The Perfect Little Lie

by Madyson Grey

  When she was all through with that chore, she went in search of Lena. She found her upstairs cleaning the hall bathroom. When asked, Lena admitted to having already cleaned the master bath and Victoria’s bathroom.

  “After you finish here, would you like to go to town with me and shop for a new dress for you to wear to our wedding?” Victoria asked.

  “Oh, honey, that would be so nice,” Lena said. “I’ve been fretting about what to wear. You know, I never go anywhere fancy, so I don’t have anything really nice to wear.”

  “We’ll stop in and see Mother for a few minutes, too, while we’re out. OK?”

  “Sure. I guess I should go in and see her, too. I really am not holding a grudge against her for hitting me. I’m sure she wasn’t in her right mind.”

  “I’m not sure she’ll ever be in her right mind again,” Victoria said in a hopeless tone of voice.

  “You never know,” Lena said. “She may come out of it at some point.”

  “What do you have left to do in here?” Victoria asked.

  “The toilet and the floor are all. I’ll be through in ten minutes,” Lena said. “Less if you get out of my way.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Victoria replied with a salute. “Getting out of your way, ma’am.”

  “Go on, you silly girl,” Lena laughed.

  Victoria ducked out of the way as Lena shooed her away. She went to her bedroom to get ready to go to town. She would be glad to get all her stuff moved back down here from Seattle. She hadn’t brought all that many clothes with her, not intending to stay long. In fact, while Lena shopped for a dress, she would look for something to wear after the wedding. She was even debating on jeans. Not just any old pair of jeans, though. Some fancy ones with rhinestone decorations. She would see what caught her eye.

  She wished she knew where they were going for their wedding night, so she would know how to dress. She had even toyed with the idea of putting her wedding dress back on after their picnic to wear to their wedding night destination. She would only be getting to wear it for about thirty to forty-five minutes at the most. That didn’t seem fair. But she sure didn’t want to risk getting ketchup on it, or chocolate frosting.

  When Lena was ready to go, they locked up the place and headed for the hospital first. Victoria wanted to get that over with first. She didn’t really want to go, but thought it was her duty. Besides, she was curious to know what her mother’s condition would be today. When she and Lena walked into her room, they were surprised to see her in an upright position in the hospital bed.

  “Hello, Mother,” Victoria said as she neared the bed. “How are you feeling today?”

  Marian looked at Victoria and then at Lena, who was a few steps behind Victoria.

  “Dreadful. Just dreadful,” Marian moaned. She wasn’t fully alert, but she wasn’t nearly as sedated as she had been.

  “What’s wrong?” Victoria asked in an innocent tone.

  “I feel awful, but the stupid doctors won’t do anything for me. And just look at this! I’m handcuffed to the bed. Of all the nerve! Some idiot cop out there says that I assaulted Lena and then kidnapped some woman down at your father’s office building. I did no such thing, did I, Lena?”

  Marian sounded totally disgusted and indignant that anyone could treat her in this manner. Lena looked helplessly at Victoria, not knowing what to say. She wished she’d never come into this room.

  “I’m afraid you did, Mother. You hit Lena hard enough to crack her skull. She’s been in the hospital until yesterday. And you went to Daddy’s office building and took his secretary hostage while holding Rafael Rivera at gunpoint,” Victoria said quietly, yet firmly.

  “I did not!” Marian said, raising her voice. “If I had gone down there, like you say, I would have shot that lying thief that stole my business right out from under me. Your father was stupid enough to let him do it, too.”

  Marian was on the verge of yelling at this point. Officer Adams opened the door just far enough to look in and make sure that Victoria and Lena were all right.

  “You get me out of this place, Victoria, and do it now. I will not spend one more minute chained to this bed like a common criminal,” Marian yelled.

  “I’m sorry, Mother, I can’t do that,” Victoria said calmly. “You are under arrest for the things that you did the other day.”

  “I said get me out of here and do it now, Victoria! You will do as I say, or you will be sorry,” Marian screamed.

  At this point the officer entered the room and told Victoria and Lena that they should leave. But they were already of that mind and were backing away from the bed. Marian was mad. Angry, yes, but insane mad, too.

  “Victoria, you get back here. Don’t you walk out on me when I’m talking to you.”

  The two women turned and fled from the room, the officer right behind them. Just as they were leaving the room, a nurse came to see what all the yelling was about. Victoria briefly explained to her that her mother was yelling at her to get her out of there.

  “I’m going to call her doctor, because he needs to see this,” the nurse said. She pulled a cell phone from her scrubs pocket and pushed one button.

  “Yes, Dr. Cole,” she said. “Mrs. Thornton is having an episode that I think you should come and witness.”

  Pause.

  “OK.”

  “He’ll be here in just a minute if you’d like to wait,” she said.

  “Thanks, I think I will. I’m interested to know what he thinks,” Victoria said.

  It was only a minute or two until a short, middle-aged, balding man dress in a casual suit came walking down the hallway toward them.

  “I’m Dr. Cole,” he said to Victoria and Lena. “And you are?”

  “I’m Victoria Thornton, Marian’s daughter. This is Lena Petersen, our housekeeper and friend,” Victoria said.

  “What just happened here to set Mrs. Thornton off?” The doctor asked.

  “We went in to see how she was doing and she started by telling me that she was chained up like a criminal because she supposedly assaulted Lena here, and some others at my dad’s office building. I told her it was true. Then she demanded that I get her out of here, and when I refused, she started going off on me,” Victoria explained.

  “I see,” Dr. Cole said. “So either she really doesn’t remember the assaults, or else she is lying. Do you know which?”

  “Not really, but if I had to guess, I’d say that she’s in denial. Not really lying, because in her mind, if she remembers what she did at all, she feels it was justified. There is much more to her story than just this one incident,” Victoria told him.

  “You say this is the woman who she assaulted?” Dr. Cole asked, motioning to Lena.

  “Yes, Mother hit her in the head with a pewter statuette and cracked her skull. She just got out of the hospital yesterday. Her doctor told us that there is no other serious injury,” Victoria said.

  Meanwhile, Marian had changed from yelling for Victoria, to merely screaming.

  “That’s what she was doing the morning before she assaulted Lena,” Victoria told the doctor. “She wanted me to do something that I was refusing to do, so she started yelling at me and ended up just screaming and screaming and screaming until Lena called nine-one-one. The paramedics came and sedated her and put her to bed. I thought she would be out long enough for me to go see her doctor, but by the time I got back with Dr. Stevens, Lena was lying on the floor unconscious and Mother was gone. You probably know the rest.”

  “Yes, and I had heard some of that, too,” he said. “Does she have a history of rage and violence?”

  “Well, kind of, but not to this extent,” Victoria said. “All my growing up years, she would yell at me and slap my face if I didn’t conform to her wishes, but only when my dad wasn’t home. She never would hit me when he was home. I think she knew better. I left home when I was nineteen to go to college in Seattle. I haven’t been home since then until earlier this week when she called to tell me my
dad was dead.”

  Lena spoke up just then.

  “She would yell and scream at me, too, when no one else was around, if I didn’t do something just as she wanted it. Sometimes I would have done something just like she told me to, then later she would yell at me for it. I knew it didn’t make sense, but since it didn’t happen often, I just dealt with it,” Lena said.

  “Do I understand correctly that you think that yesterday your mother confessed to killing your dad?” Dr. Cole asked.

  “Yes,” Victoria replied. “His death has been treated as a suicide, because that was how it looked, until I got to discovering little things that just didn’t jive. I now have a couple of police officers looking into the death as a possible murder. In fact, one of my errands today is to go to the police station and tell the lieutenant what she said. This officer here heard her, too.”

  The doctor looked at the officer for confirmation.

  “Yes, I heard it, and it went into my report last night when I went off duty,” he said.

  “Well, I’ve got to get in there and get her sedated. She can’t keep up this screaming here,” Dr. Cole said.

  “Maybe it would be best if you leave. If your presence sets her off like this, it would be best if you didn’t visit,” the doctor told Victoria. “I am very sorry. I know she is your mother, but we have to do what is best for her.

  “I understand,” Victoria said. “I don’t really want to be around her when she’s like this.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you would,” Dr. Cole said. “If you’ll leave your contact information at the desk, I’ll try to keep you informed on her condition, and when you might be able to see her again.”

  “OK, I will, and thank you, Dr. Cole,” Victoria said.

  With that, the doctor went into Marian’s room, but before Victoria and Lena had gotten ten steps away, he came back out and asked the police officer to come in and hold her down while he gave her the necessary injection. Victoria and Lena paused, waiting for the silence that would indicate that the sedative was kicking in. It came very quickly, so they moved on down the hall to the nurses’ station. Victoria gave the nurse at the desk her name, phone number and email address for Dr. Cole.

  On their way out of the hospital, Victoria told Lena that she hadn’t been aware that her mother yelled at her, too.

  “But, I’m not surprised,” Victoria said, shaking her head. “But I never heard her yell at Daddy. Have you?”

  “No, not really,” Lena said. “I heard her raise her voice to him on several occasions, but I never heard her go off on him like she did you and me. She may have cheated on him, but I think in her own selfish way, she loved your dad and respected him.”

  Their next stop was a shopping area where they spent the next hour looking for a dress for Lena and a going-away outfit for Victoria. At last they were successful on both counts. Lena chose a becoming red dress that Victoria deemed perfect for her red and white color scheme.

  Victoria found a pair of white cotton-and-spandex pants that were decorated with sparkles across the hips and down the outside of each leg. She chose a turquoise top that had butterflies outlined in multicolored sparklies. A new pair of white sandals completed her going-away outfit.

  Rafael called Victoria just as they were leaving the store with their purchases to see what they were doing. He told her that he had an important business meeting/lunch that he had to attend. After they hung up, she asked Lena what she’d like to do for lunch. Lena said she didn’t care, that anyplace Victoria chose would be fine with her.

  After lunch, Victoria drove to the police station where she would find Lieutenant Mobry. She asked him if he had read Officer Adams’ report when he heard Marian talk about accidentally shooting David. He had, and he had nothing new to tell her, so her visit there didn’t take long.

  “So, do we have all our errands accomplished?” Victoria asked Lena when she got back into the car.

  “As far as I know,” Lena said. “I don’t need anything more, that I know of anyway.”

  “Do you want to go home, or do you want to shop some more just for fun?” Victoria asked.

  “I think I’d like to go home now,” Lena said. “My head is starting to hurt, and if you don’t have any chores for me to do, I’d like to go lie down.”

  “Oh, of course,” Victoria said. “I didn’t think. I’m so sorry. There is nothing you need to do the rest of the day. You just lie down and take it easy just as soon as we get home. Is there anything you want from the grocery store? I can run in and get you anything you want.”

  “I don’t know of anything, thanks,” Lena said.

  She rested her head in her hand, elbow on the armrest of the car. She was beginning to feel a bit dizzy, but she didn’t want to say anything to Victoria, because she was sure it would pass.

  When Victoria pulled the car into the garage and stopped, Lena took her things and went straight up to her apartment. Victoria asked her if there was anything at all she could do for her, but Lena said she’d be fine. She just wanted to lie down a while.

  Victoria went in and put her things away, then went back outside to get the mail, hoping the things she ordered for Rafael would be there. Then she realized that it was just the day before that she had ordered them and they couldn’t possibly arrive yet. The days were so full and confusing that it had seemed longer ago than just one day.

  She went into the back yard and opened the tool shed where the lawn mower was kept. She looked it over and fiddled with it a little, and then decided that surely she could mow the lawn. She went inside and changed into an old pair of jeans and t-shirt that she had left here when she moved to Seattle, and found an old pair of sneakers to wear.

  Then she went back outside, rolled the lawn mower out onto the grass in the back yard, and flipped the “ON” switch. The mower roared to life, startling her. She grabbed the handle and started to try to push, but it was hard. She studied the handle apparatus and realized there was a secondary handle, so she pulled it to her and the mower took off under its own power. All she had to do was to hang on and steer. So that’s what she did. All across and around and around the back yard she went, leaving a trail of cut grass blades in her wake.

  Hey, this is kinda fun! She thought to herself. I should do this more often. She soon had the small back yard done and headed for the gate that opened into the front. The front yard was much larger, and by the time she had it barely a third done, she was pooped and thirsty. So she turned off the mower and went in the house for a drink of water. Revived, she went back out and finished the whole thing.

  She stood there at the edge of the lawn and surveyed her handiwork. If only Marian could see me now, she thought. She would come unglued to see me actually getting my hands dirty. It felt good to have done some physical labor for once. She decided that as long as she was able to live in this house, that she would mow the lawn. Sure, she was tired. She wasn’t used to doing this kind of work, but it was a good feeling, too. A feeling of accomplishment. The same feeling she had in the art museum when she had moved things around to create a new exhibit. It felt good to be out of doors, too. Wow! I’ve just learned something new about myself, she mused. I never imagined that I would enjoy working outside, but this was fun.

  Not that she’d never done anything outside before, but she had never had to work outside. Heretofore, her outside activities revolved around play—recess as a child, swimming, tennis, walking on the beach—that kind of thing. But to do something actually useful and necessary outside was a new experience for her, and one that she vowed to repeat.

  She rolled the lawn mower around to the back and put it away in the shed. She had no clue that she should clean the caked grass out from underneath the mower, and check the gas tank. So she just put it away as is. She looked around the yard to see if anything else needed attention. The rose bushes were full of dead flowers, so she went back in the shed to look for gloves and clippers, both of which she readily found.

  She took a la
rge, empty plastic bucket from the shed to put the dead flowers in. There were fifteen rose bushes around the back yard fence line that had been her dad’s pride and joy. Often, when he would come home from a hectic day at the office, he would go into the back yard and walk around and admire the roses. Sometimes he would trim them, but mostly the gardener took care of them.

  Now, as Victoria dead-headed the bushes, she cried a little for her daddy. She wondered how long it would take until she could think of him like this without crying. It took her over an hour to complete the task at hand. She was putting the trimmings into the recycle barrel when Lena came out to find her.

  “What are you doing out here, little missy?” Lena asked. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “No, hadn’t thought about the time,” Victoria answered. “What time is it?”

  “It’s nearly five o’clock,” Lena said. “I’m surprised that Rafael isn’t here by now.”

  “I had no idea it was so late,” Victoria said. “I’ve been working out here and actually enjoying myself. I had no idea that yard work was so pleasant. Looky here—I mowed the lawns, front and back!”

  “Good grief! So you did,” Lena exclaimed. “Whatever got into you, child?”

  “Well, I saw that it needed to be done and figured I could do it if I could just figure out how to start the lawn mower. When I figured that out, the rest was easy. And I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed speculating on what Mother would think if she knew what I was doing. That was the best part,” Victoria said with a mischievous grin.

  “Your mother would come unglued to see you out here getting dirty and ‘engaging in activities unbecoming to a girl of your station’,” Lena said, mocking words that she’d heard Marian say dozens of times.

  Victoria laughed out loud at that, remembering all the times she’d heard those very words when Marian disapproved of something that Victoria wanted to do.