The Truth Lucy Saw (The Truth Turned Upside Down Book 1)

by Penelope J Bristol

  “Thanks, Luce, that turned out pretty cool, but I thought you were making that one for Finn,” she said.

  Lucy had been making it for Finn, but her heart had wanted to give it to Anne, so she did.

  “I was, but I can make another one. It looks good on you so you can have that one,” Lucy replied.

  Lucy liked how the bracelet looked on her sister and felt proud that she could tie perfect little knots in patterns like the other girls in sixth grade. Life was like this, sometimes offering up unexpected moments that could make you happy or sad with no warning. Lucy watched Anne absently finger the ankle bracelet as she flipped through her magazine, oblivious to the emotions brimming in her little sister’s heart. Lucy counted what was left of her yarn and began again, this time, to make Finn’s bracelet, smiling while she worked.

  As was customary in their home, the sense of calm was merely fleeting. A dark unease pushed its way front and center, as suddenly, John, who was never comfortable with being relaxed, decided to make an important announcement.

  “I wanted to ask both you girls a question,” he said.

  Dianna abruptly turned her body towards John, spilling cold coffee down the front of her robe and cursing at her clumsiness. She watched John intently, seeming to know what was coming. He looked back and forth between all three of them to be sure he had everyone’s rapt, undivided attention.

  “Do you girls ever go inside my work briefcase?”

  The question hung in the air like a storm cloud appearing suddenly, unwelcome and unnerving above a flock of unsuspecting baby ducks.

  “I noticed when I get to work some days; things are in the wrong place or even... missing from my bag,” John paused before saying the word “missing.”

  Anne spoke first, “Are you talking about the leather bag Mom gave you for your birthday? I never go in your stuff; I couldn’t even tell you the last time I have seen that bag.”

  The words, sounding overconfident, dismissive, and incriminating lay in front of them all. No one responded to Anne, but somehow Lucy felt her sister had just made a mistake, although nothing had been admitted or resolved.

  Lucy thought very hard about her dad’s bag and what it looked like and how he hung it up each night in their living room on hooks meant for winter coats and rain jackets. She went into the bag occasionally for ink pens. Pharmaceutical companies were always giving her father ink pens, and Lucy took them often without asking, just to have them.

  Lucy cleared her throat and said, “I get pens out of your bag sometimes, Dad, without asking you. I’m sorry I went into your bag without permission.”

  Dianna sighed and shifted in her chair, looking painfully at Lucy with great disappointment. Lucy felt her face go red, ashamed, and confused; she averted her eyes away from her mother and watched for what might happen next. Her parents looked at each other, and something passed between them that Lucy could not understand. John took a long time to deliver his next line.

  “Some pills were missing from my bag, girls. I double-checked the inventory in the sample closet at work with what I logged into the system, and I am missing three boxes of sleeping pills. Neither one of you took those pills, did you?” he asked.

  The air in the room went thick, and Lucy was shocked silent. She had never had anything so serious asked of her before, and the intensity of it made her mouth gape wide. Anne said nothing, crossing her arms over her chest, staring both her parents straight in the eye. Dianna picked at her robe and waited for something, perhaps to intervene. Lucy debated telling her father that she did not take the pills, but felt like her voice would come out small and raspy, sounding like lies, so she also said nothing. They all looked down for some time, and then, Dianna spoke.

  “You could always recheck John, in your records like you mentioned. It’s highly unlikely the girls took the pills.”

  John’s face twitched for just a second, and then his jaw hardened, and his hands, which had been resting flat on the table, knotted into tight fists. He met Dianna’s eyes across the table and held her steady gaze. Lucy watched and prayed things would not go badly, balling her toes up and contemplating what she could say to slow everything down. Her mind started to produce different scenarios where her dad worked out his frustrations on each one of them until there was nothing left inside the house but dust. But Anne was quick to act, and simply stood up, pushing her chair in quietly. She looked slowly from John to Dianna and back down at the floor.

  “I know what you are trying to say about me, but let me save you some detective work. I never took those pills, and you will never find anything to prove that I did.”

  Her sister’s eyes narrowed, and Lucy watched the sister she loved leave, even before her body did. When she emptied them, Anne’s eyes could look at you and tell you lies, mostly because they didn’t see you anymore. She had mastered the ability to go somewhere else in her mind and rationalize the need to be dishonest when it served her or, at least, not be fully present with her deceptions. Lucy found herself watching her sister’s eyes and waited for the yelling to start.

  “I can’t wait to get out of this sorry-ass family,” Anne screamed, picking up her magazine, and slamming it into the trash can as she stomped out of the kitchen, taking Lucy’s knotted friendship bracelet and pieces of her sister’s heart with her, down the hall.

  6

  Anne

  Anne felt light-headed as she walked down the narrow, dim hall to her bedroom and quickly stepped inside, shutting and locking the door. She sat down on the soft, messy bed and stared hard at herself in the mirror. Her green eyes were puffy from last night, but she had used enough concealer to hide the remnants of their poor choices. Letting herself fall slowly back on the bed, she clasped her hands and let them rest flat on her churning belly. Dad’s pill dilemma was small stuff and nothing compared to her problems. Three boxes of pills, she thought, “Get a life Dad,” she said out loud.

  She thought things had been going so well between them and that they could loosen up a bit soon, maybe even go out and see a movie together. Her parents never went anywhere other than the grocery store and out to eat at a handful of places unless it was back to school shopping time. Anne was confident no one would ever see them together. Who was going to bust them? She told him this all the time.

  “ Why can’t we just go where we want?” she said, exhausted from all the hiding. I am telling you, my family never goes anywhere. They are like a sad bunch of hermits.”

  Lucy had no friends she hung out with outside of school other than Finn, and of course, Mark would know what he was up to, so neither of those two idiots would be a problem. She was so tired of hiding their relationship. Being so close to him, but not able to be with him, was literally killing her. When would her life finally get started, and how much longer could she tolerate her stagnant existence in this screwed up family, Anne wondered.

  She flipped over on the bed and grabbed for her cell phone. If either Mom or Dad was going to come, they would have done it by now, so she unlocked her phone and looked to see if there were any new texts. There were no new messages, a boring inbox, just like her life within these four walls.

  She imagined the kitchen, quiet and sullen, with the three of them still sitting there. Lucy would be the last to leave, waiting it out, thinking that something could change to turn it all around or that Anne would come and apologize, perhaps even bring Dad the missing boxes of pills. She could not understand her sister or her relentless need to guide everyone’s boat into calmer waters. What did it matter what happened to her parents or their marriage? For Anne, life was just about to get started. They were adults, after all.

  She thought her parents had lots of issues and that they would probably get a divorce soon. Her mother had a drinking problem, but it was just because she couldn’t deal with her dad’s abusive mood swings, and she was too scared to leave him. Anne could handle her mom and knew just what to say to get her to do exactly what she wanted. If Dianna ever got the courage to leav
e her dad, she and Anne would live in an apartment or something. They would figure it out.

  Anne thought about living alone with her mom and believed it might be fun. Sure they would get on each other’s nerves, but Anne got her mom in a way few people did. Dianna would require her to do certain things, but it would be bearable as long as Lucy didn’t come. Lucy would point out all the ways they could make things better, and then it would become a drag and no fun anymore. If Mom left Dad, she could live with Anne, and Lucy could stay with Dad, as that would make the most sense for everyone.

  Suddenly, Anne’s phone lit up. “I loved what we did last night,” flashed across the screen, and her heart banged wildly inside her chest.

  What they had done last night had been nothing short of magical. Once Sarah dropped her off, he was waiting for her in the dark parking lot. Anne had made herself walk, not run to his truck, trying to hide her excitement that they were finally going to be together. As they turned on to the highway, Anne quickly laced her fingers in Mark’s and looked down at their perfectly clasped hands. His hands were tan and muscular, making hers look pale, small, and dainty. Anne smirked at this because nowhere in her mind did she consider herself small or delicate. She was very sure of what she wanted in life, and right now, this was everything she wanted.

  They drove 30 miles away as usual and found a big, anonymous boxy Target. Anne and Mark walked around the store carefully, not holding hands or touching each other in any way, gathering everything they needed. Twenty minutes after checking out, Anne was laying out a thick braided blanket on the steep bank of Fish River, while Mark brought the groceries out from his truck.

  They slapped together juicy, ham sandwiches, and ate an entire package of Oreo cookies, laughing and talking the way they were not free to do so back home. He held her face in his hands and kissed her, softly tracing hearts on her long, tan legs. His hands, on her body, felt like electrical impulses, sending messages to her brain that registered as -you are the most important person in the world- over and over.

  The high of those thoughts made everything else disappear for her, including all coherent logic and reason. Mark poured a solo cup full of cheap, red wine and handed it to her. The wine was warm, but Anne did not care, it loosened her spirits up even more. As the sunlight faded and stars began to appear, she leaned back into the heat of him, encouraging him to play with her hair as she closed her eyes, willing time to stand still.

  Time did not stand still, and it was over much quicker this time than it had been the last. As Anne pulled her cotton bra and t-shirt back over her head, she noticed him secretly checking his watch before laying back down.

  “We need to be getting on the road soon, little lady,” he said in a teasing manner as he rolled over to face Anne, smiling at her in that way of his.

  “Don’t call me little lady,” Anne grumbled “Let’s don’t go home, let’s go get a hotel room and spend the night together,” she said grumpily.

  Mark’s eyes went wide with humor, and when Anne did not return his smile, he sat up and looked at her, confused.

  “You are kidding me right, sweetheart; you know we can’t do that. Hell, your curfew is ten-thirty,” he said.

  Anne grabbed the bottle of wine and gave him a “who gives a shit” look before guzzling most of what remained in the bottle. Mark smiled and reached for the almost empty bottle. Some of the red wine splashed on her t-shirt, but it was worth seeing Mark copy her, drinking up the last few mouthfuls; his mouth currently where hers had just been.

  “Target makes more wine,” he said, slipping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer. They sat this way for another half hour, pretending it wasn’t wrong, until Mark finally said, “Let’s work on getting you home.”

  On the way back home, Anne felt furious as she considered the tiny suffocating limits of her current life, but also, a slight sense of invincibility. No one else in the world knew about this part of her, not all of it. She hung her bare feet out the window and sang loudly to the songs on his radio. She begged him to take back roads so their time would stretch out longer.

  She eventually persuaded him to let her sit in his passenger window and hang her head out, the wind- whipping her hair like a rag doll. He held on to one of her legs to keep her from falling out of the window as they rolled lazily down the back roads, Mark telling her that she was killing him and Anne playing a wild character in her favorite love story. Eventually, Mark squeezed her leg tightly, and she dropped back into the truck cab.

  “Baby, I think you need to text your friend to meet us back at the movies so you can get home on time,” he suggested.

  Anne curled up her lip and texted Sarah. “She will be there to meet us by ten-thirty,” she said flatly, looking away, hating this part.

  As they kissed goodbye, Anne started to cry and wanted to know when they would see each other again. Mark smiled and, with no hesitation, said soon and not to worry.

  Sarah pulled up in a car full of girls who watched Anne, with wide eyes, leave his truck and walk confidently across the parking lot. They let her into the back seat and began firing off intimate questions about everything. Anne told them some of it but kept other details private, wanting most of the night to be just for them. The girls were still chattering away when Anne got out of the car in her driveway at almost eleven o’clock.

  She looked at her phone as she walked up onto the porch and decided that if her parents pushed her tonight, she would tell them exactly where she was and what she had been doing. But when she opened the door, Lucy was standing there, looking up at her with her sad~feel sorry for me because I have no life~ twelve-year-old eyes.

  It turned out that Mom and Dad were busy fighting, so no one was going to ask her where she was or why she was late. It occurred to Anne, briefly, that perhaps, her parents did not care. It was a good thing, though, because it gave her more room, she thought.

  Lucy had been the only one who waited up for her, it seemed, but why the hell did she care? The thought irritated Anne, and she looked at her little sister with disgust. They had nothing in common, and she would certainly never understand her relationship with Mark. Lucy was the last person Anne wanted to let into her world, and she quickly reminded her that she better damn well not tell Mom and Dad about the broken curfew.

  The last thing Anne remembered about that magical night was the three little white sleeping pills she swallowed that took away all the sad feelings and replaced them with good ones, as she floated away on pink clouds, completely invincible and limitless in her mind.

  7

  Summer’s End

  Lucy sat on the back porch, looking out over the expansive back yard, thinking about the end of summer. School would be here soon, and although she never disliked school, she struggled with the stops and starts.

  “I can’t wait to go back, “Anne said confidently, standing in the dressing room looking admiringly at herself in a dark pair of skinny jeans and a tight, graphic t-shirt. “Ms. Gallagher finally retired, so I don’t EVER have to see her heinous face again!”

  “I can,” Lucy whispered, sitting cross-legged outside her sister’s dressing room, fumbling with the hem of a pair of pants in her back to school pile, bubbles rising in her belly.

  For example, she would eventually settle down during the school year with seeing and being seen each day by friends, classmates, and teachers only to lose all sense of familiarity when summer came, and then, a new year started.

  This was the reality of living with social anxiety, and it was something she couldn’t explain to other people, mostly because it was unreasonable and did not make much sense. The same teachers she talked to easily last year could invoke such great fear, that she would avoid walking by their classrooms to calm her nerves, and prevent possible unscripted conversations for weeks at the start of a new school year.

  “Lucy, what was the coolest thing you did this summer?” her teachers might ask as an ice breaker in the first week of school.

  Sh
e would want to answer easily, “I went kayaking with my family,” which would have been a lie, but still, reasonable and comfortable enough to get her off the hook and out of the limelight. But if she were asked this very public, extremely personal question in class, her face would go red, and her head would start to shake as no words would come. The teachers would not notice at first, but then they would, and their pity and confusion would swirl around her like a hot cloud until they figured out a way to transition to another student. These unpleasant interactions would not go unnoticed by her classmates, who would either roll their eyes or simply stare at her like she was a freak.

  Lucy stopped the thoughts, pinching her bare leg to bring herself back to the moment and taking in a deep, cleansing breath, was happy it was still summer, after all.

  She sat on the porch glider and moved her bottom forward and backward, touching the hydrangeas tips with her toes. The humid, quiet air was immediately cut with the sound of a gas-powered lawnmower starting up next door. Lucy cranked her head over the porch railing to get a peek at her sister, mowing their neighbor’s lawn again. It was so hot outside, and Lucy thought it was ridiculous to choose this particular time of day to get the job done.

  Lucy spotted Ann in her infamous bikini again, no shorts this time, pushing a lawnmower from the farthest side of Finn’s yard towards their yard. Her hair was pulled back under Mom’s new, straw beach hat, hiding her eyes, but her lips, sparkled, under layers and layers of bright-pink gloss. The only thing that set Anne apart from a runway model was the dirty green and white tennis shoes she wore on her feet.

  Lucy watched her sister work and saw that it was quite a lot of work. Anne’s skinny arm muscles strained to pull the blue and white lawnmower back, and then, she used her lower body to pivot and push the mower forward, against a week’s worth of new growth. It took her forever to complete one small patch of the yard. No wonder Finn did not want to do this job, Lucy thought, it looked awful. Her sister kept looking up at Finn’s house, too, as if she wanted someone to bring her something to drink. Lucy decided she would get her sister some water, and she was feeling thirsty also.