A Mother's Lie

by Sarah Zettel

  Beth was vaguely aware she didn’t have to tell Dana all this. It was enough for her daughter to know the bad thing had happened, and why it did. But she kept going, despite the look on her daughter’s face, despite the pain squeezing her ribs.

  Who am I punishing? Me or her?

  Both of us. All of us.

  “And when I went back…there was this guy in the living room.”

  A skinny, little, bald white man with gray stubble on his cheeks and the edges of his scalp. He wore dark pants and a white shirt over a white T-shirt.

  He had a gun pointed right at her. Not a handgun. A double-barreled shotgun.

  Two blank, black holes leveled right at her face.

  Close the door, he said.

  “He was sitting on one of the kitchen chairs, facing the door.” Plastic-and-chrome chairs, with beige seats. The one was cracked down the middle. Dad had fixed it up with duct tape. “He had a shotgun. I was lucky he didn’t shoot right away.”

  “Jesus,” breathed Dana. “Who was he?”

  “I didn’t actually find out until I read about him in the paper. But that was later.” Years later, when I finally had the nerve to look up the archives online.

  The article about his death said his friends called him Bobbie Mac. It said he was a respected local pharmacist and businessman. It said his wife and children had no idea he’d been having financial troubles related to his business.

  It also said they had no idea he’d been filing fraudulent workers’ compensation claims that allowed the patients who came to his pain clinic to receive large amounts of prescription opioids.

  “He wanted…he wanted to know where my parents were. I told him I didn’t know. He didn’t believe me. He said we’d wait for them to come back.”

  He told me to get on my knees, and he put the gun to my head. I can touch the exact spot. When I get a headache, it always starts there.

  Where the fuck are they? he shouted. I’ll shoot you if you don’t tell me where the fuck they are!

  I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!

  She felt the screams burning in her throat. She smelled her own piss. Saw the bags of junk food scattered on the linoleum.

  Well, we’ll just wait for them, he said. You and me.

  Saw the cigarette burns in the carpet. Tried to think what she could say to make this all go away.

  They might not come back. They’ve been gone since yesterday.

  Don’t lie to me! What kind of parents would do that to their own kid?

  My kind.

  She’d meant to say that, but the words dissolved in a flood of acid certainty.

  Her parents had known this was coming—this guy and his shotgun. That was why they’d left. Maybe they thought he wouldn’t shoot a kid. But maybe not. Maybe they wanted to use her as a decoy. While he was busy shooting her, they could get a few miles farther away.

  But all that really mattered right then was that this guy was ready to shoot her dead, and she knew that nobody was coming to save her.

  Beth said, “He kept the phone near him, and I didn’t have a cell or anything like that, so I couldn’t call nine-one-one. At first, I thought I’d just wait until he fell asleep and run away. But my parents had a couple fifths of vodka in the cupboard, and he made me drink it with these pills he had. Oxycontin or something, I guess. So, I was out cold for a lot of the time, and when I was awake, I was sick and shaky.”

  They lived off the peanuts and Slim Jims and peanut butter sandwiches. He ordered pizza once.

  “By the third day, he was getting crazier. He kept talking about getting into his car with me and driving until he found them and…and about all the things he was going to do when he did. He was always making calls to somebody…asking about the cops and other people, and…by then, I had figured…I was puking up pretty much everything as soon as I could get into the bathroom and get my finger down my throat, so I was kind of straight.

  “Anyway, I…eventually I pretended to pass out. He went to the toilet, and that was when I got up.”

  The couch springs creaked. My heart stopped beating. I stopped breathing. I wasn’t in my body. I was floating along that worn-down carpet path.

  “I snuck over and I opened the bathroom door.”

  And he was sitting there with his pants around his ankles and his penis shoved down between his legs. His eyes wide, his mouth open. Couldn’t believe I’d broke in on him while he was dumping his load.

  “And I grabbed the gun off the floor and I shot him.”

  I pointed the gun right at his chest and I pulled the trigger and the thing kicked back like it hated me and probably cracked a rib. And the inside of Robert MacNamera Early exploded all over the wall and the sink and the mirror and the toilet, and me.

  And he fell over and he died.

  Dana pressed her hand against her mouth. For a moment Beth thought she was going to run away, be sick, or fall down screaming. But Dana was stronger than that. She was not going to run until she had heard the whole truth.

  “This is the part where I should probably say I didn’t mean to do it,” Beth told her, “that it was an accident and the gun just went off in my hands. But it wasn’t an accident, and I did mean to.”

  I scrubbed off in the kitchen sink and threw the bag of bloody clothes in a McDonald’s dumpster, then gave a blow job to the kid who saw me so he’d keep his damn mouth shut if the cops came and asked.

  “I went back to my grandmother’s, because I didn’t know where else to go. And I met Rafael and…” She waved vaguely toward that pile of memories. “I became Beth Fraser, and little Star Bowen vanished off the face of the earth.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  If this were a movie, Dana knew what would happen now.

  She’d take the three steps over to Mom and hug her close. Mom would dissolve into tears, and they’d cry together. The music would rise. The camera would pan out to some significant and panoramic scene. Then it would all fade to black and the commercial break, or the credits. Whatever.

  Dana realized that on some level, she was actually waiting for that fade-out. It didn’t come. Everything stayed exactly where it was—the apartment, her, Mom, the whole world. The world that had always had this thing in it. She just hadn’t known.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Dana whispered, and she knew it was a stupid question the second she asked it, because Mom had so clearly hit her limit.

  “When, Dana?” she demanded. “When should I have told you? When you were six? Eight? Nine and having your relapse? Or twelve and getting your period and flunking junior high at the same time?” Mom’s voice rose, the shout turning into a scream. “I know it’ll come as a big surprise, but the parenting books do not discuss the appropriate age for telling your teenager you’re a murderer!”

  “I know, I’m sorry, and I mean…well, I mean, it was self-defense, right?” she said, because she had to say something. There had to be a way to make this new knowledge fit. She couldn’t leave it as it was, just this…this big, heavy thing falling through the air toward her.

  A mind’s-eye flash—a bright, sick blur of memory and fantasy blinded her. She was there on the sidewalk. Her head hurt. Her hands hurt. She saw Mom…she saw Mom…felt her eyes burn as she tried to black it all out.

  But she did see. She saw Mom with a shotgun, blowing the pink-hands man away.

  Her knees were buckling. She was sliding down the balcony door to sit on the floor. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t stop herself. “You didn’t know if anybody was coming to help you. You didn’t know, you couldn’t know, and you were out of your head, and he was going to kill you, and I mean, what the fuck were you supposed to do!”

  Slowly, Mom slid down to sit next to her. “I could have just run out the door. He wouldn’t have known until he got out of the bathroom. But I didn’t. I went in there after him instead.”

  Dana leaned her head against Mom’s shoulder. Mom rested her hand on Dana’s head and kissed her. Th
ey stayed like that for a while, until Dana started to feel—well, normal was the wrong word—but at least like she might eventually be able to get back to normal one day.

  She sat up, and Mom let her.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Mom let out a long breath. “Well, first, I’m planning to go see Todd tonight, and I’m going to try to make him go away.”

  Jesus. Dana pushed her hands through her hair. This should have been the big news. But now it seemed kind of…an anticlimax or something. “Are you going to, like, pay him off?”

  “Hopefully it won’t come to that, but maybe. I’m going to at least get a better line on what he’s really after. But I don’t want you here on your own while I’m gone. Can you ask Chelsea if she can come over?”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “But nobody else. I mean nobody.”

  “Yeah, okay. But what about…Grandma?”

  Mom pushed herself up off the floor. “Nothing’s changed there, Dana. I promise. But there’s the other piece of this.” She paused, searching for the right words, or any words. “I’m telling Kendi and Mr. Verdes that Doug isn’t allowed past the lobby anymore. I don’t know what’s going on with him.”

  “Mom…” Dana tried to brace herself to get up off the floor. She felt like a baby just sitting here. But she couldn’t move yet.

  “What?” Mom asked. She looked beyond exhausted. She looked like she’d been completely hollowed out.

  Dana flashed on Jeannie lying on the gurney in the emergency room, looking more dead than alive. She remembered wondering if she would ever wake up.

  “I’m worried,” Dana said. “I mean, Todd—what if he hurts you?”

  “I’m not Jeannie, Dangerface. If he tries that on me, he’s going to find himself with more than he can handle.”

  “I love you, Mom.”

  And then Dana did stand up, and they did hug, just like they were supposed to. But Dana didn’t hear music rise inside her mind or see the camera pan or any of that. Instead, she saw her father in the hospital coffee shop with his desperate eyes and his whiny voice. Your mother has got to take responsibility for what she’s done before it hurts you!

  But he didn’t give a shit about her. He just wanted to turn her against Mom, make her afraid. He wanted to use her. For what, even? It didn’t matter.

  He did not get to do that, and she was going to make sure he never tried it again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  When Todd walked into Beth’s office, it was very clear he’d made an effort to live up to his surroundings. He was freshly shaved and had on a dry-cleaned, button-down shirt and linen slacks. He’d changed his boots for dress shoes.

  Amanda Pace Martin clearly took good care of her man. She hadn’t seen her father so well dressed since she was a little girl, back when they still sometimes tried to make a play in Vegas or Atlantic City.

  Beth had never told Dana about the high times when they were in the money, living in plush hotels. Or how she and Mom would go on shopping sprees that would make a Kardashian blush. Beth wanted to shield her from the glamour, because those luxury sprints always ended in another midnight drive, with her huddled in the back seat and her parents screaming at each other in the front. Then, in a few days, there’d be another call to Grammy and more tears for more money, and it would all begin again.

  Todd strolled around the edges of her office, whistling. He opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of Pellegrino.

  “What is this shit? You got all this”—he waved the bottle at the rest of her office—“and all you keep around is green juice and fancy water.”

  Beth shrugged. “Alcohol makes you stupid.”

  “Can’t argue with that. So.” He dropped onto her couch and spread his arms across the back. “I’m here. What have you got to say?”

  “Seventy-five thousand dollars.”

  Todd raised his eyebrows.

  Beth reached into her top drawer and pulled out a stack of paper.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “It’s a corporation,” said Beth. “Or it will be as soon as the last of the paperwork goes through.” She spent hours on the phone with her lawyer, Noah Beresford, finalizing the details. “S and J, Inc., LLC. Capitalized to the tune of seventy-five thousand dollars, all of which is yours as soon as you sign.”

  For a long moment, Todd didn’t move. He just looked at her and the papers. He was recalibrating. The world had taken a left turn, and he had to adjust his plan to match.

  His plan had depended on a helpless, desperate, worried little Star who was still trying to hide all the worst from her daughter.

  Finally, Todd heaved himself to his feet and strolled over to the desk. Beth folded her hands on the shiny, empty surface. She’d cleared everything off and locked it all away before he’d gotten here. Can’t be too careful. The desktop computer remained, of course, humming quietly to itself.

  Smile for the camera, Dad.

  “You’re giving me seventy-five thousand?” Dad said.

  She let out a long, theatrical sigh. “You’re trying to take care of my dear mother who is dying of cancer. See, that’s where I got the corporation idea. You’ll be able to buy her health insurance more easily. And as a bonus, you’ll be able to tell any of your girlfriends that you’re a businessman and entrepreneur.”

  His condescension evaporated, replaced by a fresh wariness. “What are you talking about, girlfriends?”

  “Stacey, Felicity, and Amanda. And all the rest of them.”

  Dad rolled his eyes. “Christ. You’ve been talking to your mother.”

  “Yes,” Beth admitted.

  “So, you do know where she is?” he asked, just a little too casually. “Cuz she ain’t at your place no more.”

  Are you fishing here, or do you really not know? It was possible he didn’t know. She’d talked to the hospital switchboard earlier. Given them the sob story about her father the abuser. They’d told her there were no calls recorded from Jeannie’s room.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do know where she is.”

  Dad folded his arms and looked down his nose at her. “Are you going to tell me?”

  Beth mimicked his pose, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs at the knee for good measure. “We haven’t come to an understanding yet. I will give you this money, only on the condition that you take Mom with you and you both get the hell out of my life.”

  I’m sorry, Dana. I am. But the thought was distant and without real urgency. She was ninety percent certain Todd and Jeannie were running some kind of scam on Doug. But with Todd gone, that plan, whatever it was, would collapse, or at least it would be put on hold and buy Beth some time. And because Beth had no way to know how far Jeannie was in on the plan, there was no way she could leave her near Dana. No matter what else might be happening, Jeannie had to go.

  Todd caught Beth’s gaze and held it while he picked up the papers. His lips moved as he skimmed, trying to keep up with the legal language.

  Beth tried to stay focused on him and not let her eyes flick to the clock or her mind wander to whether Dana was okay and what she was telling Chelsea and what Chelsea was telling her.

  Todd dropped the whole pile back down on the desk. “I don’t need your money. You are going to tell me where you’ve got my wife, Star, because otherwise she’s on your hands for the rest of her life, and we both know you really don’t want that.”

  “Besides, you don’t need her now that you’ve got Amanda on the hook,” Beth added for him. “But, you know, that might change.”

  “I really hope you’re not threatening me.” His voice was soft and low and full of warning. “I don’t want to hurt you—you know that. But you do not get to disrespect me.”

  She raised both eyebrows. “Would I disrespect you, Dad?”

  “Maybe not before, but I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on here. I think you might be getting me to sign some pile of papers to entrap me and shit like that.�
�

  “No.” She spoke the word without blinking. “This is all completely legit. I am paying you to take your wife and go away. I do not want to have to do anything like call Amanda back and tell her you’re a fraud who’s scammed her out of heaven knows how much, or that civil proceedings are a genuine possibility for her, and I know several excellent lawyers.” She paused. “Plus, there are these YouTube videos of you hitting a defenseless woman outside a Starbucks that she might need to have a look at.”

  Being who he was, it did not take Todd long to focus in on the important point in her little speech.

  “You said call Amanda back?”

  Beth pushed the phone toward him. “Call if you want. I’m sure she’ll be glad to tell you what a great conversation we had.”

  Todd didn’t even reach for the phone. He kept his eyes on Beth, and he waited.

  “This is a really straightforward proposition. You want money and you want Mom. I’m happy to hand over both. All you have to do is leave.”

  “What if I told you I don’t want your mother anymore? What if I’ve just…” He shrugged. “What if her running out on me was the last fucking straw?”

  Then why are you still asking where she is?

  “What happens to Jeannie after you get her out of Chicago is totally up to you.”

  To her surprise, Todd laughed—his best warmhearted belly laugh.

  “Wow! Being around all these rich fuckers has really made you into a hard-ass, hasn’t it, Star? Here, lemme use that phone.” He made a come-here gesture with two fingers.

  Beth pushed nine for the outside line and handed him the receiver. She watched him dial a number and wait while it rang.

  “Hey, Amanda, honey. How are you?” All Todd’s carefully cultivated charm came flooding out of him. He smiled and twinkled, and leaned back, fully relaxed and in the moment. Beth felt something clench up under her ribs. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m sorry it’s so early. I just…I really needed to hear your voice, and I forgot all about the time change…Forgive me?…Yeah. I know, I know. I miss you too. Listen, I was talking to my girl…Oh, uh-huh?…Yeah. Wow. Well, good.”