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

by Penelope J Bristol

  “You are the one who doesn’t know much, Dad,” John said as he met his dad’s eyes, unnerved.

  “You’re the one who’s out here getting drunk, trying to hide from something, sitting in the corner on a kid-size stool. You’re not even a man; look at the house we live in and the way we live because there is never any money. That’s your one job, Dad, to make money, and you just can’t figure it out. I’m not what you say I am. You’re the one who doesn’t act like a man.”

  John delivered this verbal punch across the empty expanse of the barn unapologetically aimed directly at his father, who crouched like a child on his tiny stool. In seconds, Walker loosened his belt and made the distance between him and his son very small.

  The leather belt caught him first in the arm, but John managed to move away from the second strike, leaving his father slightly off balance. The force of a swing missed turned the older man’s body away from him, and at that moment, John turned to run. It was too late. Walker quickly corrected course by grabbing John by the shirt and wrestling him to the ground.

  Walker’s bulky knee drove his son’s body deep down into the dusty barn floor. John fought against his father, heroically thrashing and screaming for help, berating him loudly for being a horrible parent and a worthless provider.

  In the end, John lay across his father’s lap, a junior in high school, taking the belt until he cried out that he was sorry for what he had said. In the dusty light of that barn, John’s dad dropped him to the ground and threaded his belt back into his pants. As if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, Walker sauntered back to the stool, sat down, and stared out like a sleepwalker lost in a sick trance.

  John made himself sit up and look at his dad. He wanted the monster to see that he had not broken or changed him in any way. He tried to convey that everything in his life, including his better future, would remain the same regardless of what had happened. John stood up, turning his back to his father; he wiped away the dust and the wasted tears and poignantly walked out of the barn, head held high.

  Once in the cover of darkness, crossing the silent yard, John’s body began to shake. His teeth rattled noisily behind dry lips, and he shook his head hard to make them stop. He had already started the task of packing this painful memory way down inside himself, where it would never hurt him again. As the shaking began to subside, he grabbed his left hand, which throbbed painfully and squeezed it hard to steady his nerves.

  John measured his steps at a rate that would allow him to walk back into his living room for the second time today, calm and in control. He stood motionless in his front yard, looking searchingly up at the stars silently repeating his new personal mantra~ I will never be anything like him.

  BOOK TWO

  THE

  TRUTH

  LUCY

  SPOKE

  10

  Grandma’s House

  Four Years Later

  Finn lay at an odd angle, star-fished on his bed, staring at the bumpy, popcorn ceiling and wishing this dreadful holiday would end. The mood in his house was so tense that refuge came only when he escaped behind the locked door of his messy bedroom. Today, his parents were refusing to speak to each other again, and his dad was currently packing a bag to sleep somewhere else tonight.

  He honestly couldn’t understand the problem with his dad. When had he stopped caring about his mom and wanting to be a family with them? Finn balled up a fist and smacked it loudly into his open hand. He had tried to keep his mom busy and hopeful that things would get better, but he knew she knew about her. Finn hardly ever let himself think about her, and why his dad needed her.

  Finn liked to think of his dad as he used to be, with a backward-facing Auburn ball cap, laughing and playing Mario Kart on his bedroom floor, eating sloppy cheese pizza and helping to slide the box under his bed when it was time to clean up.

  His dad was a good man in many ways, and that made it difficult to categorize him. When Finn looked in the mirror, he saw Mark’s face, and when he grew up, he wanted to be somewhat like him, except for the part that made his mom cry and need to see a therapist every other Tuesday.

  Mark had left something in the truck last night, which Charlotte had found early this morning, creating a big problem that Finn did not wholly understand. Finn’s mom had screamed that this was the last time, and that had been the last communication between them before an icy, angry silence. Finn felt like a hostage in his own home and cursed Lucy for being far away for the weekend at her grandmother’s house.

  Finn grabbed his cracked cell phone, punched in the security code, and texted Lucy a capitalized four worded message. The text -HAPPY WORST THANKSGIVING EVER- flashed across the screen of Lucy’s iPhone, catching her attention and drawing it away from the busy hands of chatty aunts and uncles. Lucy smiled, stood up, and walked slowly out of her grandmother’s tiny, bustling kitchen.

  As she crossed the living room to go out on the front porch for some privacy, she noticed her mom sitting stiffly in an armchair beside the painted fireplace. The living room, also buzzing with talkative relatives, was lively, but her mom seemed to be noticeably-alone. With a rigid smile plastered across her face, Dianna glanced up at Lucy as she walked by, but did not really look at her, which was not unusual.

  Lucy gently pushed back the glass storm door and stepped out onto the small front porch. As she sat down gently on worn porch planks, she inhaled the smell of wood smoke, heavy in the cold air and took in the painted November sky; a pallet of watery blues, burnt orange, and wispy purple streaks. She quickly texted Finn back and asked about his day. Multiple texts zinged in explaining the struggle between Charlotte and Mark, and Lucy felt her stomach began to fizz and churn.

  As far as she knew, Anne had stopped flirting with Finn’s dad a long time ago, and she was unsure how this level of trouble in his parent’s marriage could be related to her sister. Finn always used the word “her” when he talked about why Charlotte cried all the time. Lucy could not think of her sister as “her”; Anne could not be the one that was ruining Finn’s life. She shook this thought out of her mind and moved on to something different altogether.

  Lucy texted Finn about the car ride she endured with her parents getting to her grandmother’s house and how her aunts and uncle’s topics of conversation were already putting her to sleep. She knew Anne would be here soon, and at least that would give her someone sane with which to talk. Anne would be bringing Alex, but he was actually a decent boyfriend, the best one her sister had dated so far. He better be good at the father thing too, because he and Anne were going to be having a baby together.

  This had not gone over necessarily well with their parents, but Anne becoming a mother had seemed to calm her sister and help her narrow down a general life path. She was working and going to school part-time, minus the drinking and pills, which were all substantial improvements, and Lucy thought she seemed happier now, grounded in a way to this new idea of motherhood. This would be the first family event since the pregnancy news broke, and Anne would inevitably endure a lot of questions about the baby today. Lucy knew her mom was extremely nervous that it would not go well and that Anne, being Anne, had probably not given it a second thought.

  Finn sent an emoji of a turkey puking up a massive slab of pumpkin pie at the same time as Anne’s silver sedan pulled into their grandma’s driveway. Her sister sat in the car for a while before the passenger door opened, and two black leather boots planted themselves firmly on the gravel driveway, and then, she stood. Her rounded belly, covered in a red plaid maternity jumper and her face, glowing, turned to the house, eyes finally resting on Lucy. Anne smiled, waved, and then reached into the back seat and pulled out a gift bag. Lucy texted Finn that she had to go and stepped off the porch, running to meet her big sister.

  “What took you guys so long?” Lucy whined as she fist-bumped Alex and reached out to grab the gift bag from her sister.

  “That’s not for you, smart one,” Anne retorted and flipped Lucy�
�s ponytail up over her face, teasingly.

  “Well, I deserve a gift for being alone with Mom and Dad in a car for four and a half hours and then sitting in the kitchen listening to painful, boring stories about people I don’t even know or remember for another two,” Lucy said.

  Anne shook her head knowingly and was thankful that she was the proud owner of her very own apartment, car, and life. Anne had arrived at this event as an adult, and she relished the sense of freedom. She had not planned to be pregnant at twenty-one, but so far, it was more exciting than it was scary, and Alex might even be a good husband if she decided that’s what she wanted. Lucy followed the happy couple back onto the porch, through the front door and right into a firing range of greetings and questions. She put the gift bag down on a table and noticed that slowly, the color was beginning to drain from her mom’s face, still sporting the painted-on smile.

  Grandma made mashed potatoes for every holiday meal, they weren’t particularly great, but you could count on them, showing up and being served. Lucy chewed a chunk of un-mashed potato, carefully watching the interactions between her family. Dad and Mom seemed to get along better at Grandma’s house than anywhere else as if they were on the same team for a brief period. Anne was indifferent to the barrage of questions and disappointed looks thrown around the Thanksgiving table. Lucy was proud of her sister for not letting the wave of confusion surrounding her unwed pregnancy penetrate her C’est la vie attitude.

  “Get a life,” Lucy whispered to anyone trying to crack a shot at her sister and reached for a second helping of the lumpy mash potatoes. She had a prime seat, basically in the middle of the table, so both food and conversation were within easy reach.

  Dianna sat on the end of the table closest to her older sister, who often took up much of the conversation in any room. She, being the younger sister, laughed at all the right times, robotically heaped food onto her fork and ate at a reasonable pace, fooling everyone into thinking she was enjoying herself. Dianna was wearing a new outfit and had spent a ridiculous amount of time curling her bobbed, brown hair for today’s festive gathering. Dad had complimented her along with several other family members throughout the day, but one compliment was not forthcoming.

  Grandma sat at the opposite end of the table, engaging people in a story that was actually about Dianna. This particular story featured a brand-new coat lost on a field trip bus. Lucy had heard this same tale many times, and it always ended with her grandma smiling, sighing exasperatedly at the forgetfulness, and foolishness of her youngest daughter. It was not a hateful story. Dianna had been in grade school when she lost this infamous coat, which wasn’t unusual for a child of that age. It was, however, odd, the sheer volume of times the story was told and that in general, Grandma did not share any good stories about Dianna.

  Lucy looked at her mom, stiff as a board, watching her older sister Eli talk about a party that she and her husband had hosted recently. Lucy knew her mom could hear the story that Grandma was telling, but Dianna was a master at hiding her emotions. She would never give Grandma the satisfaction of letting her know she was listening. John caught Lucy’s eyes and smiled. He slowly reached over and lightly put his hand on Dianna’s crossed leg. Very quickly, she reached down and laced her white knuckles into his.

  Lucy watched this and understood there was love being exchanged between her parents, the sharing of a heavy load that was crushing her mother. It was hard to understand the love in her family sometimes, or possibly more accurately, it was challenging to understand the way people offered their love.

  She wondered if it was like this in all families with dark running parallel with the light. Anne broke Lucy’s internal train of thought when she breezily announced, she was full and that this was quite a feat since NOW, she was eating for two. The room went suddenly silent, and then Alex, in his kind way, diverted attention to himself by placing a steady hand on her rounded belly while simultaneously complimenting Grandma on the lumpy mash potatoes.

  After Thanksgiving dinner, Dianna moved through the kitchen, soundlessly, clearing plates and saran wrapping bowls of leftovers. Her older sister stood at the sink, washing dishes and chatting easily with the other women in the room. In between dinner plates, she casually asked her little sister how things were coming along with her latest work project.

  “Work is good; this is our busy season, so I am happy that it’s halfway over. It’s the dread of waiting to start these yearly projects that drains me,”Dianna mused.

  “You girls don’t know the half of it,” Grandma interrupted. “When you were little, your dad was always on the road. I lived in a constant state of exhaustion, trying to get it all done. I would have loved to escape to a job!”

  Dianna thought back on her childhood to a mom who was typically, not getting much done, other than lying in bed with a headache. The weekends with her dad were the highlight of her growing up years, and she missed him so much now that he was gone. If her dad had been here today, she would have skipped cleaning up the kitchen altogether, and sat in the living room, listening to him talk.

  Eli had been the one that raised Dianna, not Grandma. But the truth of her childhood had been whited out, glamorously rewritten by her mother, who in these walls would never be questioned. Dianna did not respond to her mom’s comment and glanced up at the clock gauging the hours left before she could escape to her respective bedroom.

  “We did give you a run for your money, Mom,” Eli teased, flinging the drying rag over her shoulder and winking at Dianna, who rolled her eyes.

  “Well, one of you was a lot more difficult than the other, that’s for sure,” Grandma insinuated, looking right at Dianna. “And that tradition didn’t die with you, did it, sweetheart? Anne has gotten herself into a real pickle with this boy.”

  Dianna froze, and a vast swath of red appeared on her cheeks. She had been waiting for this jab all day, and just like her yearly work project, it had finally arrived. She tried to think back to what her therapist had offered when she felt attacked by her mother.

  She kept her breathing steady and decided to stay in the moment. Anne was her daughter; yes, she had made a poor choice with this unplanned pregnancy, but she would not let her mother strip away Anne’s good traits without a protest. She would not agree to the idea that Anne, like herself, was a disappointment, less than, lacking worth, fundamentally a failure.

  How many seconds had gone by since her mother spoke, Dianna wondered? Her mouth felt dry, and she was horrified at the idea that whatever she did or said next would end in her standing in her mother’s kitchen crying and shaking uncontrollably. Her mother was bullying her again, except this time, she was shaming Anne too. She looked up at Eli, who was busy washing the dishes, smiling, oblivious to how different their mother treated them, to how very different she had always treated them.

  Lucy knew her mom was getting ready to lose it. She had been planning a great diversion several interchanges ago.

  “ I hope it’s a boy,”Lucy said, loud and straight-backed, staring into the pages of one of her grandma’s thick yellowing cookbooks. “We need some more boys around here, Dad’s totally and hopelessly outnumbered.”

  Grandma snorted and shook her head, but Lucy did not stop talking. She rattled off a list of names she considered strong and asked Grandma which ones she liked the best. Shockingly, Grandma had an opinion about which names were better, and slowly, the conversation steered away from Anne to a teen living class Lucy was taking at school. They were teaching child-rearing by making the students babysit a hard-boiled egg for seven days straight.

  Grandma took a seat and began to ask Lucy about how the school year had been going, and eventually, what her plans were for college. They sat there in the kitchen for a long time, chatting about many different things comfortably, and with great pleasure, it seemed. Dianna watched for a while before exiting the kitchen, a mixture of emotions weighing heavily down upon her.

  Honestly, she was grateful. Lucy had pointedly interc
eded for her right before she might have played into her mother’s routine manipulation. As the minutes went by and Dianna faded back into the living room, she grew increasingly jealous of her daughter and of her ability to command her mother’s attention. What did her mother see in Lucy that she had not seen in her? Dianna let the painful abandonment grow inside until it spilled out onto the uncomfortable relationship that she had with Lucy.

  As hard as she tried, she could not tease these two disconnects apart in her mind. Blindly, she could not see her childhood rejection playing out in the life of her youngest daughter and at her hand. Luckily, she never overheard her mother tell Lucy that she was the favorite grandchild. After a while, Dianna stopped caring and decided; she would be the first to go to bed.

  11

  Alex

  He watched her, glancing periodically to the right, on their drive home from her grandmother’s house. Anne stared blankly out the passenger side window, mesmerized by internal thoughts of which Alex was not a part.

  It was always awkward spending a holiday like Thanksgiving with someone else’s family, and he had been happy when she had squeezed his hand and asked him if he wanted to leave instead of spending the night. It was hard to know whether this unfamiliar collection of people would one day be his extended family, or if the lumpy mash potatoes had been a once in a lifetime experience. He could live without the potatoes he decided, but hoped his future included her.

  Looking back on their brief and intense courtship before the news of the pregnancy, Anne had been the one to initiate that first date, even though he had dreamed of dating her months before. They met at work, and before Anne asked him out, Alex often made excuses to stop by her cubicle, ask questions to which he already knew the answer to, or borrow paper that he did not need -to steal precious moments with her.