The Good Lie

by Robin Brande

  I didn’t care if my father heard. Screw him. “No, I’m not okay! He’s a sick pervert! Do you understand? HE TOUCHED ME! OH MY GOD HE WOULDN’T STOP TOUCHING ME!” I screamed—SCREAMED—and Mikey backed away because he had never seen me this way before, this way that was finally me and true and honest. I screamed. I was possessed.

  I slammed the door. I stood in front of the mirror and watched myself scream. And then I cried, high-pitched, hysterical, not a cry but a sobbing scream. I thought I would never stop screaming. Never stop crying. I could still feel his hands everywhere—everywhere—inside and out, even places they might not have been.

  When I could breathe again I flung open the door and ran to the phone and dialed: first 91—then hung up before I got to the last number. Then Posie, and hung up. I laid my head against my hand and I tried to think what I should do because now my father was crazy and he would take me there, too. I could feel the hinges coming loose in my head. I didn’t know what I might do. I might kill him. I might go crazy. I might just cry until I died.

  And so I did nothing. Because that is who I am. That is the shame of who I am. I called no one, told no one, did nothing, was nothing.

  “Are you all right?” Mikey asked me later that night, when all was quiet again.

  “No.”

  He sat on the edge of my bed. “What happened?”

  “I told you. I don’t want to talk about it—it makes me sick.”

  Mikey picked at a stray thread on my quilt. “Do you think . . . should you tell Mom?”

  “No. She won’t care.”

  “I’ll tell her if you want,” my little brother offered. My abused little brother.

  “Oh, my God. No.”

  I couldn’t put it off any longer.

  I had to tell her myself.

  Judges

  [1]

  Before there were kings in Israel there were judges—leaders chosen by God to save the Israelites from themselves. The pattern was simple: the Israelites sinned and fell into idol worshipping and debauchery, the enemy overran them and enslaved them, the Israelites cried out to their God for help, and over and over again he sent them a savior in the form of a mighty warrior-judge.

  Samson was a judge. So was Gideon. And Deborah, the only female warrior the Bible talks about. It’s her story I like the best.

  Deborah commands one of her soldiers, Barak, to take ten thousand men and go kick the enemy’s ass. Barak answers, “Only if you go with me.”

  There are two ways of looking at this: either Barak is afraid, and wants the mighty Deborah by his side, or he doesn’t trust her judgment, and wants to see if she’ll put her own life on the line. Whichever it is, Deborah sticks it right back to him:

  “I will go with you,” she says, “but because you asked this of me, the honor will not be yours today, but a woman’s.” You assume she’s referring to herself, but she isn’t.

  Barak and Deborah slaughter the enemy, and only one man escapes—the evil enemy commander Sisera. He flees to the tent of Jael, the wife of a friend of his.

  The Bible doesn’t say why she does it—a lot of times the Bible leaves it up to you to decide why people do what they do. For whatever reason, Jael speaks honey to Sisera and tells him he can hide in her tent. Then she serves him some warm milk and tucks him in for a nap.

  And while Sisera is sleeping Jael takes a tent peg and hammers it into his skull.

  The whole next chapter in Judges is devoted to the Song of Deborah, where Deborah dances around and sings the praises of Jael—she crushed his head, she shattered his temple, she spilled his brains, fa la la. And how’s this for insensitive? At the end of the song Deborah gloats about how Sisera’s mother would have been sitting at her window all day watching for her son, wondering why his chariot is so late in coming. Her handmaidens comfort her: your son must still be dividing the spoils. Maybe he’s still raping the women—he’s a very busy man. He’ll come home from work soon enough, old mother, don’t worry your poor gray head.

  And this is what I think: how sweet that must have felt to Jael. Hard at first to bring herself to make that first blow, driving the tent peg past his skin and skull, but once she began she couldn’t stop or Sisera would wake up and kill her. And when he was dead she must have looked down at him and smiled and praised herself for a job well done.

  I had thoughts like that myself. I thought about cutting off his penis while he slept. Taking the largest knife I could find and stabbing my father first in the heart and then through his groin over and over again without looking at it. Would I go to prison? Would they call that self-defense?

  I thought about how I would feel afterward: scared? Sad? Triumphant? How do you feel when you’ve dipped your hands in blood for a cause you know is righteous? How do you feel when you’ve violated every impulse you’ve ever had, and committed some act of terrible violence? Is there ever a way to feel good about that? Maybe. Maybe.

  I knew I was in the right. The Bible is clear about men lying with men. There is no excuse, no exception for it, no “just this one time.”

  Incest? Well, that gets a pass during times of stress. Lot’s daughters could sleep with their father. Adam and Eve’s children and Noah’s must have had to make do with each other, knowing they were doing God’s will in repopulating the earth. I suppose a man who pored over the Bible like my father did, searching for every single passage on adultery and fornication, might have run across the stories of incest and might have created a rational argument in his favor, but on no account is there any relief in any verse of any chapter saying a father may lie with his son. You get stoned to death for something like that. Good.

  It was Sunday. My father and Mikey were in church—what a joke that was. How could my father sit there and pray as if he hadn’t committed one of the worst sins known to human kind? But then, how did the priests do it, either? No wonder Posie flipped out every time she thought about it.

  I chose my outfit carefully, just like Posie would have. Who did I want to be today? The strong, independent daughter who was handling things quite well, considering? Or the pathetic, forlorn girl who needed her mommy fast?

  I went with jeans and boots and a tank top. The boots to make me feel taller and tougher. The tank top to prove to my mother I wasn’t listening to her anymore. I was going to show some skin. And if I burst into flames from being out in the sun more than ten seconds, oh well. A small price to pay.

  I was ready. I hoped.

  [2]

  I mentally rehearsed my speech to my mother on the bus ride to Mc Donald’s. I thought I might put it like this:

  “Mom, I think something is going on. I need you to come home.”

  Or maybe like this:

  “Things are awful. You have no idea. You have to come back home.”

  Or maybe just:

  “Would you stop being so selfish?! I’m sixteen, for God’s sake! I shouldn’t have to deal with this! Your husband is molesting your son and he tried to molest me! So stop having sex with your boyfriend and come home and clean up your own damn mess!”

  I stepped off at the bus stop. I saw her before she saw me. She sat at an outdoor table under an umbrella, face lightly lit by the sun, everything about her glowing with health and happiness and sex.

  I didn’t realize until that moment how desperately I had been missing her. I missed her voice. Her smell—that mixture of hair gel and moisturizer and whatever she had been cooking that day and some indefinable organic scent that I’d be able to pick out of a scent lineup ten times out of ten. The feeling of her fingers combing through my hair. Her thin strong arms hugging me at night. I wanted to take her back home with me, curl up on the couch, tell her everything that had happened to me since I saw her last, on April 23rd, the worst day of my life.

  And that’s when the blood froze inside me. That’s when I realized I couldn’t forgive her. I couldn’t be happy to see her. I couldn’t give her the satisfaction of having me back the way I used to be.

  “L
izzie!” Her eyes were moist. She moved to hug me and I stiffened. Did she think it would be that easy? She looked pained. Good. Deal with it.

  “How are you?” she asked.

  “Fine.” Except for your pervert husband. Except for the fact that he’s made your children’s lives a nightmare, but I wouldn’t want to bother you with that. How’s tricks?

  “How’s summer school?” she asked.

  “Fine.”

  “What are you taking?”

  “Biology.”

  “Oh. Mikey thought it was Government.”

  “That was first session.” I was trying to use as few words as possible. She didn’t deserve conversation.

  “Oh. How’s Posie?”

  “Fine.”

  “And your writing?”

  “Fine.”

  “Written anything new lately?”

  “No, I’ve been a little too busy taking care of your house.”

  Ouch. Direct hit. Score! Did you see the look on her face?

  “I need something to eat,” I said, and abruptly left the table. Let her stew on that one for a while.

  I went inside and treated myself to a vanilla milkshake and fries, knowing my skinny pretty mother wouldn’t approve. Too bad. I made the rules now.

  I returned to our cozy table outside and proceeded to stuff my face.

  “Honey, I’ve missed you so much.”

  “So, how’s Charles?” I asked. “Good in bed?”

  “Lizzie!”

  “What, too nasty for you, Mother? You’re the one fooling around.”

  She took a deep breath. “I know you’re angry with me—”

  “Why would I be angry with you?” I wanted to hear her say it out loud.

  “How are things, really?” she asked in her most motherly tone.

  I laughed, this fake ugly laugh. “Just wonderful, Mother. What do you think? You left me home to take care of your husband and child. I’m having a great life. Just what every teenage girl could want.”

  “Lizzie, I’m sorry. I know it isn’t ideal, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “How about this?” I suggested. “How about divorcing your husband first, then fooling around? How about telling your children you’re leaving? How about not sneaking out while your daughter is at her prom?”

  “Lizzie, lower your voice.”

  “Why? Are you embarrassed?”

  “No, but I don’t want you to be.”

  “How considerate.” I shoved in half a dozen fries and washed them down with shake. God I love fats and salt when my heart is breaking apart.

  “I knew your father would be ugly when I left,” my mother explained. “I wanted to spare you kids.”

  “Oh, gee, thanks, Mom! Way to look out for us!”

  Unlike me, she was calm and quiet. “Can we talk about this like grown ups?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Since I’m the lady of the house now.”

  My mother sighed. “Please, Lizzie. I want us to be a family again. You and me and Mikey.”

  “And Charles?”

  “No. Not now. I love him and I hope you will some day—”

  “Highly doubtful.”

  “—but I realize it’s much too soon.”

  Chomp, chomp, suck, slurp, everything will be okay. Just keep eating. Don’t look at her. This will all be over soon.

  “I’d like to have you and Mikey over for dinner a few times a week.”

  “Oh, how generous. I’ll tell Mikey.”

  “Lizzie,” my mother pleaded, tears springing to her eyes, “please don’t be this way.” She grabbed one of my napkins and held it to her nose. Good. She should cry.

  But not me. Stuff your face. A little more shake. Keep it all together.

  “Please?” my mother asked. “Will you think about it?”

  “Why should I?” I snapped. “You left me, Mother. I didn’t do anything.”

  “I know, Lizzie. I love you. I’m sorry it turned out this way.”

  As if she didn’t have any choice in the matter. As if she were an innocent bystander.

  “Things with your father—”

  “I don’t want to hear about it.”

  “But you must have seen how bad things were.”

  “Nope. Sorry.”

  “I just want you to understand—”

  “I said I don’t want to know. Leave me out of it.”

  Her mouth grew small. “It’s so easy to judge, isn’t it? Well, maybe one day you’ll understand. I finally feel I’m with the right man. He respects me. Your father never has. For heaven’s sake, we’ve been together since I was a child—”

  And that’s when I got it.

  Oh, my God. I’m so dense sometimes, it’s a miracle I ever learned to read.

  Of course my mother already knew about my father—she had to. Who would know better? She left us alone knowing exactly what he was.

  My mother used to love to tell me the story of how she and my father met. It was at a church picnic. She was there with her parents, and my father was with his. He lived out of state, but had decided to come home for a visit, just for the weekend.

  “It was a fateful day,” my mother liked to say with a smile.

  It sure was.

  I used to think that story was so romantic. There was my father—tall, handsome, twenty-five, just starting out as a broker, on his way to becoming who he would be. He was just the Christian Real Estate Prince back then, but oh, what potential.

  And there was my mother—petite, lovely, “a mature-looking thirteen,” she liked to say.

  Hold it.

  How mature could that be? Fifteen? Sixteen? No matter what she was a child and he was a grown man and he was attracted to her.

  Now I see everything because the universe is circular and a man who is attracted to a child is attracted to children. That’s all there is to it—once a child molester, always a child molester.

  She wasn’t going to help me. Mikey and I were on our own. I should have known that the moment she left us.

  “Will you think about it?” she asked again.

  “What?”

  “Dinner.”

  “I have to go.” I stood up.

  My mother caught my hand. “Lizzie?”

  I shook her loose. “What?”

  “Thank you for coming.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I love you.”

  “Hm.”

  I walked away in a stupor. My brain was worn to the bone. I had come for a solution and left knowing I wouldn’t get one—not there, anyway. Mission unaccomplished.

  There was only one thing to do.

  The thing I should have done in the first place.

  The Sword of the Angel of Death

  [1]

  King David commits a sin which doesn’t seem like a sin at all. I once wrote about it to an online service that answers questions about the Bible.

  “Why was it wrong for King David to count the number of men in his army?”

  “Because it showed pride,” came the answer. “Instead of trusting in God’s strength, he trusted in the strength of his army, and wanted to know how large it was.”

  That still didn’t satisfy me, but I haven’t been able to come up with a better answer yet. I put it to you.

  But let’s assume that was a terrible crime. God thought it was. He offered David three choices for his punishment: three years of famine, three months of fleeing from his enemies, or three days of the sword of the Lord, meaning three days of plague.

  David immediately rejected the three years of famine, because that was too long. And he rejected three months of fleeing from his enemies because, “I would rather trust myself to the mercy of God than the mercy of men.” So God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem with a plague.

  Seventy thousand men fell dead before God couldn’t bear it anymore. He cried out to His angel, “Enough!” Just then David looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth with his sword drawn
and extended over Jerusalem.

  What an awesome moment. Can you imagine? How could you not die of fright? To see a gigantic, glowing angel with a menacing face and his enormous sword stretched out over your kingdom—what a humbling, terrifying moment in a man’s life.

  I understand now how that felt. I was about to summon an avenging angel myself.

  [2]

  I didn’t expect Posie to cry like that. I had only gotten a few sentences into it when her hand flew to her mouth and her eyes squeezed shut and she murmured, “No, no, no . . .” and began to sob.

  And I did, too.

  I tried to tell her the rest but there wasn’t any point. We were both weeping so fiercely I thought our guts would end up on the floor.

  Then her tears cleared and a fire rose in Posie’s eyes. “That bastard.” She picked up the phone and dialed 911.

  “I want to report someone.”

  I grabbed the phone and hung it up. “You can’t, Posie, you can’t. I never would have told you!”

  “You didn’t,” Posie reminded me. “All this time you—”

  The phone rang. You can’t dial 911 and just hang up—they want to know about it.

  “Please, Posie, let’s talk about it first. We have to figure out what to do.”

  Brrrring.

  “I know what to do.” Posie reached for the receiver.

  “There’s more,” I rushed to say. “Let me tell you everything.”

  Posie hesitated, then answered the phone. “No, ma’am. I’m sorry. There’s nothing wrong. I was mistaken.” She listened a few beats more. “I’m alone and I thought I heard a noise outside, but it was just my friend. I’m sorry—I’m fine.”

  Posie hung up and fixed me with a commanding glare. “You’d better tell me everything, Lizzie. I mean it. I can’t believe—” She burst into tears again, and I cried with her and it was hard to say who was more stricken at that moment because Posie knew she would have to act somehow and neither of us wanted that. We were still girls, more in love with the fantasy of life than with real life itself. If the fantasies would all be dark from now on, who wanted to know?

  [3]

  “Hello, my name is Posie Sherbern. May I please speak to Ms. Peligro?”