The Darkest Lie

by Pintip Dunn

  I’m so ashamed, Journal. I feel so dirty I could die.

  No more. This is it. I can’t do this anymore. I won’t.

  Pray for me, Journal. I’m going to tell him tomorrow.

  November 3, 1990

  Oh Journal. That didn’t go well. That didn’t go well at all.

  I told him we were done. And he said “no.”

  I stared at him. I mean, how do you say “no”? This isn’t how breakups work. If one person wants out, the relationship’s done.

  Apparently not in his world.

  If I don’t keep doing exactly what I’m doing, he’s going to tell my dad, the administration, the entire student body that I tried to seduce him. That I walked into his classroom, unbuttoning my shirt, hiking up my skirt, showing him my thong.

  And when he turned me down, I got vengeful. Desperate.

  Actions speak louder than words, he said. And he’s got plenty of students who will be his eyewitnesses. Who’ve seen me leaving his classroom at times when I’m not supposed to be there. Who’ve witnessed me dressed like a whore.

  Did I think my life was bad? He can make it so I can’t walk in a room without people hissing. Did I think my classmates saw nothing but my looks? He can confirm to everyone I’m actually the slut they think I am.

  That word again. Every time he says it, his mouth twists into an ugly sneer. A rage leaps into his eyes, and it is so deep, so intense and dark, that it makes me shiver. And I know then that I didn’t cause this. There’s something warped inside him, something that’s been there long before he met me. My flirtation with Billy merely brought it to the surface.

  I’m trapped. Who are they going to believe? Honestly, who? The well-respected teacher everyone loves? Or the girl who looks like an automated sex doll?

  That’s what he’s thought of me this entire time. An automated sex doll. Everything he said, everything I felt—it was a lie. Nothing but a lie.

  “You don’t want to mess with me, Tabitha,” he warned, his features grotesque. I don’t know how I ever thought he was good-looking. “I will ruin you.”

  And then he yanked up my skirt and ripped off my thong and pushed into me right then and there.

  I screamed, but he covered my mouth with his hand. And he said I’d better stop it, bitch. Or next time, he would use duct tape.

  I don’t know what to do, Journal. I just don’t know what to do.

  November 17, 1990

  There’s no escape. I haven’t been to school in two weeks, but he found me anyway.

  He showed up at my house today, the concerned teacher, and told my dad I was skipping school. The entire administration was worried, he said.

  I refused to come out, but my dad let him into my bedroom, anyway. And right there, with my door ajar, with my dad reading the paper in the living room, he made me give him a blow job.

  After he left, I told my dad everything. But the concerned teacher was right. He had prepared his story well. My dad didn’t believe a single word.

  “Now, Tabitha. Be reasonable,” my dad said. “Your lies don’t even make sense. If what you’re saying is true, why would he show up at our house? How could he look me in the eye? He’s a good man, Tabitha, and I will not let you ruin his life with your fantasies.”

  When he said that, I knew. I knew with my mother gone, nobody would believe me. Deep down I’ll always be that girl on the outside. The girl everybody sees.

  I stood in front of the mirror today. No matter how I let my eyes unfocus, no matter how I tilted the mirror to reflect the sun, I couldn’t see her. The real me. She’s gone. He destroyed her.

  When am I going to learn? Like the fabled phoenix he so admires, he will rise from his ashes.

  The phoenix wins. He always, always wins.

  Chapter 31

  That was it. The last entry. No additional notes to me. No explanation how it relates to her death decades later.

  I close the leather-bound journal and push it away. My heart is cluttered, my brain feels soaked. So many emotions crowd inside me I don’t know how to react. How to feel.

  My gut decides for me. I lurch to the bathroom, barely making it in time to empty the entire contents of my stomach into the toilet. I vomit and vomit, until there’s nothing left. Until I move past clear saliva to yellow bile. And still I retch.

  Finally, I collapse on the cool ceramic tile. I don’t know how much time passes before I crawl back to my room. But when I do, my phone pings. My ribs seize, the way they do every time I hear that sound, but it’s only a text from Sam.

  U ok?

  My fingers hover over the screen, but then I grab the phone and toss it under my bed. I want to talk to him, but I can’t. Because this is exactly the angle Sam’s been searching for. So much better than a secret tryst. This is the kind of story over which he’s been salivating. The kind that will win him scholarships and launch his career.

  Which is why I’m not going to tell him.

  I open my notebook, instead, and begin to draw. My mother, of course. All those times I saw her sad. The quiet, quiet tears that slid down her cheeks, for no reason at all.

  At least, no reason I knew about. Until now.

  I draw until my fingers cramp and I feel the ache all the way up in my neck. I draw until the dawn presses around my tightly closed blinds. I draw until I feel sick with fatigue. And still, I don’t sleep.

  Because there’s someplace I need to be. And it’s not here.

  I grab the snow globe, tiptoe down the stairs, and get in my car. I haven’t made this drive since the evening of my mother’s burial, but my hands turn the steering wheel almost by instinct. As if there will always be a direct line connecting my mother and me, no matter where—or in which realm—we are.

  Inside the cemetery gates, a stream of water shoots out of the mouth of a stone angel, and a center island of tiny tombstones commemorates the lives of babies who were taken too soon. Beyond that, rows of gravestones march across the wide expanse of grass, and tall, lush trees offer shade to the cemetery’s permanent residents.

  I park the car and walk to my mom’s grave. It’s not hard to find. More elaborate than the others, and twice as clean. A big, shiny grave marker, devoid of dirt and bird droppings, and a long slab of marble, while most people just have grass. Her picture is set in the center of the headstone, next to the words, “Beloved wife of Peter, devoted mother to Cecilia.” Colorful flowers—two of each—bloom in vases anchored by white stones.

  Two daffodils, two roses, two lilies.

  My mother loved flowers, the variety of them more than a single kind. Her wedding bouquet boasted a dozen different types, with just as many bold, clashing colors. No doubt my father brings her a new bloom every day.

  I sink to my knees in the damp grass and set the snow globe carefully on her grave, where my mom’s picture can see it.

  “Hi, Mom.” The words catch in my throat. It’s not the first time I’ve spoken to her since she’s died, but here, with her decomposing body a few feet underground, her spirit seems stronger. More alive. “I found your journal. And I want you to know . . .”

  My voice breaks. I grip the grass, and chunks of it rip off in my hands. I grab another fistful, but that, too, comes loose. Patches of dirt now show up in the lawn, bald spots on the earth’s scalp.

  I curl my fingers into fists and try again. “I’m so pissed Grandpa didn’t believe you. I hate him for that.”

  But the emotion is useless. He’s long since dead, and there’s no point in hating the dead. And yet: How many times did I hate my own mother? How often did I damn her to hell after the scandal broke? How desperately did I wish I’d had any mother but my own?

  A sharp pain flares in my chest. Because, in the end, I’m just as bad as Grandpa was. I didn’t believe in my mother when it really counted.

  I was so angry at her for lying to me, for keeping her affair with Tommy Farrow a secret. But I know now that those aren’t the darkest lies. The darkest lie is the one we tell our
selves, the one that makes us forget everything we know to be true, the one that makes us doubt something as simple and basic as a mother’s love. This is the lie that changes us, that turns us from someone fearless and strong to someone who cowers and hides and lets others be bullied. This is the lie that’s governed me for the past six months.

  I know the truth now. Perhaps I’ve always known it, but I was too hurt, too betrayed, too resentful to recognize it: My mother is innocent.

  For the first time since her death, I allow myself to think these words. They’ve been creeping up on me for a couple of weeks now, and after reading her journal, I know, at the core of my being, what I should’ve realized from the beginning.

  My mom didn’t commit suicide. She never slept with Tommy Farrow. She wouldn’t have abused a student—she couldn’t have abused anybody. In fact, the reason she spearheaded the crisis hotline was to help others in the same position as her, who have nowhere else to turn. Who had no one else to believe in them.

  The most important thing to Tabitha Brooks was being a mother. She would’ve protected me at all costs. Whatever her faults and depression, her passions and mood swings, she never would have left me willingly. Not after she was deserted by her own mother. Not after she had to muddle through the abusive relationship with her teacher alone. She wouldn’t have wanted that for me. In fact, she would’ve done everything in her power to prevent it from happening.

  “I’m so sorry, Mom,” I whisper. “Can you ever forgive me?”

  But my mom’s not here anymore, and forgiveness is no longer an option. I can no longer absolve my guilt through my mother’s generosity, like I did countless times during my childhood. I need to find another way to make it up to her.

  Water sloshes in a steady rhythm, and I glance up to see my father approaching the grave, holding a rubber squeegee, a partially filled gallon jug of water, and two canary-yellow hibiscus flowers.

  He stops a few feet away. “You’re here.”

  “Yes. I . . .” I swallow and look at my mother’s eyes in the photo, addressing my words to both of them. “I should’ve been here months ago. But that’s going to change now. A lot of things are going to change.”

  He sticks the flowers into a vase and pours the water over the slab. “You’ve always been here. In your heart. I think your mother knows that. That’s why I bring two flowers every day. One from me. And one from you.”

  My heart pinches. I’ve been wrong about so many things. Not only about my mom, but also about my dad.

  “Thank you.” I pick up the squeegee and attack the marble. “And I think you’re right. She does know.”

  “What’s this?” He gestures to the snow globe.

  “It was Mom’s,” I say, my throat tight again. “I don’t know if you remember, but I gave it to her when I was eight years old. She was sad about her mom, and I wanted to remind her that no matter what, we would always be together.”

  “Of course I remember,” he says. “I drove you to the store, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah,” I say softly. “You did.”

  We turn back to our work. I scrub, and my father pours, and together we make my mother’s grave the cleanest in the cemetery. And I know it’s okay my mother’s not here to forgive me. Because I never needed her forgiveness. She always loved me, no matter what. No matter what I did, no matter how I felt. Her feelings for me never wavered.

  There’s only one person from whom I need forgiveness. Myself.

  * * *

  My head aches. My eyelids feel like they’re weighed down by sandbags. But I don’t take a nap when I get home from the cemetery. Because my mother left me her journal for a reason, and I need to figure out why.

  I crawl back into bed and prop myself against my pillows. She was exploited and raped by her high school teacher, but this isn’t about sharing her secret. “Oh dear god, it’s happened again,” she wrote at the bottom of Lil’s entry. “I’m close to getting proof,” she encoded in her message to me.

  Twenty-five years later. Another student, another explicit photo. A cycle of exploitation repeated. What does it mean? How does it all add up?

  Part of me wants to duck under the covers and pretend I never found the journal. But it’s too late now. I can never turn my back on her, ever again.

  So I flip to the beginning of the notebook and read it again, searching for clues. Looking for answers I missed the first time around.

  I find it in the fourth entry. Sitting up straight, I reread the passage.

  It’s like my own delicious secret—OUR delicious secret, mine and his—and somehow this makes what we have even more special. Our love is on a different plane, above and beyond what is felt on this world and so there’s no need to share it with anyone.

  They wouldn’t understand, anyway. They can’t because they don’t know how he makes me feel.

  With him, I feel like I can fly without wings. Breathe underwater. Defy gravity. That’s what his love does for me.

  It makes me invincible.

  The strange words were familiar before, but the alarm bells were ringing too loudly then for me to pay much attention. I frown, racking my brain. I’ve heard these words before. Not from this journal. Somewhere else. From somebody else. Where . . . Who . . .

  When the answer comes to me, the notebook slips through my fingers and falls to the floor. It looks like I’m going to have to tell Sam, after all.

  Because it’s not just a cycle that’s being repeated. Twenty-five years later, my mom’s predator is still around.

  And he’s after Sam’s sister, Briony.

  Chapter 32

  “Let me get this straight.” Sam’s eyebrows shoot above the frame of his glasses half an hour later. “You’re saying your mom’s sexual predator is dating my sister?”

  “Not just any predator, either,” I say. “Maybe also a murderer.”

  I didn’t want to tell Sam about the contents of the journal, but I had no choice. Briony’s life—or at least her integrity—is in danger. I can’t sit back and let the predator have his way because I’m skittish about sharing information. I’m just going to have to trust that Sam is true to his word—that he’s not going to hurt people in order to get a good story.

  Ha. Easier said than done. I may have kissed the boy; I may even be falling for him. Doesn’t necessarily mean I can trust him.

  Around us, the parking lot of the public library is empty, unless you count the bushy-tailed squirrels chasing each other up a tree. In Lakewood, nine a.m. on Saturday is like the crack of dawn anywhere else. Dead as the corpses in Kassel’s funeral parlor. I would know. I spent enough hours there to last a lifetime.

  I take a deep breath. There’s that pesky trust issue swimming laps around my stomach again. “I don’t think my mom committed suicide,” I force myself to say. And once I start talking, the words continue to roll out, almost at their own volition. “I think she stumbled across her former predator and threatened to expose him and his pornography ring. And then he killed her to keep her quiet.”

  He frowns. “What about Tommy Farrow?”

  “He was lying, pure and simple.”

  “And you think my sister’s involved in this? Oh, jeez.” He rubs his temples, as if that alone can protect him from what I’m saying. “I don’t get it. She told you she wasn’t seeing an older guy. She said it was disgusting.”

  “Maybe she was trying to throw me off track. Who knows? The thing is, she used the same words to describe her boyfriend. Not the same idea—but the exact same words. What are the chances? Both she and my mom must be repeating what this asshole told them.”

  I hand him the journal, open to the fourth entry. I’ve given him a summary of the other entries, but this part, he needs to see for himself.

  “I don’t actually remember what Bri said,” he admits, after running his eyes over the page.

  “Did you bring the silver cuff?”

  “Yeah.” He fishes the wide metal band out of his backpack. “She’s going t
o kill me when she finds out I took it from her room.”

  “Just return it before she wakes up. Read the inscription on the back.”

  He turns the bracelet over. My midsection flutters, like it’s taking a few test jumps before attempting to fly out of my body. What if I’m wrong? God knows, I’m working on zero sleep. Maybe it’s messing with my memory.

  The squirrels scrabble up one side of the tree, kuk-kuk-kuking at one another. And then down the other side.

  “It’s the same,” he finally says, and my stomach unclenches. “But could they both be repeating a famous quote? Or, I don’t know, song lyrics or something?”

  “I did a search on the Internet. Nothing popped up.”

  He sinks onto the curb, gripping his head between his hands. I know what he’s feeling because I’ve felt it, too. The world turning into quicksand, pulling me under with no branch, no hand, no help in sight.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” I ask softly, sitting next to him. “You can’t run your story about the shed being used as a rendezvous point, not if we’re going to have any hope of catching this guy.”

  He looks up. “Why not? What does a secret tryst have to do with what you’re talking about? My deadline’s in three days. Plus, I’ve got that ridiculous auction tomorrow night, and I still have to write my profile for it.”

  “What if it’s them?” I ask. “Briony and her boyfriend have to be meeting somewhere. It’s possible they’ve been using the old shed. If you publish the article, he’ll know we’re on to him. And we lose every advantage we’ve got.”

  He chews his lip, and I press forward. “For the same reason, you can’t write anything about my mom’s journal.”

  “What would you have me do, CeCe?” he bursts out. “I have to write something, or they’ll fire me.”

  “You could write about our tour of the hotline.”

  He squeezes his eyes shut. “It’s so boring, they’ll fire me anyway.”

  “You told me a week ago that you weren’t going to hurt anyone,” I whisper, my heart swelling like one of those polymer toys that grow in the water. “You said you chose this career to help people, not to kick them while they’re down. Well, I’m telling you right now, if you share the contents of my mom’s journal with anyone, you will hurt me.”