The Kindest Lie

by Nancy Johnson

  “Okay.”

  Corey raced back to the river’s edge, sliding on the ice, still firing the airsoft.

  It felt like barely a few minutes had gone by when he heard tires screeching, the sour smell of exhaust filling his nose.

  Excitement curled in Midnight’s belly as he anticipated what might happen next. In school, if a kid screwed up really bad, the school officer pulled him out of class while everyone stared and echoed, Oooh, you’re in trouble.

  Suddenly, a man’s voice yelled, “Drop the weapon and freeze!”

  Two men appeared dressed in black. Badges on their belt buckles shining like searchlights. The cops had come fast.

  They ran up to where Midnight was still sitting on the ground. Both had their guns drawn and pointed at Corey, a few feet away.

  Corey didn’t blink. He just stood there motionless, his arms wooden, holding the pellet gun out in front of him.

  “I said drop your weapon, now.”

  Midnight’s belly flip-flopped and his mouth went dry. He waited for the police officers to tell Corey he was in trouble and they were calling his parents.

  But they never did.

  They just kept their guns aimed at his best friend.

  Thirty-Four

  Ruth

  Seeing the Wabash River resurrected Ruth’s childhood, all those summers here by Papa’s side, his hands—rough and scraped raw from hard work—guiding hers along the fishing pole. She’d always felt safe here.

  Warning signs along the riverbank urged caution and in bold red letters on white placards said, Thin Ice. Keep Off. No Skating. That still, glassy river, so immense and beautiful, could be deceptive. Midnight’s text had asked her to come to the river, but it didn’t sound dire, thankfully.

  She hoped they hadn’t wandered onto the ice. Every worst-case scenario flooded her brain.

  She got out of her car and picked her way through the brush toward the water. Each footstep she took thundered in her ears. The crunching sound she made on a patch of ice caused her to jump.

  Something rustled nearby and then she heard a man’s voice. Her head jerked in the direction of the sound. In the distance, she spotted two small figures under the spotlight of the rising sun. Corey. He and Midnight were together. Two larger figures that had to be adults faced them. A patrol car nearby. She almost sobbed with relief. Police officers had found the boys and they were safe. She ran toward them.

  “Hey!” Ruth yelled, stumbling over the rocky terrain.

  When she got within a few feet of the officers, she saw they had their guns pointed.

  At Corey.

  Dread gripped her and her legs wobbled. A strange noise escaped from Corey’s lips like his voice had gotten trapped in his throat and was trying to break free. His outstretched arms, holding a gun, appeared stuck in that raised position. Why did he have a gun? It didn’t make sense.

  Her primal need to protect him overrode everything. Her body lurched forward in front of Corey, placing herself between him and the cops’ guns.

  “Get out of the way, lady, before you get yourself killed!” shouted the white cop.

  “He’s a child! Don’t shoot!” Ruth screamed, choking on the cold air.

  They stood there in this slow-motion standoff. To Ruth, it seemed like she was yelling behind a wall of soundproof glass, because the cops didn’t lower their guns even an inch.

  The other officer had light brown skin and he looked familiar to her, but she couldn’t place him. Her eyes pleaded with him to understand, to stop pointing his gun at her son. But he stared at her blankly, showing no recognition.

  “Miss Ruth.” Midnight’s voice.

  She couldn’t look at him. Her eyes darted back and forth between the cops holding the guns. She said, “Stay out of the way, Midnight.”

  “You don’t care about me. All you care about is Corey because he’s your son.”

  He’s your son. How did Midnight know? Her mind scrambled to climb out of its fog when she heard a thud behind her. Corey had dropped the gun. She felt it smack the ankle of her boot.

  The officers ran over, pushing her aside. The brown-skinned one snatched the gun from the ground, and the white officer told Corey, “Put your hands behind your head.”

  This time, Corey listened and, moving like a robot, did as he was told. Ruth had flashbacks of the bucket boy on the el in Chicago. That same fear shot through her, much more magnified now.

  The cop patted his shoulders, under his arms, along his rib cage, and then between his legs until he reached her son’s ankles.

  Corey whimpered, and she glanced down at his face, his eyes squeezed shut, with thick black lashes curled upward like silk drapery covering a window. Just the way she remembered them the day he was born. A sharp stab of regret hit Ruth when she remembered whispering, I hate you, just before he’d opened his eyes for the first time.

  The white officer kicked the back of Corey’s knee, buckling it until it bent, and Corey fell to the ground. Ruth knelt beside them and put her face next to the officer’s. “Why are you doing this? He’s just a boy.” She tuned her voice to peak performative articulation. “This has been a terrible misunderstanding. This is an eleven-year-old child. Let’s be sensible here.”

  Ignoring her pleas, the officer finished his pat-down and determined that Corey didn’t have any hidden weapons on him. “You can put your arms down now,” he said, and Corey had to be told again before he lowered them.

  “You’re Ruth Tuttle, aren’t you?” said the darker-skinned officer.

  She nodded and then she remembered. The name on his badge was Jenkins. Kenneth Jenkins. The boy Eli had socked in the jaw defending her honor back in grade school.

  Officer Jenkins asked, “Is this your son, and did you buy him this gun?”

  “I’m—he’s, well, he has parents. They’re not here.” She lowered her voice as if Corey couldn’t hear, but of course he could. He stiffened by her side. “I don’t know where he got the gun.”

  “It’s mine,” Midnight said in a shaky voice. “It’s just a toy gun. No big deal.”

  “We see that now. But it is a very big deal. This wasn’t on the gun,” said the white cop, whose badge read Griffin. He bent down to pick up the orange muzzle tip.

  “My daddy removed it when he took the gun apart to fix it. I guess it fell out in my bag. I tried to put the orange thing back on, but I couldn’t . . .” Midnight’s voice trailed into a barely audible whisper by the end of his sentence.

  Ruth hadn’t thought about the type of gun it was when she saw Corey with it, but she knew her son wasn’t dangerous. “Yes, it’s a toy. He’s only eleven years old. Why are you treating him like a criminal?” Tears stung her eyes.

  Officer Griffin fixed her with a harsh glare. “This kid seems a hell of a lot older, and these pellet guns look just like the real thing.”

  With his slight build and baby face, Corey appeared young for his age, not older, but before she could say anything, Officer Jenkins added, “We responded to a call about a guy out here at the river with a gun.”

  Midnight fidgeted and buffed a chunk of ice with the toe of his boot. Ruth grabbed him by the shoulders. “Do you know anything about this?”

  Without looking at her, he mumbled under his breath.

  “Speak up,” she said.

  “Yeah, I called 911, but I was just playing. I didn’t mean for it to be a big deal.” His shoulders shook and he sniffled. “I guess I was mad.”

  She withdrew her hands from his coat as if she’d touched a hot flame. Covering her mouth, she said, “You were playing? Playing? Corey could’ve been killed! How could you be so reckless?”

  The police radio squawked, and Officer Jenkins spoke into it, letting someone know the situation was under control. But this day had moved far beyond anything they could control. She felt like she was sinking into a pit of helplessness.

  “You’re Butch Boyd’s kid, aren’t you?” When Midnight nodded, Officer Griffin said, “I’ll have a
talk with your dad. Calling 911 is serious business. Not a joke. You hear me?” Midnight nodded again.

  Turning to face Ruth, he said, “In the future, they need to play with these in a safe, controlled location with special protective equipment. Not out here on the river. And this gun can’t be used until it’s fixed, with the orange tip put back on properly. If the wrong person had seen Corey out here swinging that gun around, things could’ve turned out real different.” She didn’t like the way he said real different, reminding her how this all could’ve ended. Ruth’s limbs shook, and tears leaked again from her eyes. If she hadn’t shown up when she did, those cops very well might’ve shot her son.

  After collecting everyone’s phone numbers and addresses, Officer Griffin confiscated Midnight’s gun. “Patrick Boyd and Corey Cunningham. We’ve been on the lookout for you two.” Stepping away from them and putting his phone to his ear, he said, “I’m gonna have the station get in touch with your parents to let ’em know you’re safe so they can come pick you up.”

  Ruth turned to face Officer Jenkins. “I’ll wait with them until their families get here.” He nodded, and both officers returned to their police car but didn’t pull away, obviously waiting until the parents arrived.

  Corey rolled into a tight ball on the ground, the curl of his body a tumbleweed. Ruth knelt beside him in the cold, wet earth and pressed one hand against his back.

  He recoiled at her touch. “Don’t touch me! Who are you? I’m not your freakin’ son.” He hurled the words at her like bricks, and they landed heavy on her heart.

  Then he turned his anger on Midnight. “They could’ve killed me. You lie. You always lie.” Corey spat the words at his friend.

  This was the first time Ruth had really heard her son’s voice. The deep yet soft timbre of it. He got to his feet and pushed Midnight’s chest. Midnight just stood there, drained of his earlier bitterness, as if waiting for a harder, more punishing blow. As if he deserved it. And he did.

  Corey kept going. “That’s why your granny’s makin’ you move. Nobody likes you. Nobody wants you around. You play too much.” He turned to Ruth. “He’s a liar. I know who my mom and dad are.” He searched her eyes for confirmation, to make Midnight’s words from earlier untrue. Just as the one storm had settled, another gathered strength.

  All that time she had spent agonizing over whether she wanted to be his mother, and she hadn’t stopped to consider that he might not want to be her son.

  Ruth surrendered to the inevitability of the truth and whatever followed. Looking up at Corey, she said, “It’s true. I’m sorry, but it’s true. You were adopted, and . . . and I’m your mother.”

  Thirty-Five

  Ruth

  A haunted look flickered in Corey’s eyes.

  “You all lie. All of you.” Snot ran from his nose, mixing with tears.

  Ruth studied the curve of his mouth, the slope of his nose, and recognized the Tuttle family resemblance. The burgundy birthmark remained, a smudge on his cheek. She resisted the strong urge to touch it. As if he could read her thoughts, Corey turned away from her and curled into a fetal position on the cold ground, resting his head on his backpack.

  She moved closer to her son. She had no idea what to say, somehow, after all these years, totally unprepared for this moment. “I was seventeen when I had you. Not much older than you are now. I was afraid.”

  “Just leave me alone, okay? I don’t know you, lady. I don’t want to know you.”

  She had to make him understand. Pressing her hands to her cheeks, she kept talking. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do, and when you were born my grandmother made sure you went to a good family. Maybe I should have fought to keep you, to be a mother to you, but I didn’t. Now, I can’t change that. But you have an amazing life with wonderful people who love you, and I’m not sorry about that. I can’t tell you how proud I am of you,” she said, her voice choked with emotion.

  Corey covered his ears. “I don’t want to hear it. You’re not my mom!”

  “Hey, Corey.” Midnight reached for his friend’s arm.

  “Get off!” Corey shouted.

  Midnight’s chest caved as if he’d been struck. “Come on. Don’t be mad at me. Okay?”

  Why had he done this? Part of her wanted to analyze what drove him to be so reckless with the gun, reckless with the police, and reckless with the truth. But her head ached, and she couldn’t process anything more.

  Corey’s voice crackled like a bonfire, lifted by the wind. “I hate both of you.”

  Ruth folded her gloved hands under her chin as if she were praying. For the past eleven years, she’d imagined this moment, meeting her son for the first time. Not once did she predict the raw pain she saw playing across Corey’s face.

  Butch had been driving in the area searching for Midnight, so he showed up first. He surprised her by saying “Thank you,” but Midnight stayed silent and shuffled behind his father toward the truck. The police officers got out of the patrol car and came over to talk to Butch about what had happened.

  Corey stayed motionless on the ground, but when he saw the Cunninghams’ car pulling up, he ran toward it. He stopped short before he reached the sedan. Ruth imagined he felt torn now, unsure of who he was and where he actually belonged. She blamed herself for the agony that rendered his body rigid with uncertainty.

  The man and woman who emerged from the car seemed hesitant, too. Scrambling to her feet, Ruth stood erect, brushed dirt from her jeans, and tried to smooth her hair. She figured her eyes were red-rimmed from tears and lack of sleep, and she wondered what impression she was making on the adoptive parents of her son.

  Mr. Cunningham had a deep brown complexion with a gray-speckled mustache. Worry lines creased his forehead. Mrs. Cunningham, who was a few shades lighter than her husband, had her hair pulled back in a tight French braid. She wore little if any makeup and a dress or skirt that hung below her houndstooth coat.

  She spoke first. “Corey, honey,” she said tentatively, inching toward him.

  As if a spell had broken, he ran into the woman’s arms, sobbing.

  “You’re safe now, son,” Mr. Cunningham said, putting a protective arm around the boy’s shoulders.

  Son. That word shattered something inside Ruth. Mrs. Cunningham’s cheeks flushed, and above Corey’s head, she met Ruth’s eyes. The ripe scent of fear emanated from this woman.

  From what she could tell, the Cunninghams appeared to love Corey. And he loved them. She saw it now in the natural way they cleaved to each other and moved as one. Everything made sense all of a sudden. Corey had traveled through Ruth, but he wasn’t hers. The certainty of that realization stunned her, and instead of bringing her peace, it made her ache for what she didn’t have, for what should have been hers all these years.

  Thirty-Six

  Midnight

  The vacancy sign at the Oak Creek Motel blinked red. Midnight couldn’t ever remember the No lighting up. He knelt on the bed and pulled the blinds apart to see if he could spot Daddy outside having his morning smoke before the sun came up. All he saw was the motel clerk tossing a big black garbage bag into the dumpster and then scratching his balls through his pants. Daddy had gotten a room there after Christmas, when Drew put him out for not carrying his load. Maybe a move to Louisiana wouldn’t be so bad now, a chance to leave everything behind.

  While he had his face pressed to the window, he heard the turn of the door handle. As soon as his father walked in, Midnight caught a whiff of sickly sweet weed.

  Daddy looked pissed. “If you ever pull a stunt like that again, I’ll put a bullet in you myself.”

  Only one day had passed since everything happened at the Wabash River, and already he knew nothing would be the same again. Daddy wouldn’t stop talking about it. Midnight stood between the two beds, the air stuffy in the tiny motel room. “I said I’m sorry.”

  Ever since that morning, people watched him and whispered, smiling too hard when he caught them staring. He hadn
’t heard from Corey and doubted he would see him until school started again next week. Sebastian and Pancho must’ve heard what happened, and they hadn’t texted him. Usually the four boys met up on New Year’s Eve to set off fireworks and listen to the crackle and boom in the night air. But he knew he’d be ringing in the new year alone.

  Even Bones stayed away. Granny said somebody had finally taken him to the shelter, which made Midnight sad. It meant he wouldn’t be around anymore. It occurred to Midnight that Bones might get adopted just as Corey had, and he felt the strange stirring of jealousy over a dog. How would his new owners know he liked his belly rubbed in small circles with a light scratch, not too much fingernail?

  Daddy plopped down on one of the beds and Midnight held his breath to block the smell. “The last thing I need is the cops hassling me. You know they still haven’t given me that airsoft back. You had no business taking it from my truck. Next thing you know the feds will be on my ass about my real guns. Goddamn it, Patrick. What the hell were you thinking?”

  Midnight looked down at his socked feet, the left pressed on top of the right. He lost his balance and reached for the arm of a chair to steady himself. “Guess I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Damn right, you weren’t. Good thing I’ve got a buddy down at the station. They were talking about charging you with delinquency for making a fake 911 call. You’re lucky they didn’t haul you off to juvie.”

  Midnight wanted to scream that juvie would be better than this ratty motel with the peeling walls and the nasty brown stains on the bedspread. But when Daddy got like this, you had to let him go until he stopped on his own.

  Later that afternoon, at Granny’s shop, Midnight sat near the door waiting for Granny to finish up for the day. People were taking advantage of the after-Christmas/New Year’s Eve sales on baskets of jellies and jams, and wool sweaters that gave him static shock.

  There was nothing Granny couldn’t get some sucker to buy, not even an old miter saw of Daddy’s. She rested her hands on her hips and looked up at a man twice her size. “That’s as low as I’m going. Not a penny less. I’m telling you, this thing will cut through baseboards like butter. Either you want it or you don’t.” People said Granny could sell shoes to a man with no feet. And she probably could.