly pauses, so uncomfortable. “So . . .”

  “So . . .”

  I bit at a hanging cuticle. This was torture. A day before I would have loved to get a phone call like this. But somehow that was another girl, another life, and maybe it was superstitious of me, but I couldn’t help thinking that this thing with Mikey was the direct result of making out with a guy in his car.

  “What if I ask Posie?” Jason suggested.

  “Ask her. Maybe she’ll go.”

  “No,” Jason clarified, “will you go? If she chaperones?”

  “Look—” I didn’t really want to get into it, but didn’t see how I could avoid it. “What I did was a mistake.”

  “No, trust me,” he said cheerfully, “you did it right.”

  “Jason, I’m serious.”

  “I am, too. Look, I like you. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing.” Like? I winced thinking of my declaration of love. How could I expose myself like that? “It’s just not practical.”

  He laughed. “Not practical? That’s your argument?”

  “You know I’m never going to sleep with you.”

  “So?”

  “So I know that’s what you want.”

  “Of course it’s what I want.”

  “Well?”

  “But you and I are friends,” Jason said.

  “Right,” I said.

  “So why can’t we hang out?”

  Because you touched my breast. And I liked it. “Because I can’t trust you anymore.”

  “I trust you.”

  “Great. That’s because you know I have morals.”

  “No, it’s because I know you’re smart.”

  That one hit me. Who doesn’t want to hear a guy tell her she’s smart?

  “Lizzie?”

  I could feel myself softening. “Yeah?”

  “Tell me the truth. You liked it.”

  Ugh. Why did he have to ask? “It’s really none of your business.”

  “Of course it’s my business.”

  “It was a mistake,” I repeated.

  “What you’re doing right now?” he answered. “This is the mistake.”

  [3]

  Saturday night. So far so good. I made meatloaf from my mother’s recipe and my brother ate it like it was the last meal of a doomed boy.

  Which, in a way, it was.

  After dinner the two of us retired to the family room to watch Mikey’s favorite show, Space Chargers.

  We were half way into it when the family room door opened.

  “Come on,” my father said to Mikey.

  Mikey glanced at me and went back to watching his show.

  “Come on,” my father insisted.

  “Where?” I asked on behalf of my brother.

  “Time for his shower,” said my father, defiantly meeting my eye.

  Mikey stood, the condemned boy whose sister did nothing to stop it, and dragged his feet down the hall to my parents’ bedroom. My father followed. I followed.

  I listened outside my parents’ door. I heard the shower come on. I heard the two of them talking, then the shower door opening and closing, and from then on their voices were muted.

  I stood there frozen by my own fear. I stood mute, knowing I should scream or call the police or call my mother or do something.

  When the shower shut off I hurried back to the family room. Mikey came in a few minutes later. His wet hair stood on end. He wouldn’t meet my eye.

  My little brother depended on me. Who else was going to take care of him now? And I had failed him utterly.

  What should I do? Call 911? And then what? Police here, forcing Mikey to make a confession, forcing me to tell what I knew, and if all went well, our father being taken away in handcuffs while Mikey and I sat orphaned trying to figure out how we’d buy our groceries.

  I hated my mother so much at that moment. None of it would have happened if she had kept her skirt down. And now she was off enjoying her new life with her spectacular new lover, secure in the knowledge that her sixteen-year-old daughter could manage every duty of the household, including separating the men from the boys.

  I hated my father most of all. What would he say if I confronted him? Sodomy is a word in the Bible—that means I can use it.

  After a while Mikey put himself to bed and I should have gone in with him. I should have sat on his bed next to him and said, “This is wrong, Mikey. I’m taking you away.”

  But instead I retreated into my own cowardice. I hid in my room and slipped a chair under the knob of my door and lay on my bed knowing I was the worst sister mankind had ever created.

  [4]

  I couldn’t tell Posie. I just couldn’t.

  Either thing.

  Not about Jason—I knew she’d be disappointed in me. She has such high standards.

  And I c
ouldn’t tell her about my father and Mikey, either.

  There are friends you have who you know are better than you. They just are. Maybe they’re better looking or better at sports, but you know in your heart they’re superior to you in some way.

  Posie is good at morals. She kicks my ass at morals. They come as easily to her as physics comes to Jason.

  Posie will never have to worry about whether she should lie to advance her career or cheat to get a higher score on a test. It won’t even enter her mind. When you’re Posie, the world is black and white. Decisions are easy. You know what’s right and you go for it.

  And in my case, she’d know exactly what was right. You call the police. No hesitation whatsoever.

  In Posie’s world, it would all work out no matter what. Those things I was worrying about? My father going to jail and how we’d support ourselves and all that? Not even an issue. You start by doing the right thing, Posie would argue, and everything else will magically fall into place.

  And maybe she’s right. I like to think she’s right. But some of us are just too weak and lack her superior faith.

  And so we fudge it. We try to manage things ourselves. And that’s what I was doing.

  If I told Posie, I wouldn’t have a choice anymore. But if I kept it secret, I could try to handle it myself.

  Thinking you can handle it yourself? Always—hear me?—ALWAYS a mistake.

  The Watchmen Guard In Vain

  [1]

  Psalms isn’t my favorite book in the Bible—I want stories, not just poems—but there are lines here and there that stick with me and that mean something at different times.

  Psalm 127 is one of Solomon’s. It isn’t sexual, like the Song of Songs, which is quite beautiful in parts although it was never taught in church because it was so scandalous.

  Psalm 127 goes like this:

  Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.

  Except the Lord watch over a city, the watchmen guard in vain.

  In vain do you rise early, toiling for your food,

  For while they sleep the Lord provides for those he loves.

  It means, I think, that whatever you do needs the blessing of God for it to succeed. I can struggle and sweat and burn out every ounce of energy, but if the project isn’t approved, nothing I do will matter.

  It creates a problem. On the one hand, you think, “Everything is preordained, so why bother striving for anything?” On the other hand, you realize that striving for something might be exactly the piece that’s needed, and without that you might never know what good things await you. In other words, God helps those who help themselves, and although he knows ahead of time which efforts and which people will succeed, it is exactly those efforts by those people which cause the thing to come about as planned.

  In other words, I had to do something, and I prayed that I was right.

  [2]

  Here was my strategy:

  Remember how my mother had used me as a human chastity belt? Why couldn’t I do that for Mikey?

  So I started hanging out in his room every night, playing video games with him, doing my homework, generally keeping watch.

  And it seemed to work. No tandem showers, no underwear wrestling, nothing out of the ordinary.

  And it was actually nice to be with my brother. I don’t think we ever spent that much time together. We brought out Monopoly and chess and a deck of cards and amused ourselves many nights in a row.

  I kept waiting for him to tell me. “Dad’s touching me. Dad’s scaring me.” Whatever it might be. But he talked about day camp and his friend Cort’s chameleon and the new Space Chargers movie that was supposed to come out in a few weeks.

  My father knocked on Mikey’s door every night and stuck his head inside.

  “Good night, kids.”

  “Good night,” I answered with a smile. I had him. It was working. He wouldn’t get by on my watch.

  Silly, silly girl.

  [3]

  I’ve always found that if your life is hurtling out of control, it’s best to bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

  I’m serious. I don’t know where I learned that—probably from my mother when I was little—but it really seems to do the job.

  So that’s what I did. When I came home from summer school that Friday, I set up my mixing station and went to work.

  And like a cartoon stream of smoke, where it turns into a finger and beckons you to follow, the scent of baking cookies coiled out of the kitchen into Mikey’s room and brought him straight to me.

  He stood in the doorway to the kitchen and didn’t speak at first. Then he burst into tears.

  “Honey, what’s wrong?” I asked, dashing to his side. I hugged him and patted his back while he wept the way he hadn’t in years. “Honey, tell me.”

  “I miss Mom,” he croaked.

  “Oh, honey,” I soothed, “poor Mikey.” I hugged him to me like a baby, and it felt good to be close to him.

  He continued to cry even when it seemed he might stop.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Tell me.”

  His voice warbled. “No.” He swiped his sleeve over his eyes and pulled himself together.

  I let him go but not entirely. “You should tell me,” I encouraged, even though telling was the very thing I was wrestling with myself.

  “No. Never mind.” He turned toward his room. I let him go.

  When the first sheet was cooled I brought him four warm cookies and a glass of milk. He sat on his bed working a handheld video game. I sat beside him and propped myself against the wall.

  “I can kill him if you want,” I started in, hoping, I think, to make him smile or at least react.

  “Who?”

  “Dad.”

  “Why?” Mikey asked.

  I left it alone. Obviously he didn’t want to talk to me about it.

  Mikey took a cookie from the plate and dipped it in the milk.

  “You want to tell me why you were crying?” I tried.

  Mikey shrugged.

  “Come on. You can tell me.”

  Mikey shook his head.

  I was really desperate now. “Should I call Mom for you?”

  “I don’t care.” Mikey finished the last cookie and wiped his hand on his pants. He picked up his video game again, but didn’t look at it. He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.

  A tear slipped out, but just one. “I don’t like it here,” Mikey whispered.

  I caught my breath. The moment was as fragile as a spider’s web. “Why?”

  Mikey shrugged. The thin filament snapped. “I just don’t.” He went back to his game.

  I sat with him a few more minutes thinking my own part. Then I patted his leg and stood up and went to the door without looking back and I said, “Okay. Thanks for telling me.”

  [4]

  It wasn’t Mikey’s fault what happened.

  My father did it out of frustration, I think, because for over a week I had stood between him and his boy, and the pressure was building.

  “Lizzie, time for bed,” my father said that night. “I want to talk to your brother.”

  “No.” I stayed where I was on Mikey’s bed.

  “No? I told you to get out, young lady. Now go.”

  I tried not to let him see I was nervous. “Why? What do you want him for?”

  “It’s none of your business. Go to your room.”

  My voice cracked. “You’re sick. Stay away from him.”

  My father stiffened, as shocked as I was that I had spoken so directly. “I’m sick?”

  “Yes.”

  And something broke in him.

  “I’m sick?” he taunted. He strode over to me and poked me in the arm. Hard.

  “Stop it.”

  “Is this sick?” He poked the other arm, then the first, then one after the other, back and forth, like plucking out a tune on the piano.

  “Stop it!” I jumped to my feet. My father f
ollowed me into the hall, prodding me in the back all the while.

  “Am I sick? Am I sick?”

  I raced toward my bedroom. My father followed fast. “Sick?” he kept shouting, and there was a cry at the end of his voice. “Sick? Your father’s sick?”

  I leapt into my room and tried to hold the door against him.

  “Sick? Is this sick?”

  “Stop it!”

  He burst through and I fell back and he pinned me to the floor.

  “Get off me! Get off!” I was white hot with fear, terrified of how far he might go.

  He ran his hands wildly, maniacally, up and down my body, speeding over breasts and face and groin and legs and every inch of me while I screamed hysterically for him to stop.

  He was possessed. His eyes were huge and the whites showed around the pupils and his hands flew like a concert pianist’s and he ran his dry raspy hands all over my face and body and I had to smell them and feel them and see them touching me and I screamed and screamed until no sound would come out, and then finally for no reason he stopped.

  “Don’t EVER!” he shouted, jabbing his finger into my chest, “tell me what to do again! You are MY daughter!” His face was crimson, the veins in his neck distended. “You WILL NOT!” He grabbed my arm and wrenched it, tearing my flesh with his fingers. He gaped at me, spittle glistening in the corners of his mouth.

  His face contorted like I had never seen and he closed his eyes and cried out, “How can you do this to me?”

  Then he jolted to his feet and stormed out of the room and left me shaking in horror on the floor.

  He slammed his own bedroom door. Thank God he didn’t go back to Mikey. I wouldn’t have had the strength to stop him.

  I disintegrated. I sobbed and frantically wiped his fingerprints from my face. I ran to the bathroom to take a hot washcloth to my skin. I scrubbed until my face ached. It still wasn’t enough. I rubbed soap into my skin everywhere he had touched and I left it there to dry before washing it away. If I could have taken a blow torch to my skin I would have. No one had ever touched me like that. Ever. And the fact that it was my father—

  A timid knock on the bathroom door. I froze.

  “Lizzie?”

  It was Mikey. I flung the door open.

  “Are you okay?” he whispered.