The Good Lie

by Robin Brande

  Please. I looked it up myself when I got home. It means extravagant or lavish. If you’re going to teach Sunday school it pays to have your head out of your butt. Children are depending on you.

  The phone rang at Posie’s house early Sunday morning, two days after the custody hearing.

  It was my mother. “Your father’s had a setback. They thought we should come down.”

  “A setback?”

  “The doctor said they released him yesterday, but then your father came back around midnight—”

  “What, did he really manage to have a heart attack this time?” I sneered. After that tricky business with his lawyer and Tessa, I’d had just about enough of my father’s antics.

  “Yes, he did,” my mother answered.

  I felt only annoyance. “So what’s wrong with him?”

  “They had to shock him a little while ago. That’s when the hospital called me. I suppose your father listed me on the intake form.”

  One big happy normal family.

  I sighed. “I’ll come when I can. Give me the room number.”

  “What’s wrong with your father?” Mrs. Sherbern asked when I hung up.

  “Another fake heart attack.” I didn’t mention the part about the doctors having to shock his heart to restart it. “Another ploy.”

  When she dropped me off at the hospital, Posie told me, “Be brave,” for the second time in forty-eight hours. I was tired of being brave. I was ready for some rest and relaxation.

  I trudged toward the elevators and then through the maze of hallways, my eyes ever lifted to follow the misleading signs. Finally I found the appropriate wing and then the appropriate door.

  Thanks to all the turmoil of Friday, I hadn’t slept very well the past two nights. My eyes felt dry and gritty as cornmeal. I sank against the wall beside my father’s hospital room door and took a moment to get into character before making my entrance. What was my role? The Prodigal Daughter—one who goes away and comes back? The traitor? The outcast? The cause of all this? Or just another player in a twisted family saga?

  My mother stood next to his bed, dear God, holding his hand. My father’s thumb caressed her knuckles like a lover’s. The machine behind him pulsed and beeped.

  Mikey stood off a bit from the foot of the bed, uncertain, it seemed, whether he could catch whatever my father had.

  All eyes turned to me, unfortunately. My father smiled weakly. “Lizzie.” He held out a hand for me.

  I kept my distance and stood near Mikey.

  My father sighed in that overly dramatic way that always robbed me of whatever natural sympathy I might have. “Guess the Lord is calling me home,” he said. He squeezed my mother’s hand and searched her eyes. “But now I’m happy again. My family is here.”

  I had to fight mightily not to roll my eyes. I was stern, businesslike. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t think so,” he answered. “Not this time.”

  “That’s the spirit,” I said.

  “Come here, Lizzie, come closer where I can see you.”

  “I’m sure you can see me fine.”

  “Lizzie,” my mother scolded, “your father is sick. He wants to talk to you.”

  With no help coming from anywhere, I gave in and moved a few steps forward.

  “Closer.” He reached out his hand for me. “Come here, Lizzie.”

  Is it wrong to say that the thing I dreaded most was not his dying, if that should come one day, or whatever sappy, sickening thing he might say to me just then, or my own guilt for perhaps causing him to have what might have been a heart attack—none of those bothered me nearly as much as the idea of letting him touch me. After everything that had happened, it was the last thing I wanted—to have him seductively stroke my hand the way he was doing to my mother. Besides that, did anybody really think I was going to forget everything my father had done, and suddenly rush into his arms crying, “Daddy!”?

  He held his hand up an excruciatingly long time so there was no mistaking what a terrible person I was for not taking it. Everyone in that room knew. I could have done it for Mikey’s sake, to look good in his eyes, but even that wasn’t incentive enough. I crossed my arms over my chest and tried not to sound bitchy as I asked, “What?”

  “Your father wants to tell you something,” my mother repeated.

  “Yeah, I heard. So what is it?”

  “I forgive you, Lizzie.”

  “Great, thanks.” I turned and took a step toward the door.

  “Lizzie, don’t leave this room,” my mother said. “You’ll regret it.”

  “I’m sorry you’re sick,” I told my father. “I’m sure you’ll get better. There—can I go?”

  My father smiled paternally—that expression that said, “She’s a handful, but she’s mine”—and told me, “That’s all right. I understand. I just wanted you to know.”

  How dare he be so Christian! So humble and forgiving and yet so manipulative? I wasn’t the one who needed forgiveness. He should be begging for it from Mikey.

  “I haven’t slept,” I said to no one in particular. “I need to go.”

  “Just a kiss?” my father begged me. He pointed to his cheek.

  It was a disgusting request, considering, but it had the benefit of renewing my righteous indignation. “Nice try,” I muttered, and no one tried to stop me as I left.

  Outside the sick room there were other families on their way to or from consoling their own fallen comrades. It must be a scene played out thousands of times every day all around the country, I thought, this attempt at reconciliation after someone’s brush with death.

  I waited at the bus stop halfway hoping that my mother would show up with her car. I boarded the bus and rode it as far as I could toward Posie’s, then took a transfer and rode some more. It was a little before ten when I finally walked into her house.

  Mrs. Sherbern was nice enough to make us all eggs and bacon. After what I’d been through the past few days, I needed more fat and cholesterol in my diet. It calmed me down. In fact, it knocked me out.

  I took a long hot shower and changed into sweat pants and a T-shirt, then climbed into bed for a nap. When I awoke to Posie jiggling my arm I thought it might still be morning, but it was already past noon.

  “Your father died,” she said simply. No need to embellish that.

  I stared at her for a moment with my eyes leaking. I shut them to reset the scene. “No, see this is what happened,” I wanted to tell her, “I slept in this morning and you finally woke me up and told me I’ve been dreaming all this time. None of this is real.”

  I curled beneath the covers and Posie stroked my arm over the blanket once or twice, then she padded out of her bedroom and closed the door behind her.

  And the date? I kid you not.

  April 23rd.

  [2]

  A few hours later I faced my mother. And my little brother.

  “You were awful, Lizzie, just awful,” my mother upbraided me. Her eyes were slits behind puffy lids. “All he wanted was to hold your hand!”

  “Mom . . . Mom.” She was too distracted by her anger to hear me. “I didn’t know he was going to die—he’d already faked it a couple of times.”

  She shook her head mournfully. “You should have seen him after you left—just devastated.”

  What parallel universe was this? Just days ago we had been celebrating victory over our tormentor. Now he was a saint? I felt bad—don’t get me wrong, I honestly did—but I didn’t think I deserved the lashing.

  “What about you?” I said.

  “What about me? I was there, at his side.”

  “If he had lived were you going to get back together? You were certainly acting like it.”

  “You can show compassion, Lizzie—that’s what I was doing. He understood nothing had changed.”

  “You’re sure of that? Because from what I saw, there was a lot of romance in that room.”

  “Lizzie, don’t be crass.”

&
nbsp; “I’m serious, Mom. The way he was holding your hand and looking at you, I’m sure he thought he was home free.”

  “He just wanted his family around him,” my mother said. “Can’t you understand that?”

  “Sure. The wife who left him, the girl he’d molested when she was little, the boy—” I paused and looked at Mikey. I didn’t want to ignite another round of denial. I went with, “The boy he mistreated.”

  Mikey sat on the couch with his knees drawn up into his chest. He alternated between burying his head behind his legs and watching my mother and me go at it. He wasn’t crying, which was good. From the looks of his eyes, I knew he had been.

  “Look, I’m sorry, all right?” I was on the verge of tears myself. I hadn’t come there to be accused. I thought maybe my mother had been feeling like I did—bewildered, astonished, needing to talk to someone about what it all meant.

  My mother bawled into her hands. “He was a good man!”

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “Don’t start that. Don’t pretend that none of this happened.”

  She jerked her head up and glared at me. “You are a hard-hearted girl, aren’t you? I don’t know how you got this way.”

  “How I got this way?” I laughed cruelly. “How about my mother leaving me alone with a pervert? Let’s start with that.”

  “Shut up, Lizzie,” Mikey muttered from the couch. “Dad’s dead.”

  “I know, Mikey, but let’s not pretend that Mother really loved him and we’ve all been getting along. This last year has been hell.”

  “That’s why he’s dead,” my brother answered matter-of-factly. “You killed him.”

  I stared at him, stunned. Had he really just said that? Did he really believe that?

  Now I was crying, too. “That’s great, Mikey. I’m supposed to feel guilty now because our father was a child molester and I called him on it—is that it?”

  “He wasn’t a child molester!” Mikey shouted.

  It was useless. Here in the House of Mourning a man had been remade. I came there with a heavy heart, ready to say I did feel bad—terribly bad—for some of the things that had happened, including that last scene in the hospital. But they sucked that sentiment right out of me by pretending nothing was what it was. I couldn’t grieve here or even think straight. I needed more open minds.

  I tried to patch it up a little before I left, but the two of them clung to their dark moods. I thought about taking the bus back to Posie’s right away, but I was in such a foul mood I couldn’t wish myself on her or her mother. They had done enough for me. It was time I did for myself.

  It was Sunday afternoon and the churches were still in business, but I had no home there. If Posie were still a Catholic I might have asked her to take me to hers. I needed something, the way my body craves cookies before my period. But this time it was my heart feeling empty. Where do you go to fill that?

  Strangely enough, you go to bed with a boy.

  A Promise Kept

  [1]

  I had no guarantee he’d be home. I had no idea what his habits were. Who was his girlfriend these days? Did they go out Sunday afternoons?

  “Hi,” I said when he answered, and he looked better than I thought he did. Thick unruly hair that looked like it hadn’t been combed all day, ratty white T-shirt, baggy blue gym shorts. The sly half-smile I had come for.

  “My dad died.”

  “When?”

  “This morning.”

  Jason did just what I hoped. He folded me into his arms and stroked my back and kissed my hair. One of the nice things about a guy like that is you don’t have to tell him why you’re there or what you want. You don’t have to humiliate yourself by asking.

  He took me downstairs to the basement he had hijacked for his room. His bed was sloppy with sheets pulled out of their tuck and pillows strewn about, and it smelled of dirty feet, sweat, boy juice, and it was the Garden of Eden as far as I was concerned.

  We melted onto his bed the way they do in movies with the awkward steps in between edited out. He left all my clothes on at first because he remembered the rules well and wasn’t sure how far I wanted him to go in this special time of grief.

  He had no such hesitation himself. Off came his shorts and his T-shirt and I was looking at his fully erect penis and there was something warm and safe about it as I wrapped my fingers around it.

  He moaned contentedly and I was happy I was there. It was so easy to lose time this way. We kissed and explored and eventually he removed my shirt. I had to tell him, “The bra, too.” I sucked in a breath as the clasp gave way and I spilled out of the tight binding lace.

  “Beautiful,” Jason murmured, and God, I wanted to hear that.

  I didn’t want to think too much. I knew at some point I would stop him, but for now I wanted whatever he wanted to do. I had never been exposed to a boy. Never felt a mouth on my bare breast. Certainly never felt fingers searching me through the cloth of my shorts, then up underneath the shorts where the territory was uncharted and moist and perhaps even willing.

  “Do you like this?” he asked as he found a certain spot.

  I nodded and kissed him deeper. I didn’t know how long you could hang on to a boy’s member before it discharged in your hand. Jason corrected my rhythm once, and I took it from there.

  I loved his body, all six feet one inch of sticky, sweaty, salty flesh. I loved that he knew what to do with his hands. I appreciated that he didn’t expect me to know anything at all, and he was gentle in his instruction.

  “That was good, what you just did,” he’d say, or “too much—lighten up.”

  I was hungry for him and didn’t know how to pace myself. I wanted to be on top of him and beside him and through him all at the same time. I wanted to smash my body up against his and have all of me touching all of him, but Jason had the sense not to allow it until he was certain I knew my mind.

  “I have condoms,” he whispered, “are you ready?” And that shocked me out of my dream.

  “Uh . . . no, I . . . Jason, I’m not sure—”

  “Sshh, sshh.” He kissed my mouth apart. “You tell me when. I’ll hold off.” He moved my hand away. “So save it.”

  I realized what he meant and knew I had to come clean. “I don’t think I can. I mean, I like all of this—”

  He cupped a breast and tickled it with his tongue. “You like this?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. I held his head there and shifted my hips upward because no matter what I thought, I wanted more than I was getting.

  “You like this?” He trailed his hand across my crotch.

  I angled my pelvis against his and felt his thickness pressing back at me. “You don’t know how much I wish I could.”

  “Then do, Lizzie. It’s okay.”

  I shook my head and thought I might cry if I weren’t careful. “I don’t want to,” I repeated. “I do, but I don’t.”

  “Your choice,” he said, and he proved he meant it. He moved my hand back into position and encouraged me to stroke. Within moments he had exploded in happy release. I was still all bunched up.

  “You want to try?” he offered. He slipped his fingers inside my shorts and expertly maneuvered.

  “No,” I answered shyly after a few moments. “I don’t know how, and it’ll take too long.”

  “No, it won’t.” He went back to work, but I was too tense to enjoy it. I gently but firmly removed his hand and threaded my fingers through his. I kissed him long and passionately. I could have told him I loved him and it would have been true in that moment.

  “I’m really tired,” I said.

  “Go to sleep.” He positioned my head on his chest and covered us with the sheet. He flicked off the light and I slept not knowing whether it was day or night, and grateful to be kept in the dark.

  [2]

  He awoke me with kisses and we carried on as if we hadn’t stopped. I let him take off my shorts and get me down to my underwear this time, but the result was still the same. The virgi
n mind can be a powerful force. I can’t tell you how good it would have felt to let him slip inside me and fill me up and make me forget everything that had happened up at ground level so many hours ago, but unless I cut off my head, my body wasn’t going to have its way.

  I learned to like the smell of unwashed boy. Scents I would have recoiled at before—perspiration, bad breath, rancid socks, month-old sheets—created a musky backdrop to these pleasure-filled hours. I didn’t care how I looked. I didn’t care what sounds I made. Jason wanted me as much as I wanted him, but he retreated when I asked him to, and did it with a sexy, remorseful smile.

  “When you change your mind you should let me be first,” he said. “I’d make it nice for you.”

  I believed it whole-heartedly.

  I began to question myself. What, exactly, was I waiting for? Was this just some stupid, girlish rule? Did anyone really care whether I was virgin anymore? The church had thrown me out, my parents were either dead or adulterers, and who said my future husband would even want a virgin? Wouldn’t he rather have someone experienced? I could learn from a master and be ready when my true love arrived. As far as I knew Posie had never gone this far with Jason. If she had, wouldn’t she give in?

  And then I thought of her coming into her bedroom with her shirt torn and Brett’s blood on her chest, and I knew without a doubt what I should do. Maybe nobody else cared, but Posie still did. And so did I.

  I helped him climax one more time, then finally got dressed.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Around nine.”

  “Morning or night?” It was a serious question.

  “Night.”

  His parents were upstairs and they acted like their son hadn’t been holed up for hours with a girl in his room.

  “Hi, Lizzie,” Jason’s mother said. She had met me a few times when I was there picking him up with Posie.

  “Hi.” I fought the urge to adjust my shirt. I didn’t want to act as if I had just put it on.

  Jason’s father called from the kitchen, “Want a snack?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Jason winked at me and led me to the door.