The Kindest Lie

by Nancy Johnson

  Then she remembered that he had no idea who Corey was because she’d neglected to tell him about her son’s identity. Too much needed to be explained. Shaking her head in frustration, she deleted what she’d typed.

  The smell of mushrooms and onions filled the house, and she could hear Mama and Cassie clanking pots and pans getting Sunday dinner together. They would eat as a family to celebrate Keisha’s baptism. The kids kept bumping into Ruth’s closed bedroom door and she figured they were playing with their Christmas toys. The house literally hummed with their happiness, that unrestrained bliss of youth. Someday life would chip away at the bliss and make the children as guarded and jaded as she’d become.

  After some time had passed, she heard the kids watching videos with Eli in his room, and that’s when she quietly stepped into the hallway and walked a few paces to Mama’s room. She closed the door behind her.

  Her body moved in an automatic gear, outpacing her head. She had no idea what she was looking for exactly, but there had to be something that traced the adoption, illegal or not. And perhaps linked Mama to DeAngelo.

  This room had been off-limits to Ruth and Eli growing up, and they’d obeyed, staying away, always speculating about what their grandparents kept hidden here. Just being in this room seemed subversive. The blood pumped through her veins stronger now. She ran her hand over the rings of wood on the dresser and pulled the top handle. The drawer was stubborn, and she yanked hard to get it unstuck. The drawer screeched and Ruth froze. She crept to the door and put her ear to it but didn’t hear any footsteps coming, just the sound of her niece and nephews.

  When the dresser drawer finally opened enough, she reached inside and found an old pair of eyeglasses, a set of keys, and a denture case. She ran her hand along the inside and pulled out a laminated card with the name Hezekiah Tuttle on the front with a tiny, grainy photo of Papa. It had Fernwood printed in bold letters at the top, and she immediately recognized it as her grandfather’s work ID. She had so many questions to ask him, and staring at his photo reminded her of the futility of that wish.

  Wiping away a tear, she went over to the closet and found rows of boxes on the shelf. As she expected from an older woman, Mama kept lots of papers.

  She pulled down a few boxes and sat on the bed. Rent receipts. Tax returns going back decades. A pang of guilt stabbed her. She shouldn’t be snooping in Mama’s room, yet she felt compelled to keep going.

  “Dinner’s almost ready! Get washed up!” Mama yelled from the kitchen, startling her.

  She had to be quick. Opening the last box, she couldn’t believe what she found inside. Stacks and stacks of her report cards, from Driscoll Elementary to Mother Mary and Ganton High. Mama had saved them all.

  The shuffling of feet outside the bedroom grew louder and she heard Teddy and Troy arguing over who got to use the soap first to wash their hands. This was no time to reminisce.

  She riffled through the papers, uncovering church donation statements and, in a separate folder, Papa’s death certificate. She brought it to her face to take a closer look and then reached back in to see what was beneath it. She gasped.

  A record of adoption for a male child born in August 1997.

  At the top of the page, the Cunninghams were listed as the adoptive parents. Name of attorney: Stanley DeAngelo. Her stomach seized. She felt like she’d been kicked.

  She had been right. This was her proof that he’d been the one to handle the case.

  She focused her eyes on the page and saw what was filled in for the names of the biological parents:

  Father: unknown

  Birth mother: Ernestine Tuttle

  Ruth’s hands flew to her mouth. How could this be? Why had DeAngelo listed Mama as Corey’s birth mother? A bitter taste coated her tongue and she thought she might vomit.

  “Ruth, are you coming? I said dinner’s ready!”

  Quickly, she put the boxes back on the shelf and shoved the folder under her arm and ran back to her own bedroom. With her phone, she hastily took a photo of the adoption form and texted it to Tess, asking her to discreetly share it with her attorney friend for help understanding what this all meant.

  How would Ruth face her grandmother? A woman who had broken her trust and lied to her repeatedly. She had wanted to believe that DeAngelo duped Mama, an unsuspecting, innocent old lady. But was that the case?

  Mama carried plates of piping-hot smothered chicken and candied yams to the dining room table and poured tall glasses of iced tea. When she laid eyes on Ruth’s hair, she seemed taken aback but said nothing.

  Keisha kept up a constant chatter about every detail of the baptism: how cold the water was, how it stung her eyes, the way Pastor’s hand smelled like fish when he covered her mouth and nose.

  Mama wielded a heavy hand with the Lawry’s seasoning for her smothered chicken. Family raved about it, but now it tasted like paper, and Ruth moved the meat around in her mouth until it turned to mush.

  “What’s the matter, Ruth?” Mama asked. “Eat your supper.”

  What was it about women of a certain age who always commanded people to eat? Eat, they said. Lena had done it when Butch raised a ruckus at dinner the other night, and now Mama issued the same command. As if stuffing them with food would satisfy a hunger that food couldn’t reach, a starving that was actually soul-deep. Teddy and Troy competed in a fierce battle of thumb wars but weren’t allowed to leave the table until they ate every green bean on their plates. Eli helped himself to seconds of Mama’s famous chicken. When they finished eating, Cassie took the kids to Eli’s old bedroom to watch YouTube videos. Silently, Ruth helped Mama and Eli clear the table and stack dirty dishes in the sink.

  Ruth’s phone pinged. She glanced down and saw a text from Tess. A sharp pain seized Ruth’s whole body. According to her friend, DeAngelo would’ve needed her grandmother to apply for a birth certificate, pretending to be the biological mother, and list it as a home birth.

  So, Mama had knowingly lied and said she had given birth to the baby. That made her an active participant in this sham, not an unwitting victim.

  “Mama?” Ruth said, her voice deceptively gentle.

  “Yes, baby?” She put an orange crusted pot in the sink to soak.

  “You’ve been lying to me.”

  Eli kept his eyes on the utensils he was drying, apparently sensing the trouble bubbling up in the room. Mama looked wounded, but quickly regained her composure.

  “I’m not sure what this is all about, but I know it can wait until after we’ve finished cleaning up,” Mama said.

  Ruth clutched her cell phone tightly and held it up. “You should look at this.” Her eyes locked on Mama.

  “Finish washing those glasses. Now’s not the time.”

  “I am not a child who has to follow your orders,” Ruth said. “Look at it.”

  She had never raised her voice with her grandmother like this before. The sharp edge to her tone cut through the room. She pointed to the image of the adoption consent form.

  Mama cupped her mouth with her hand but didn’t speak. Eli turned the phone so he could see the screen, and after reading the adoption form, he let out a low whistle. “Naw, Mama, you didn’t get mixed up with this DeAngelo dude, did you? Say it ain’t so.”

  “It is so. This is the proof. My grandmother not only consorted with a criminal to keep me from my child for eleven years, but signed a legal document swearing she gave birth to my baby.” Ruth ground out the words.

  Finally able to speak, Mama said, “Everything I did was for you, because I love you.”

  “You call this love?” Tears rolled down Ruth’s cheeks. “You have no idea what love is.” Eli squeezed her shoulder.

  Mama twisted the sponge in her hands. Her eyes fixated on the kitchen window. While her physical presence was there, she must have traveled someplace else in her mind. Her lips parted and then closed and opened again, as if she didn’t want to speak but something beyond her control compelled her.

  “A
fter Hezekiah died, I didn’t know how to make up for everything he used to do for you kids. It wasn’t just about being a provider, either. He always said we were better together, and he was right, as usual. I walked around so lost for so long. Mostly I turned to God and sometimes the man of God, Pastor Bumpus.

  “I was trying my darnedest to give you kids the best start in life I could. Eli, when you got arrested for dabbling in that dope, I almost lost my mind. They cage our boys, shackle their possibility. Put a lock on their dreams. But not you. I wouldn’t let them do that to my grandson. Pastor introduced me to Mr. DeAngelo. I gave him a little piece of money and he talked to one of those judges and they sent you home to me.

  “I thought God only gave us one big storm as a test, you know. Once we passed it, we were good. I was wrong. When you got pregnant, baby girl, I saw every dream we had for you rotting and dying off. You were smart as a whip from the day you were born. You could have been anything you wanted to be in the world. But not with a baby. So, I took him to the church. Pastor Bumpus said there was a couple that was new to the church that had been trying for years to have a baby and couldn’t. He had me talk to Mr. DeAngelo, who told me what to write on those papers. I knew it wasn’t right in the eyes of the law. Maybe God’s, neither. But it was the right thing for your future. And that’s all I had my eyes on.”

  Mama shrank before them, not quite broken, but deflated like an old tire from Leo’s auto lot. Ruth eyed her brother, wondering if Eli was considering how his grandmother had bought his freedom.

  Quiet hung over the kitchen until the phone shattered the silence. It stunned Mama, who hesitated before answering.

  She frowned at whatever the person on the other end told her. “Oh, dear Lord” was all she said.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” Ruth asked.

  “It’s Midnight. Lena said he’s run off.”

  Thirty-Two

  Ruth

  Late into the evening, Ruth tossed in her bed and listened for the house phone to ring with news about Midnight. They’d told Lena to call with an update, no matter the hour. At one and two and three in the morning, nothing, and finally she drifted off to sleep. Just before daybreak, garbage trucks rumbled nearby and she could hear other sounds of the street waking up. Like something shot out of a cannon, Ruth sat up in bed, remembering all over again her conversation with Mama and that Midnight was missing.

  Without saying much to each other, Mama and Ruth dressed and met at the front door to head over to Lena’s place.

  Only a few streetlamps lit this end of Kirkland Avenue, which made it scary to imagine Midnight wandering out there all alone. Unlike in Chicago, darkness had always descended upon Ganton like a heavy blanket, so total and complete you sometimes couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. They had waited until the first hour of daylight—the only respectable thing to do in Mama’s mind—to knock on Lena’s door.

  They stood awkwardly in the doorway, together yet apart, acutely aware of the bomb that had just detonated in their family the previous afternoon. Midnight’s disappearance offered a new preoccupation, a distraction for them, postponing the inevitable conversation.

  The door stood open, and right away the stench of scorched meat met them. Inside, Lena was making tracks from the couch to the kitchen counter, the floor tiles wailing under the weight of her anxiety.

  “Come on in,” she said, a Newport wedged in the corner of her mouth. “I burned my roast last night and it still smells, so I opened the door to get some air in here. Wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing after I realized Patrick was gone.”

  Lena’s eyes held a wild terror in them, and Ruth had to look away to avoid seeing the palpable fear. Before they’d even taken off their coats, Eli arrived, anxious to do what he could to help. He faced Midnight’s grandmother like a soldier reporting to duty. “He’s coming home. Don’t you worry.” Drawing strength from her brother’s resolute voice, Ruth held on to his words, letting his confidence extinguish her fear.

  Mama went through Lena’s cupboards until she found a glass and a bottle of whiskey. “Worrying won’t bring him home any faster. You just need to get your mind and your nerves right.” She poured a small taste for Lena. Something to take the edge off.

  On the women’s usher board at church, Mama joined the other sanctified folks in preaching against the sin of alcohol consumption. Yet she excused Eli’s overindulgence and was now serving whiskey as a sedative. Ruth added this hypocrisy to the running tally she was keeping.

  Ignoring her grandmother, Ruth said, “What can we do?”

  Lena held the glass to her lips with both hands and drained it. “I don’t know. He hasn’t called or texted or answered his phone. If anything happens to him . . .”

  Ruth rubbed Lena’s back through her threadbare pale blue nightgown. Sharp pain squeezed her chest. “I should have mentioned this before, but Midnight called me over here one day before Christmas. He had packed a suitcase. Didn’t say where he was planning to go, but I convinced him to put away his clothes and the suitcase.”

  Lena looked stricken. “I didn’t know you’d been here. He didn’t say a word. Yes, you should have told me.”

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t.”

  Lena ran into one of the bedrooms and returned pulling the red suitcase Ruth had seen Midnight with that day. She fumbled with the latch until it fell open, empty. “I checked his closet and his dresser drawers. His clothes are still there. Maybe he didn’t run away. What if somebody snatched him off the street?” Her voice became more strident and agitated as she spoke.

  One of the bedroom doors opened and closed. Midnight’s aunt Gloria appeared in a loose-fitting sweatshirt that stopped just above her knees. She balanced her son on her hip. “Now, who would kidnap him? That little pain in the ass. You know he likes to pull pranks. He’ll be home when he gets hungry.” In spite of her dismissiveness, Ruth glimpsed worry shadowed in her eyes, too.

  “Have you called the police?” Ruth asked.

  Lena puffed on her Newport and walked to the open front door to blow out the smoke. She craned her neck looking down the street, as if Midnight might suddenly appear. “I waited a couple hours at first because, you know, he’s a kid and he always stays out later than I’d like . . . but that’s boys for you. When it got late and I couldn’t get ahold of him, I called the cops. They came over and asked a lot of questions and took one of his class pictures with them.” She took another hard drag on her cigarette.

  Midnight had left behind his suitcase and clothes, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t run away. If something triggered him, he might not have planned ahead. Ruth could still hear the despondency in his voice. In a child’s mind, everything was magnified and world-ending. Why hadn’t Ruth grasped the depth of his despair? She had been so overwhelmed by how Midnight had inadvertently revealed her son’s identity. That was all she could think about then. She replayed their conversations from that day on a loop in her head until the words they’d spoken got scrambled in her mind.

  Eli stood in the middle of the living room stretching his hamstrings as if preparing for a race. Immediately, she could tell that blood and adrenaline were pumping hard in him and he was ready to do more than just stand there talking. “All right now. Let’s get focused on finding him. If the police won’t, we will. What had Midnight so riled up he wanted to run away?”

  Ruth ran her fingers through a tangled knot of hair, a nervous habit she had. “He didn’t say a lot and I didn’t want to push him. But he did tell me he was upset about having to move to Louisiana and he didn’t want to go.” She felt guilty knowing she was betraying Midnight’s confidence. But finding him and bringing him home safely had to be the top priority.

  Lena’s face reeked of apology. “I wasn’t trying to get rid of him. God knows I wasn’t. Money’s just been so tight lately. I knew that was on his mind, but I didn’t think he’d worked himself up that badly.” She rummaged in her purse, tossing aside Chapstick and a bottle of
aspirin, until she found another cigarette.

  An engine roared, and all heads snapped in the direction of the sound. A truck pulled up in front of the house and she recognized it as Butch’s. All eyes focused on it, waiting to see if Midnight would emerge from the passenger side. They huddled in the doorway, no one moving until that truck door opened. It didn’t. The air thickened with their disappointment and deepening fear.

  “I looked every place I could think of, but nothing,” Butch said as he made his way up to the house. The cold had reddened his runny nose and he breathed heavily. When his eyes finally settled on Eli, he stiffened.

  But Lena stopped him short. “Don’t even. Not today. Not now. Did you check Leo’s lot and the junkyard? What about the rec center? You know he likes to hang out there.”

  “Checked all those, went up and down the aisles at Walmart,” Butch said. “Stopped in practically every gas station and no sign of him.”

  Lena said, “Can you hand me my phone? I need to try the Cunninghams again. I haven’t been able to get ahold of them. I know Sebastian and Pancho are home, but I’m not sure about Corey.”

  Every synapse in Ruth’s body fired. She knew Corey and Midnight were good friends, but she hadn’t considered that her own son could be missing, too. She kept her eyes on Lena’s face, wondering what the Cunninghams were saying on the other end of the call. Mama moved closer to Ruth, as if sensing her alarm. But the only comfort Ruth wanted was to know Corey was safe in his bed.

  A fresh wave of anguish distorted Lena’s features as she locked eyes with Ruth. Mama had told her about Corey’s birth, Ruth knew it. A tight knot lodged at the bottom of her belly.

  “The Cunninghams have been out searching for Corey, too . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Dread coursed through Ruth’s blood. Moving away from the others, she walked over to the living room window. Almost instinctively, she wrapped her arms around her stomach, where Corey had lived when he was at least physically part of her body. She couldn’t lose him again. Not like this. Mothers everywhere waited up nights for their children to come home after school or by curfew or to return from war. That wait had never been hers until now.