A Mother's Lie

by Sarah Zettel

  The waitress stepped back up to the table with a massive bowl of chili, heaped with onion, shredded cheese, and tortilla chips. Somewhat to Beth’s surprise, it actually smelled edible.

  “Thank you, ma’am. This looks amazing.” Todd favored her with yet another smile and raised the beer bottle. “And another one of these, if you would be so kind.”

  “Well…since you ask so nice.”

  Dad grinned and tucked into the chili like he hadn’t eaten in a year.

  “Anyway, so there I was, stinking like I’d slept in a sardine can, but I still walked right up to her, and said, ‘You’re with me now.’ And she took my hand and said, ‘I know.’” He sighed with satisfaction from the food and the beer but mostly from the story he’d spun. “Didn’t even know her name. Didn’t matter. We were together then and forever.” He raised his bottle in a toast to the memory and drank off the last.

  Beth waited until he’d set the bottle back down. “The last time you told me that story, you were in Spain. And you never lived in Marquette or anywhere else in Michigan. Your family’s from Idaho, and your name isn’t Todd any more than Mom’s is Jeannie, so it wouldn’t have mattered what you told each other.”

  Dad’s charm, and his comfortable nostalgia for things he’d never done, cracked in two. “Where the hell did you get that?”

  “Your birth name is Thomas James Jankowski,” she said. “Mom is Deborah Ann Watts. You’re from Boise. She’s from that same patch of ground outside Springfield, Indiana, you two stole me out of. Which is most likely where you met and decided to run away together, probably to Dallas. You never actually got married.”

  The waitress brought over a fresh bottle of Bud and twisted off the top. “Fresh out of the fridge for you.”

  Dad smiled and sipped, like he was having the best afternoon of his life. “Beautiful,” he said, making sure she knew he wasn’t just talking about the beer. “Thank you.”

  She twinkled at him and left. As soon as she turned her back, Dad’s smile fell away like he’d dropped it in the gutter.

  “So what? All that stuff you said?” He scooped up another spoonful of chili and stuffed it into his mouth. “We’re still your parents. We raised you, kept you fed…”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Taught you right.”

  “Taught me how to shoplift and play lookout and distract assholes in bars and casinos.”

  “It wasn’t all bad. We had some great times. Like when we were in Vegas and—”

  “I remember you making me call Grammy so you could blackmail her. I remember picking up Mom after you beat the hell out of her…”

  “Now, that you got wrong.” He pointed his spoon at her. “She gave as good as she got. Those fights…that was just our way of blowin’ off steam.”

  “Oh, don’t you even try that bullshit on me.”

  Todd shrugged and swallowed another spoonful of chili. “Okay, fine, Star. Have it your way. I’m a fucking bastard. Doesn’t change the fact that I’m your father, and you owe me for your bringing up.”

  “I don’t owe you anything!”

  “Oh, right,” he sneered. “Because you got your fancy job with those billionaires all on your lonesome. Amazing. No school of hard knocks required for Star Bowen, thank you very much. Nobody taught you how to shovel the shit so fast there’s not an asshole on the planet can keep up with you.” Dad shoved his bowl away, leaned back, and folded his arms. “Just like how we never laughed together, never had a minute of good times. Never were tight as a family. Nope. Not us.”

  “So, you came all this way to tell me I should be grateful?”

  “No. I came to tell you I need fifty thousand dollars.”

  Now we’re getting somewhere. “What for?”

  He met her gaze, his expression slowly melting from indignation into sadness. “For your mother, Star.”

  Beth waited.

  “You been asking about her since you got in here. You want to know where she is? She’s back at the motel in bed, stupid on pills with probably a fifth of vodka to help them along, because she can’t deal with the pain anymore.

  “Jeannie’s got cancer, Star. She’s dying.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When Dana asked Chelsea if she’d come to the coffee shop, her reaction was pretty one-note.

  Do you have any clue how stupid this is?

  It’s not stupid. It’s a public place. I’m bringing a friend. She could not let Chelsea know how scared she really was. I’m just going to ask her some questions and see if she really is my grandmother.

  And if she is?

  I’ll figure that out later.

  Will that be before or after your mom catches you? This isn’t you being late for pre-calc. This is a meet-up with some random crazy lady!

  Okay, so I’m about to be kidnapped and murdered. Are you going to be there to video the event or just leave me on my own?

  If would serve you right if I did.

  But Chelsea didn’t leave her. They spent most of the day watching videos and trying on outfits and taste-testing the cupcakes Dana had promised Kimi she was bringing to the party tonight. Chelsea left at about three thirty, looking grim.

  “This is still effing stupid,” she said on her way out the door. “And I shouldn’t be enabling you.”

  Despite all that, when Dana walked into the Starbucks, Chelsea was already there—thumbing her phone in one of the square, brown armchairs right up front with her earbuds in.

  Everybody’s keeping promises today, thought Dana. Because the woman who had given her the photo was there too.

  She sat far in the back, almost all the way to the emergency exit. Her thin hands wrapped around a small coffee, like she thought it would run away from her.

  Their eyes met and the woman’s face lit up, strained and hopeful. She gave a low wave, like she didn’t want to call attention to herself. Dana noticed she didn’t look quite as raggedy today. She wore a clean, black T-shirt, and she’d braided her hair. A few stray curls trailed against her long, crepey neck.

  Dana stuffed her hand into her purse so her fingers curled around her phone.

  I’m not being stupid. She threaded her way between the tables. Nothing’s going to happen. I’m not a little kid anymore. I just want to meet Mom’s family. My family. That’s normal.

  Maybe they’d both break down and there’d be hugs and ugly crying and babbled apologies. Or maybe Dana would end up calling the cops and finding out her grandparents were wanted in all fifty states. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she’d know more than she did now, and this time, she’d be in the story instead of locked outside.

  “Hi,” the woman said when Dana reached her table. “I’m really, really glad you—”

  Dana yanked out her phone and snapped a picture.

  “I’m sending this to a friend of mine.” She thumbed Chelsea’s contact. “Also, you should know that if I don’t check in every single day at exactly four thirty, my mom does an immediate and total freak-out.”

  The woman turned her coffee cup around a few times in her bony fingers. She had half a dozen sugar packets piled next to her on the table.

  “She’s just looking out for you. I get that. Especially cuz…well, cuz everything.” She took a quick gulp.

  Dana stared at her, trying to will some sense of recognition into being. But there was nothing—just a tired stranger who put way too much sugar in her coffee.

  Which was what Mom did.

  Which doesn’t mean anything, Dana reminded herself.

  Dana stared at the woman’s hands, taking in how thin they were, how brown from the sun and spotted from age, but her nails were clean and perfectly polished. The veins ran and branched under her sagging skin, a road map to nowhere in particular. No hint of pink. No perspiration, and definitely nothing soft. Nothing like those other hands that tried to take her away.

  Jesus. Relax.

  But she couldn’t.

  “So,” said the woman. “Dana Frase
r.”

  “So…” Dana stopped. “What’s your name?”

  The woman gave a little, awkward laugh. “Your mom didn’t even tell you that much? Christ. She must really hate us. Not that I blame her.”

  Dana didn’t answer.

  “It’s okay. I’m Jeannie Bowen. You can call me Jeannie.” She held out her thin, tanned hand.

  Shit. Disappointment crashed down. “And we’re done here.” Can’t believe I fell for this!

  “What? Oh shit—wait. What’s the…” The woman grabbed at Dana’s arm. Panic surged and Dana struck down, knocking the hand away hard.

  Heads turned. Eyes lifted from phones and laptops. Chelsea was on her feet, yanking out her earbuds.

  “I’m sorry!” The woman, Jeannie, held both hands up. See? They’re empty. “My mistake! I’m sorry!”

  Dana swallowed, trying to get her breathing back under control. Cut it out, cut it out, nothing happened.

  “Which name did she give you?” the woman asked very gently. “Cathy Hale? Teresa Sullivan? Casey Yost?” She paused. “Debbie Watts?”

  Dana hesitated, and the woman nodded. “Yeah. Okay. That’s my given name—Deborah Ann Watts. But I haven’t gone by that since I was maybe nineteen. When you live under the radar, you have to change things up a lot, and well…anyway. Mostly I’m Jeannie Bowen now, except on your mother’s birth certificate. That’s still Debbie Watts.”

  Dana swallowed her breath. “And you’re now going to pull that certificate out?”

  She shook her head. “No, that’s long gone. There’s a copy somewhere in Maricopa County, probably. It’s true, though. I was born Deborah Watts. My mother was Elizabeth Watts, and my father was some kid who got drunk at a high school football game and wouldn’t take no for an answer. We lived in a trailer outside a small town in Indiana. When I was seventeen, I met Todd Bowen and ran away from home and didn’t go back until after I had your mother.”

  Dana glanced toward Chelsea, and Chelsea jerked her chin toward the door. Dana shook her head. Chelsea threw up both hands and dropped back into her chair, shoving her earbuds back in and thumbing her screen.

  Slowly, Dana sat down at the table.

  Jeannie pulled the lid off her cup. “That was really smart, bringing somebody with you.” She picked up one of the six packets on the table and tore it open, pouring the long white stream of sugar into what was left of the coffee.

  Dana shrugged and turned her phone over in her fingers. “Mom told me she lived with her grandmother until she was, like, five or something.”

  “Yeah.” Jeannie held the cup in both hands like she was trying to draw some leftover warmth out of the cardboard. “Right after she was born, me and Todd—your grandfather—we were going through a bad patch, and we needed money. I thought, you know, my mother would be ready to help, because of the baby. But instead, she threatened me. Said she’d get me declared unfit if I didn’t leave Todd and come home. She always was a hard-assed old bitch. Sorry. Anyway, in the end, my mother gave me a thousand dollars to go away, and I gave her your mother.” She was talking to the bottom of her cup. “I thought I needed the money more than I needed my daughter.”

  “But you did go back,” Dana said softly, so the woman—Jeannie—wouldn’t hear how her voice shook. “You took her away again.”

  Mom had only told her about it once. Dana was nine and having some kind of relapse. She couldn’t stop crying, and she couldn’t go outside without screaming. When Mom forced her to go to school, Dana hit the teacher and the nurse just so she’d get sent home again.

  So Mom got her another therapist and sat curled up with her on the sofa for hours, holding her close. She helped make Dana’s bed into a blanket fort so the room wouldn’t feel so big when she was trying to go to sleep.

  And one time, Mom took Dana’s face between her hands and whispered.

  It wasn’t your fault, Dana. It’s easy—so very, very easy—to just go with someone when they tell you to. When my parents came for me, I was barely five, and after an hour—seriously, one hour—I was ready to go away with them forever just because they gave me Oreos.

  “She was my daughter,” said Jeannie. “Mine. She belonged with me. So, yes, I went and got her. Just as soon as I could.”

  “But then you dumped her again.”

  Jeannie sighed. “Going straight for the jugular? I’d hoped maybe we could start with, How are you? Or, Was it a long drive? Or, Do you like sweet potato fries? Stuff like that.” She smiled hopefully, and for some reason, Dana’s temper snapped.

  “Look, are we doing this or aren’t we? Because I have to get home.” Being angry was easier than being scared and confused. Because the story she was hearing was not the story she’d pieced together for herself. It sure as hell wasn’t the one Mom told her. And whether she should or not, Dana was starting to believe it.

  Plus, she really did have to watch the time. Mom kept a phone tracker on her, and if she decided to check it, she would not be happy to find Dana in the coffee shop instead of locked up safe and sound like she was supposed to be.

  Dana’s phone buzzed. She flipped it over. A message from Chelsea flashed onto the screen.

  What’s going on? You done yet?

  Dana shoved the phone back in her purse.

  Jeannie looked out the window for a long moment, making up her mind. “Okay. We play this your way. Your mother was with us from when she was about five to when she was about fifteen, when we split up. Why? It’s complicated.”

  “Mom said you guys were…” Dana couldn’t make herself say it.

  “Con artists?” Jeannie suggested. “Scammers? Criminals?”

  “Serial cheats.”

  “Huh.” Jeannie scratched her cheek with one perfectly clean, perfectly polished nail. “That’s a good one. Well, she’s right. We were.” She paused. “Of course, she was too.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Jeannie’s got cancer, Star.

  Beth had imagined a thousand different ways her parents’ demand for money would finally come down. But never this—Todd Bowen, alone, telling her Jeannie was sick.

  Beth lifted her hand and pressed her thumb and forefinger together, rubbing the tips slowly back and forth.

  “It’s the world’s smallest violin, Dad, playing just for you and Mom.”

  Todd sighed, tired and wounded. “Star…”

  Beth shook her head. “Nuh-uh. You do not get to pull this one on me. How many times did I hear you trot out some imaginary dead relative for the suckers? How many times did you remind me that if I got caught, I should tell store security that my mother was sick and I just wanted to get her something to make her feel better?”

  “Yeah, of course I forgot about all that,” he said flatly. “You think I’d pick this story if I had any choice? Like I didn’t know you’d laugh in my face?” He took her hand. Beth froze. That touch was so familiar—at once so loved and so hated. “But it is true, and we need you, Star. We always have, but now…now it’s all different.”

  Beth wanted to pull away from him, but visceral memory pinned down nerve and soul. She was in a motel room, in a diner, in the back seat of the car in the parking lot. Her father held her hand, just like this. He talked quietly to her, just like this. He told her how it was and how it was going to be. The little girl she had been listened, and she grabbed onto the certainty in her father’s words—eager for it and sick of it at the same time. Not that her feelings mattered. What mattered was that she pay strict attention to every word. He was telling her what she had to be. She had to forget what she’d seen or felt or thought even just a minute before. Whatever he was saying right now, that was real, and she had to get it right.

  “I know it’s a lot to take in,” he said, so gently. “I knew you wouldn’t want to believe it, especially after all those other times. Maybe it’s karma, you know? The universe is letting me know how all the suckers felt. I don’t know. I just know that it’s true and it’s happening. I wish to God it wasn’t.”
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  A soft ache rose inside Beth, tempted by the regret and compassion in his voice, just like it always had been. Her father saw it, and he smiled.

  “Hey, you still got that scar?” Todd turned her hand over and ran one finger up the inside of her forearm. “Yep. There it is.” He brushed the mottled patch of pink-and-white skin right below her elbow. “God, I’m never going to forget that. The bone tore right through the skin, and all that blood. You never forget the sight of your child’s blood, dripping down.” Lightly, lovingly, he traced the path that blood had taken as it flowed across her skin. “I was almost sick right there. It was like it was happening to me.”

  Believe him, believe him! screamed the little girl inside her. You have to.

  “You pushed me down those stairs.”

  “Oh, come on, Star.” He squeezed her hand, gently, gently. “You know that’s not how it was. You were trying to run away. I was trying to catch you. You slipped.”

  Believe those calm, blue eyes. That sweet voice. It doesn’t matter what you really did or what he really did. This is good. Make this last as long as you can.

  “You shouldn’t have tried to run, Star. If you’d just stayed, nothing would have happened.”

  Believe because everyone will say it’s your fault. You didn’t leave. You didn’t tell anyone. You stayed and you helped. You wanted him—them—to love you. It’s your fault because you wanted your bad, bad parents to love you, even just once.

  “All that blood,” he whispered again. “It broke my heart to see you hurt so bad. I bawled my eyes out the whole time they were putting the cast on you.”