A Mother's Lie

by Sarah Zettel

  I don’t want to be a secret.

  She looked at her father. He glanced away from traffic and smiled.

  I don’t want to be your secret.

  Dana pushed the window button to lower the glass.

  “Dana, don’t!” Her father slapped his hand on his head as the wind hit his perfectly combed hair.

  Dana pitched the cookies out the window. They tumbled and scattered, a long trail of crumbling comets behind the car.

  She raised the window. “Okay,” she said. “I won’t.”

  Now, Dana stared at the old Polaroid picture and felt that urge again. Throw it away. Flush it. Burn it. Let these people know that whatever their problem was, it was not her problem, and she was not going to play their games.

  But she wasn’t going to do that, and she already knew it. Because she could not stop staring at the photo, at the faded background that looked like the desert, the skinny woman who looked so happy, and the little girl who looked like she wanted to kill somebody.

  What’s she so mad about? Dana ran her thumb down the photo’s rough edge. “Dana!” The shout cut through her thoughts. “Dana! Are you here?”

  It was Mom, calling from the foyer.

  “Here!” Dana shoved the photo into her jeans pocket and hurried out into the front room.

  Mom was beside the door, resetting the alarm. She’d dropped her briefcase and purse on the mail table and held out one arm so Dana could walk into her hug.

  “You okay, Mom? Cuz you look like the car ran over a cat or something.”

  Mom blinked. “Long day at work,” she said. But something else was under that. Dana could hear it. “I’m going to go get a shower.”

  “Yeah, okay,” she said to Mom’s back. “I’ll start dinner.”

  “Thanks, Dangerface.” Mom flashed a quick, weak smile over her shoulder and vanished down the hall.

  Yeah. Okay. Dana sucked in a deep breath. Guess we’ll talk later.

  Mom was in the shower long enough for Dana to stir-fry the mini shrimp and make a sauce for them out of green curry paste, coconut milk, lime, ginger, and cilantro, and pour it all over two bowls of Thai rice noodles.

  She left the picture in her jeans pocket. She could feel it there, pressed against her hip.

  Well, she probably couldn’t really, but she felt like she should be able to.

  When Mom finally came out, she’d changed into loose sweats and a plain, blue T-shirt and had her damp hair fluffed out over her shoulders. Thankfully, she also looked a lot more relaxed.

  “Here, sit.” Dana pointed at the breakfast bar. She added shredded cucumber and more cilantro to both bowls and then set one down in front of her mother, along with a pair of stainless steel chopsticks. “Eat.”

  Mom blinked at the food. “You shouldn’t have to take care of me.”

  “Who’s taking care of you? I’m fattening you up.”

  That actually got her to chuckle. “I knew taking you to Sweeney Todd was a mistake.”

  Dana sat in her usual spot with her own bowl. She put her hand in her side pocket. She took it out.

  Mom saw. Of course Mom saw. Mom always saw. Dana felt the flush starting in her cheeks. Shit.

  “How was your last day?”

  “Loud AF. Hallways were crazy. You know what they did? Somebody figured out if you lick gummy bears, they’ll stick to the wall. There was some seriously sick gummy graffiti going on.”

  “Wow. That took dedication.”

  Mom really started in on the curry, and all conversation ceased. When she was having a bad day, Mom ate like somebody was about to take her food away.

  Dana watched her. She tried superimposing the memory of the skinny, frizzy-haired woman who might just be her grandmother onto Mom.

  You tell her I didn’t scare you. I never touched you or threatened you, not once. Please. Be sure she knows that.

  All at once, Mom was done, and she looked up and Dana was still staring. Dana realized her fingers were digging into her pocket again. She yanked them out.

  “Everything okay, Dana?”

  “Yeah.” What do I say? “But I’ve been thinking about my tattoo.”

  Mom’s face went blank. Not in her scary, angry way, just in the “it’s non sequitur time” way. “What tattoo?”

  “The one you promised I could get when I’m sixteen. Which is in two weeks.”

  “And when did I make this spectacularly ill-advised promise?”

  “When I was fourteen.” Which was true. Dana had prepped her for the conversation with a French toast–and-bacon breakfast and specialty coffee from Haz Beanz.

  Mom was giving her the side-eye. Dana countered with her own patented wide-eyed “how could you doubt me?” look.

  “Oh.” Mom tapped her chopsticks against the edge of the bowl a couple of times. Tink. Tink. “Okay. On the condition you go to Shimmerz.”

  “Mom! I am not letting a friend of yours do my ink! It’s my tattoo! I can go where I want!”

  “Until you’re eighteen, you can’t go anywhere without my permission, and Shimmerz knows if you get an infection or hep A or anything while he’s inking your butt, I will end him.”

  “It’s not going on my butt.”

  “Whatever.”

  “It’s going on my boob.”

  “Shimmerz, or it is not happening.”

  “Okay, okay! Jeez!” Dana got to her feet and stomped down the hall.

  “And it was great curry!” Mom shouted after her.

  Dana kicked the door shut.

  It wasn’t until the slam faded and she’d flopped back on the bed again that she realized she’d just blown her best chance to ask Mom about the photo, and the woman, and what the hell was really going on.

  What am I gonna do now?

  But she already knew. The only question was, How?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Something’s wrong. Beth stared down the dim hallway toward Dana’s closed bedroom door. Something’s wrong, and she doesn’t want to tell me.

  Maybe something happened with Chelsea. That girl’s family was a mess, even by Beth’s standards. Her mother was deep into denial and pills, with the one possibly feeding the other. Then there was her brother. Sorry, her half brother. Chelsea loudly corrected anybody who got it wrong. Half-Brother Cody was into some serious shit, and somebody, somewhere, was not leaving that girl alone. Beth recognized the look. It was in the way Chelsea hunched her shoulders and how she dressed—loose and sloppy—like she was desperate to hide her maturing body.

  But that’s not it. Not this time. And then, Did I really promise her a tattoo?

  Beth tried to remember and came up empty. Bad mommy. She shook her head and retrieved her briefcase from the mail table by the door.

  This apartment was the first home Beth actually owned. She had determined from the get-go it would be a warm, unregimented place. No chrome, no brushed steel, no industrial chic anything.

  And color, she had told the designers. Lots of color. She’d had enough of oatmeal-hued walls to last a lifetime.

  So the living room walls were Fresh Peach, except for the one that was Burnt Gold. The kitchen was Sepia Sunrise and Blond Melon where it wasn’t maple, butcher block, and art tile.

  The overstuffed living room furniture all had what Dana called “maximum flop factor.” The two of them found most of the pillows and afghans at thrift stores and garage sales. There were framed vacation pictures and baby pictures and every single certificate and pseudo-diploma Dana had ever earned from kindergarten graduation to eighth-grade commencement. Beth’s accomplishments were there too—all her licenses and certifications and a weird collage an artist friend had made of her business cards.

  Mostly, though, there were books. Beth had insisted on at least two bookcases in every room, including the kitchen. When she was a child, there were times when she spent eight or ten hours in the local library—wherever “local” was at the time—waiting until her parents were done with whatever they were doing. She also
learned that nobody bothered the kid sitting quietly in the book aisles, not even in the Walmarts or Targets.

  But not one of those dozens of books would help her ask her daughter what exactly the teenage drama might be about this time. Because it was just maybe about the fact that Dana knew Beth had lied to her, yet again.

  How can I tell her Doug is begging for…well, probably money? she thought toward the wall of books—paperbacks with broken spines, shiny new hardbacks, and battered treasures dug out of library sales bins. She’s got enough problems with him as it is.

  Beth had never hated Doug for ghosting her when she told him she was having the baby. He was who he was, and she’d known it when she made her decision.

  But she’d never thought Doug would give in to the shame that only existed in his mind and attempt to deny that Dana was his daughter.

  When Dana pressed her face against Beth’s shoulder and bawled, Beth had been so ready to do murder—bloody, gleeful, public murder. The urge came back every time he broke another promise, every time he made another weaselly excuse while pretending the choice that made his life easier was better for her too.

  Every time, she had to watch Dana try to decide how she was going to cope with this permanently bewildered man who happened to be her father.

  No. I do not have to make things worse. Not yet.

  Which was probably denial and avoidance, but Beth told herself she was too tired to care.

  That was when her phone buzzed.

  Beth groaned. “Doug, if that’s you, you are not going to like what you hear out of me.”

  But it wasn’t Doug.

  It was that same unknown caller, with the San Francisco area code. Enough of this.

  Beth touched Accept. “Beth Fraser,” she said.

  “Beth Fraser,” drawled the man on the other end. “Nice name. I like it.”

  A cold blizzard of memory engulfed Beth—the back seats of cars, the aisles of stores, parking lots and alleys and endless crappy motel rooms.

  “Wouldn’t even know it was you, Star,” the man said.

  Whiskey. Cigarettes. Screaming fights. The blows on her head, her butt, the backs of her legs. Crumpled bills stolen out of the register crushed tight in her hand. Praise for what a smart girl she was, what a chip off the old block.

  “What…what do you want?”

  The slick chill of vodka being forced down her throat. The smell of the gun smoke, the vicious kick to her shoulder.

  “Now, now. Just got a quick question for you.”

  The iron taste of hot blood spattered against her mouth. The sound of the body falling at her feet.

  “Any idea what your daughter’s been up to today?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Beth threw her phone away from her like it was burning. It banged off the wall and bounced onto the couch.

  “Mom?”

  Dana. She stood at the end of the hallway, her face dead white.

  “What is it? What’s happened?”

  My nightmares. All of them. Every last one. But she couldn’t say that. Not to Dana. But because she couldn’t say that, she couldn’t seem to say anything.

  Any idea what your daughter’s been up to today?

  Beth pressed her knuckles against her mouth. Calm down, Beth. Dana’s here. She’s okay. She’s right here.

  “Is it work?”

  What? For a minute Dana’s words made no sense at all.

  Dana ran to her and grabbed her shoulders. “Was that Rafi? Or Dad?”

  “No. No. That was…something else. Dana, I need you to leave me alone for a minute.”

  “But, Mom…”

  “Dana, please.”

  “No, Mom. I’ve got to…”

  “I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!”

  Dana’s face flushed red. She let go of Beth’s shoulders, turned, and ran.

  The bedroom door slammed.

  Beth bowed her head, sick and ashamed.

  Calm down. Deal with Dana in a minute. Right now, you have to think.

  Any idea what your daughter’s been up to today? It was her father’s voice. Moreover, it was the smug, sure tone he used to talk about the money he’d won, the people he’d scammed, the loser cops, the idiot security guys in the casinos.

  She’d always known that one day her parents would decide she owed them something, just like they’d decided Grammy owed them. That sense of absolute entitlement defined them both. It might be left to stew for a while, but it would never go away.

  You don’t know that’s what’s happening. You don’t know where he is. He could really be in San Francisco. Anywhere. He could be bored and messing with you.

  Beth stood on wobbly legs and retrieved the phone. There’d been another call. This was from a number she recognized. James Kinseki.

  She hit his number. The second he picked up, she said, “Where are they?”

  On the other end, Kinseki just sighed, a short, exasperated sound. “Seems I owe you an apology, Ms. Fraser.”

  Beth said nothing.

  “It looks like the Bowens left Perrysborough maybe three weeks ago, and I’ve also unfortunately found out that one of my team was submitting fraudulent reports. The guy’s fired, and he’s losing his bond. You can press charges if you want, but I’m sending you a refund for the last three months. It just went into the mail.”

  Beth still said nothing.

  “Is there anything I can do to make this right?”

  “No. I…” Beth squeezed her eyes shut. There was a sound in her brain, a low humming noise that came from nowhere in the real world. It made it difficult to hear or think. “I need to know what changed,” she said. “What set them off? Can you find that out?”

  “I can try.” Because Kinseki didn’t want her to press those charges. Because if she did, it would be his license and his job on the line.

  “Do it.” Beth hung up. She rubbed her arms, trying to scrub away the goose bumps.

  If her parents were close, she had to warn her daughter, to tell her…

  Tell her what? That I’ve been lying to her for years?

  Slowly, carefully, Beth walked down the hallway toward Dana’s closed door.

  Tell her I’ve had my parents watched for years? Tell her I have reports and photographs locked in a private box with the fake IDs and the cash and the gun, so she wouldn’t stumble across them?

  Dana had cranked her music again. An ominous bass line pounded against the walls.

  “Dana!”

  “What?!”

  “I’m coming in!”

  “Whatever!”

  Beth chose to believe this meant okay.

  Beth had always felt strangely proud of Dana’s room. She’d been able to give her daughter a space like nothing she’d ever known. It was painted with a combination of silver and sea-foam green with black trim (Dana’s choice). Posters of rappers Beth had never heard of hung alongside characters from the Black Butler and Death Note animes and, of course, Sweeney Todd. Cookbooks, graphic novels, and spiral-bound notebooks covered every surface that wasn’t covered in clothes.

  Dana was curled up in the middle of her bed hugging Cornie Bow, the stuffed unicorn with the rainbow mane that had been her best friend since she was four.

  Beth hit the Off button on the speaker control. The silence was so sudden it left her ears ringing.

  “I’m sorry,” said Beth. “I shouldn’t have yelled.”

  Dana looked up at Beth just long enough to make sure Beth saw her red-rimmed eyes, then deliberately turned away.

  “I’ve just had a really bad day.”

  Dana shrugged.

  “Was there something you wanted to ask me?” At the same time, Beth felt acutely aware of her phone in the other room. Dad might call back. Or he might put Mom on to do the dirty work.

  Her phone might be ringing right now.

  “Dana, listen. I want…I need you to be careful over the next couple of days.”

  “Why?”

  The lie came too fast and
far too easily.

  “You were right. That call—it was a thing with work. We had to turn a guy down today, and he didn’t take it well. He made some threats. So, if somebody comes up to you…” Dana had turned toward her again, and something in her bitter, surprised expression stopped Beth in midsentence. “Dana, did somebody talk to you today?”

  “Lots of people, Mom.” Dana laced the words with scorn and literalism. “I’ve got friends, you know.”

  “I mean a stranger. A man in a Cubs cap with a tattoo of a fan of cards on his left arm? A skinny woman, maybe in a flowery dress?”

  Dana clenched her jaw, and her unicorn, and Beth knew she was right.

  “What happened? Did somebody follow you?”

  “What is with you?” Dana demanded.

  “I told you. This guy is making threats!”

  “Then why are you asking about some woman?” The contempt in Dana’s glare sliced straight through her. “You know, Mom, if you want me to trust you, you could try telling me, like, oh, I don’t know, the truth!”

  “You could do the same for me.”

  Beth stared at Dana. Dana stared back, her eyes, the green one and the brown one, equally sharp and furious.

  “Nothing happened,” Dana said. “Nobody talked to me.”

  What she meant was, If you’re going to lie to me, I’m going to lie to you.

  Beth crossed the room she and Dana had created, and walked down the hallway.

  You’re a coward, Beth Fraser. A total fucking coward.

  Behind her, Dana cranked up the music again. The bass thumped against the walls and vibrated through the floor.

  Clenching her jaw until her teeth hurt, Beth rounded the kitchen half-wall and went back into the living room. Her phone was still lying on the coffee table. She flicked through the screens to display the last incoming number, the one with the San Francisco area code.

  There was no conceivable way her parents were in San Francisco. They’d bought or scammed the number because they knew that since her work was funding high-tech ventures, she’d be more likely to pick up a call from Silicon Valley. They’d been checking her out. Watching her while she was watching them.

  And she hadn’t known. Until today, she hadn’t known a damn thing.