Lies We Bury

by Elle Marr

  A car passes with bright eyeballs and a long tail. Mama Rosemary steps in front of us and waves her arms wild at the car but it doesn’t stop. She sniffs then looks behind us at something.

  “What, Mama? What is it?”

  “We need to keep going.” Her voice is low. The one she uses when she’s mad. But when she turns and looks at us again her face is shiny. She picks up Sweet Lily and makes a growl noise.

  I wipe my chin. My belly feels empty. The veggies and spaghetti we ate for dinner is unhappy. It twists and I think I might throw up like when I got sick when I was five. Then Jenessa got sick because she wanted to sleep with me. I take Mama Rosemary’s hand and we keep walking. She takes her hand back to hold Sweet Lily and Sweet Lily curls into her neck like a koala.

  “Almost there, girls,” Mama Rosemary says again all breath. She walks fast until we are almost at the train and I feel nervous we’re going to disappear on it.

  There’s a building now and she walks on a white part of the road and then up to the door that has a bunch of words on it. I read a little bit and see pol-ys. Po-lees. Police.

  “We’re here, girls.” Mama Rosemary looks at us and her face is different than I know it. She’s happy but her face is wet again. The most happy I ever saw her.

  She pulls on big doors made of glass and pushes us inside. People are everywhere. Strangers and lots of—mans—like the man, and two women.

  “You two sit here and don’t move a muscle. I mean it.” Mama Rosemary points a finger at both me and Sweet Lily and then at two chairs on a wall.

  I peek at her through my hands. “It’s too bright, Mama.” Sweet Lily tucks into me and pulls her hair over her face.

  Mama Rosemary looks around. She takes Sweet Lily’s baby blanket and puts it over our heads. “There you go. Good girls.”

  Her voice starts talking to some other voice and when they get going I lift up a corner to see. Mama Rosemary talks to a woman behind a desk and the woman’s eyes get real big and she speaks into a—a phone—a telephone. When she puts the phone down she says something to Mama that makes her start crying again.

  We get moved into a room with a table and toys and green blankets. All the walls are brown but there’s a wall made of glass again with our faces in it. A mirror. Once me and Sweet Lily find a corner we like we sit down and stare around us. It’s not home. It’s too big.

  Mama hugs us both and kisses us. She strokes my hair and I get nervous. “You girls are going to stay here with Officer Chopra. I’m going to go get your sister.”

  “No, don’t leave!” I grip on to Mama Rosemary’s arm and make red marks on her skin.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes, I promise. Your sister needs me.” She strokes my hair again and Sweet Lily’s hair waiting for me to say okay. I don’t want to.

  “Okay. But will you get something for me?”

  Mama Rosemary looks at me her eyebrows all high. “We have everything we took with us in the backpack here. Go ahead—you can open it.”

  I shake my head. “Can you make sure and—and grab Petey the Penguin? I know Jenessa’ll want him later and she didn’t pack him. I’ll carry him until she wants him.”

  Mama Rosemary’s eyes get watery again and her face pinks. “I think she’d appreciate that. I’ll be right back.”

  I watch her walk to the door then turn back and blow us a kiss. When she goes behind the mirror wall she disappears.

  Sweet Lily scoots in closer to me her skin so hot from the fever still. It’s the first time we’ve ever been without a mama or Mama Rosemary before in our whole lives. I feel sad but I know she had to go. I feel sad but I know this is what Jenessa is feeling ever since we left.

  “Girls? Should we have some juice?” A lady looks at us from the doorway. A real one with wood.

  Me and Sweet Lily nod.

  The lady gets us cups made out of paper. Inside is pink juice not the orange juice we had at Christmastime but I drink it all. She gives me another. Sweet Lily doesn’t want hers so I drink that, too. She goes and lays back down on a blanket in the corner still hot from fever.

  “You girls have been so brave this evening,” the lady says. “Your mother, too.”

  “My sister, too. Other sister.”

  “So I hear.” The lady makes a noise in her mouth. “Your whole family has been through a lot.”

  I gulp back my cup then hold it out for more pink stuff. “Yeah. Then there’s Mama Bethel and Mama Nora. But they’re gone.”

  “Who is Mama Bethel?”

  I pick at my cup since she’s not putting more juice in it. “Sweet Lily’s mama. But she died.”

  “Does that make you sad?”

  I think about it. Scrunch my face up to my nose in what Mama Rosemary always says is my sneeze face. “No. Not anymore.”

  “And Mama Nora? Who is she?”

  I don’t say anything for a minute. I remember Mama Rosemary saying we don’t tell no one about Mama Nora for now. That we keep quiet so we can all be together after.

  Then I think about how Mama Rosemary left me and Sweet Lily to go back and get Jenessa. Left us even though I didn’t want her to.

  And Mama Rosemary always said to tell the truth. “Mama Nora is Jenessa’s mama. But she’s gone for a long time now.”

  The lady writes stuff down on paper. She looks at the mirror wall and holds up her thumb. “That’s very good, honey. Thank you for telling me. Now what do you want for your first meal out here?”

  “Oh! Croissants like my bracelet. See?”

  “Very pretty. I think we can do that.”

  She gives me more juice then I lie down next to Sweet Lily. I hope Mama Rosemary gets back soon with Twin. I can’t wait for us to go home. Even though Mama says we’re never going back there again. I just want us to be together again. The four of us.

  Thirty-Five

  A woman in a sleek black dress leads me to a dimly lit room in the back of the restaurant. We pass tables of couples sharing a romantic meal and a few quartets in suits. The city is beautiful from the thirtieth floor through the wall of windows. Lights twinkle along the freeways heading into the suburbs and in the reverse direction toward the city, likely in search of entertainment this Friday night. As I’ve done.

  When Shia first asked me to mark this evening on my calendar, I hesitated. He was welcome to celebrate the launch of his book, do whatever he wanted with it, but the idea of voluntarily embedding myself among the vultures and eager rubberneckers eleven months after the murders struck me as masochistic. Then I remembered my therapist’s words and what she termed the “healing process”: taking control of our fears and internalizing our agency. We don’t have to be subject to anyone’s desires or expectations of us; I’m no longer a child or a woman struggling to get on her feet.

  The hostess escorts me past a drooping palm frond, behind velvet curtains tied to each side of a wide doorframe, and the noise of conversation rushes my ears. Sergeant Peugeot stands out with his crew cut and striped green-and-beige jacket, stark against the scene of somber colors. I once read somewhere that people mimic the weather in their clothing choices, and it has been a monochromatic winter indeed.

  He sees me and dips his head in my direction. The last time I saw him, at Jenessa’s sentencing hearing, he was in the back row of the courthouse, a concerned expression stitching his heavy brows together. Despite Peugeot’s best efforts at influencing the prosecutor and judge, Jenessa was sentenced to life in prison, with the possibility of parole in twenty years. Just like Chet.

  Ironically, for once, Jenessa was not the center of the scandal the whole time. Two millionaires from Silicon Valley and a casino owner from Las Vegas were also given life sentences for taking the tunnel victims’ lives.

  When I asked Peugeot why he’d made such an effort for my sister, he said that Jenessa was the victim of unusual trauma—we all were. We know so little about the long-term effects of real trauma, he said, and she didn’t deserve a life sentence.

  After
her arrest, Oz and Pauline threatened to sue me for misrepresenting my identity. I felt exposed, foolish for having trusted Oz. Yet when he suggested that he and Pauline could be persuaded not to sue if I agreed to be featured on the front page of the Post and in subsequent editorials commenting on Jenessa’s trial, my sheepishness turned to contempt. Screw you, I’d replied. The look on Oz’s face—a woman rejecting him—had been worth giving him more ammunition against me in the articles I knew they would write regardless.

  When my therapist asked why I declined, I explained that people would gossip, whether or not I’d misled anyone. There will probably be another book in another twenty years, this one following up on Jenessa’s portion of the ordeal, and I shouldn’t let the ebb and flow of public interest dictate my life. She gave me a slow clap at that. Said I was making progress.

  Shia’s book is displayed on a golden platter at the back of the room, surrounded by artfully stacked copies. A blown-up version of the book’s cover, with endorsements from other crime biographers splashed across it, occupies an easel beside the table. The title, Family Ties: The Twentieth Anniversary of Portland’s House of Horrors, is emblazoned in bronze lettering across a grayscale photograph of Chet’s home. A bit dramatic. I told Shia as much, and he said the publisher insisted on the word horror being included somehow.

  Shia smiles when I catch his eye, but he doesn’t leave his conversation. Black curls fall across his forehead, and he brushes the fringe away with awkward fingertips, still not used to the shorter do. An older woman in a stylish pantsuit stands with her back to me, speaking to him. She gestures toward the easel, then sputters a laugh.

  Circulate. Enjoy yourself. Just be in the moment and celebrate something you worked hard on. Nobody needs to know. It was easy for Shia to suggest—he wasn’t the subject of a four-hundred-page tome on sale at every bookstore. But as the date approached and Jenessa continued to refuse visits from me, the prospect of a party seemed less like corporal punishment and more like an opportunity to move forward.

  A slight woman follows behind a child teetering on unsteady, chubby baby legs. They pass below a stage light angled on the books for sale, and Lily’s white-blonde crown of hair gleams, braided down to her waist. She waves me over, then scoops Olive up in her arms and plants a loud raspberry kiss on my niece’s cheek.

  “Hey, glad you could make it,” she says.

  “Yeah, traffic was a pain. I should have left earlier.”

  Lily looks over her shoulder, then back to me. “Totally. You missed the crab cakes. We need to get invited to launch events more often.”

  “Agreed.” We could buy crab cakes if we wanted them—as many as we want—but I refrain from pointing out the obvious. Once Shia’s publisher accepted the final draft and he sent me my promised portion of the advance, I halved my share between Lily and me—nearly, anyway; I saved twenty grand for Jenessa, for whatever she’d need while in prison: lawyer fees, extra pillows, maybe a standalone gardening bag to place beneath a window.

  “Did Mom end up coming?”

  A smirk crosses Lily’s prim mouth. “‘Mom’ now? What happened to ‘Rosemary’?”

  A server passes by with a tray of glasses of white wine, and I grab one. “Therapy is forcing me to accept things about myself and other people, believe it or not. Warts and all.”

  She raises two eyebrows, impressed. Olive sucks on her fist in Lily’s arms. “She said she was going to the bathroom about ten minutes ago. I should make sure she didn’t—”

  “My two girls!” Rosemary exclaims, joining us. Her hair is curled, and she wears a red dress I’ve never seen before. “My three girls,” she says, nudging Olive’s cheek.

  “Hey. Thought you might have jumped out the window.” I smile so she knows I’m only partly joking.

  “Not without my parachute.” Rosemary winks, and I can’t help marveling at the change in her after only a few months. It turns out that while she did have a hard time being among large groups of people, a consequence of the consistent paranoia she suffered post-captivity, much of it was out of fear of encountering Chet. She always worried he would be released on parole before she was notified. That he’d attack her again, or worse, track her down to ask for her forgiveness. Now he’s dead.

  For my part, I’d often wondered whether Chet’s father, Jameson, might come out of the woodwork once the details about the murders hit the national news circuit. But instead of a ninety-year-old grandfather looking for absolution or a handout, it was his widow who reached out—an eighty-year-old woman who lives on a ranch in Montana. She didn’t make any demands but let us know Jameson had no idea about us—or he never confided as much during their fifteen years of marriage. She didn’t even know he had a son.

  Whether or not the gift of Petey the Penguin came from him or had another explanation, I don’t know. I don’t need to. Recalling the way that Rosemary recently agreed to donate the boxes of dental gear and training bras taking over her front room, I understand how living in the past is a mistake. I’m through feeling at a disadvantage. I’ve got the family I need.

  Lily sniffs Olive. Olive coos as she grabs at Lily’s hair with chubby fingers.

  “Uh-oh,” Lily says. “Diaper duty. We’ll be right back. You two will be okay here.”

  I nod, knowing Lily didn’t mean it as a question. “Of course. Although if it’s a two-man job, I’m happy to help out—”

  “We’ll be fine. I’ll take care of her,” Rosemary says, looking at me. She gives my elbow a squeeze, and I have to stop myself from flinching at the motherly gesture.

  When I confronted Rosemary about the memories that returned to me over the last year, of Chet sitting me on his lap and his growing interest in me, tears formed in her eyes. She said there were so many reasons to get out when we did, but escaping before anything more damaging happened to us kids provided the ultimate push. She said that as the years went by, I seemed to consciously recall less and less, and she didn’t want to remind me. It was her suspicion that, unconsciously, I harbored a lot of anger at what happened to me, to all of us. That anger probably manifested in my actions as a teenager in countless ways that neither of us really understood at the time. Knowing Rosemary prioritized my safety when it really mattered began to mend the rift I’d let grow between us. I could see her then—all her faults and strengths and how they composed the woman before me.

  The promise of Rosemary taking care of me wets my eyes, and I have to look toward the poster board of Shia’s book, away from the warmth of her gaze.

  “If you see more bacon-wrapped dates, grab some for me, will you?” Lily swings Olive onto her hip, then heads toward the inky velvet curtains.

  Not for the first time, I wonder, watching her leave, how she escaped the crippling self-doubt that both Jenessa and I adopted like a third leg. Probably something to do with her young age at the time of our escape. Memories are more easily blocked or omitted when you can barely sing the alphabet song.

  Though Jenessa refuses to see me, Lily has been making monthly visits to the women’s prison. Yesterday, she said Jenessa’s gunshot, while healed, carries a dull ache and seems worse during poor weather. They barely spent ten minutes together before Jenessa signaled for the guard to take her back to her cell. Still, Lily suspects the visits are good for Jenessa. And baby Olive is becoming pretty popular with the guards.

  I turn to Rosemary, my wineglass half-empty. “Do you think Nora would have enjoyed this party?”

  She sips her soda, clutching the glass with her hand and navigating the aluminum straw toward her mouth. “Nora, surrounded by free alcohol to celebrate a book about our imprisonment? It would have been hard. But I think she would have been here if you wanted her to be. It’s all very strange, being surrounded by people who want to know everything about you.”

  She takes another drink. I hesitate, knowing how far she’s come emotionally herself and what it must have taken for her to drive up to Portland this week. Even if she’s happy to stay with Lily and
spend time with Olive.

  “I didn’t mean to . . . I would have understood if you didn’t want to join tonight.”

  Rosemary’s eyes widen. “Oh, honey, I know. I wanted to be here for you, promise. Being here is . . . I feel—well, it is hard in a way, being here. But it’s also the first time one of us has helped create the narrative that other people were always writing for us. So I’m glad you invited me. I’m enjoying myself.”

  A server exits the kitchen behind us carrying more bacon-wrapped dates. Rosemary stops him and piles four onto a napkin. She catches my side-eye. “Olive is a growing baby, after all.”

  I laugh, wondering whether I would have believed my mother capable of joking in public a year ago, whether Nora truly could have also, given the emotional and physical distance between us. Despite any wishful thinking, I do blame Nora—what she did to Jenessa is inexcusable. And at the same time, I pity her. I know what it is to be broken by the past and a life of trauma that never released its clawed grip on your neck.

  But playing with my sweet niece, and imagining the world through her child eyes, it’s time to let go of the shame I harbored for so long. And which, if I’m being fair, placed me on the same path that Jenessa chose: one of bitterness and self-destruction. We both believed we were damaged goods, flawed on arrival—but she directed that anger toward people who were accepted by the world for their unique traits and passions, while she had been paraded as a caricature. I could understand how that had felt like salt in the wound as we tried to find our identities, away from our origins.

  “Hey there.” Shia stops by my side. “Pretty good turnout, right?” He extends a hand to Rosemary. “Very pleased to meet you. I’m Shia.”

  Groups of people eat hors d’oeuvres and sip drinks while discussing Shia’s book. A few people, probably with the publisher, comment on specific chapters, but I try not to listen too closely.

  “Likewise. I’ve heard a lot about you,” Rosemary adds, giving me a look.

  He sucks his teeth. “You could say the same for me, I guess.”