A Mother's Lie

by Sarah Zettel

  All at once, Beth remembered Jeannie unconscious in the hospital bed, her stick-thin legs and bony wrists lying limp against the white sheets. She remembered standing by the sink while her mother heaved her guts out. She remembered the bitter anger and accusations, all of which were turning out to be real.

  And all the years with their bruises and blood, and all the times she had to apologize for making her father mad.

  And now she got to sit and listen to him spread all his charms for a stranger. Beth had not believed there was room for more hatred inside her. She’d been so very wrong.

  “…I really am glad,” he was saying. “And I’m sorry I kept putting off introducing you…Yeah, yeah, well…Sounds like it’s all worked out for the best. Yeah…Oh, everything’s fine. Yeah…She said that?” Dad cocked an eyebrow at Beth. “Jesus. That bitch Stacey…Sorry, Amanda. I just get so mad.”

  Note to self, thought Beth sourly. Contact Stacey next and find out what happened.

  “No, no, I’ll make sure she knows all about it. Don’t worry.” Dad was flipping the legal papers with his thumb while he talked, riffling them like cards. “Yeah, I know. I do. Listen, you go back to sleep. Dream of me. Ha-ha…Oh yeah. Just wait till you get home, naughty girl…Yeah. Love you too. Bye.”

  Dad hung up. He didn’t say anything for a minute, just watched her, considering.

  “Did I mention there’s a signing bonus?” Beth asked. “A check for three thousand dollars.” She pulled the cashier’s check out of the drawer and pushed it across the desk.

  But Dad ignored the check, or pretended to. Instead, he picked up the papers again and flipped through them, but he wasn’t reading. He was inside his own head, playing out different scenarios, trying to see all the ways he could look like he was taking the deal and still come back for more. And even more after that.

  He won’t ever stop. Not until somebody’s dead—Mom’s words echoed back through her mind. And she was right. All Beth was doing with her stack of papers was buying a little time, but that time was all she needed.

  Come on, Dad. It’s everything you wanted. You’ll have the money and you’ll have ways to keep me on the hook for the rest of your life, just like what you did to Grammy.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m in.”

  Beth concentrated on getting out her fountain pen, the one she saved for special occasions, and pulling off its cap. She needed that minute to make sure she could speak without any relief, or triumph, in her voice.

  “As soon as this is endorsed,” she said as she signed the check, “you can go to any branch of this bank”—she pushed the check and a business card across the desk—“and cash it. Once you’ve done that, you call this guy.” She brought out another business card. “He’s your lawyer now. He can answer any questions and take care of any problems. He also understands that if I ever see you again, the whole thing’s over and done.”

  Todd was sizing her up again, trying to make sure he still had the upper hand. He had to have caught the loophole. If I ever see you again. That didn’t rule out calls, emails—anything like that. He could still harass her and hurt her, mostly by making sure she knew he’d won, despite all her precautions. That was important.

  “Gimme that pen.”

  Beth did, and she flipped the papers back to the first little sticky tab that marked where he needed to sign.

  Todd bent over the paper and scrawled his signature.

  “I didn’t mean what I said before, you know, about not wanting Jeannie anymore. That was just to see what you’d do,” he told her. “I love Jeannie, and I will never, ever leave her alone. I’m going to be right there, no matter what happens. But a man’s got to provide somehow, and I am just not as fast as I used to be.” He flipped through the papers, signing and initialing just where she showed him. “And do you know, Star, there is an endless supply of the dumbest possible bitches out there? And all of them rich and lining up for the ol’ silver fox.” He smoothed his gray hair back. “And desperate! My God, you would not believe how effin’ desperate! Amanda? She bellows like a goddamned cow. Unbelievable.” He chuckled. “You were smart not to marry that guy of yours—Dave, Doug, whoever the fuck. Just keep yourself a string running, and you can have all the money you need. Now”—Todd shoved all the papers toward her—“where is my wife?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “What’s wrong with your mom?” Chelsea dropped her duffle bag on Dana’s bedroom floor and kicked the door shut. “Fuck me. What’s wrong with you?”

  Dana was curled up on her bed with Cornie Bow. She’d been in pretty much this position the whole afternoon. Most of the time, she just felt numb, but then these waves of anger would come over her—anger at Mom and at her grandparents and her dad and at the dead man and pink-hands man, and she’d break down crying into the pillows so Mom wouldn’t hear.

  And then she’d be numb again, until the next wave hit.

  There was a plate of the cupcakes that never got taken to the party she never went to beside her. Chelsea yanked off her boots, sat cross-legged on the bed, grabbed a cake, and peeled off the paper. She broke it in half and held one half out to Dana. Dana curled farther in on herself.

  Chelsea shrugged and ate both halves. “Come on, Dana, what’s going on?”

  Dana opened her laptop and turned the screen toward Chelsea so she could see the enormous headline standing out against the gray, flyspecked page.

  LOCAL MAN FOUND DEAD, FAMILY DISAPPEARS

  It was an article from the Abrahamsville County Register, from the eighties. It had taken all of one phone call to the local library and one breathless story about a school project to get the librarian to go find the microfilm page, print it out, scan it, and send it to her.

  Dana wasn’t sure why she did it. Maybe she didn’t want to think about why. Maybe she was afraid that as bad as the story Mom told her was, reality might be worse.

  Which was also something she did not want to think about.

  Chelsea read.

  “…was found shot to death in the upper-floor apartment that had been leased to Thomas J. Jankowski and his wife, Deborah. The couple lived there with their daughter, Star, 15, a sophomore at…was apparently shot once at close range with the double-barreled shotgun found at the scene. Police refused to rule out suicide…whereabouts of the Jankowski family are currently unknown, but they are wanted for questioning…”

  Chelsea pressed her hand over her mouth and stared. Dana nodded and turned the laptop back around.

  “Holy shit!” breathed Chelsea. “Are these your grandparents?”

  “And my mom. The guy was holding her hostage for three days, and she killed him and ran.”

  There was a picture of a body. It was old and grainy, and black and white, but you could still see the mess that had been made of him and the black splatter of blood, like someone had tossed a whole gallon of paint straight at his chest.

  “Wow. I knew your mom was a badass, but this is…next-level…and—” Chelsea stopped, clearly because she’d gotten a look at Dana’s face. “Okay, what am I missing?”

  Dana took a deep breath. She wanted to tell Chelsea everything, but somehow, the words did not want to string themselves together. “I saw my dad. He came to the hospital yesterday, and he…he was hinting around that Mom had done some…really bad stuff.”

  “Seriously? Usually he only hints around that he wants to blow you off again.”

  “Yeah. Something’s changed. He’s in trouble. I don’t know what exactly. Mom says it’s money, and she always knows when it’s money. Anyway. He tried to tell me she killed somebody. He tried…he wanted to get me scared of her. He…he’s gone off the fucking rails this time.”

  A wave of anger swelled again, hot and unnerving. She could feel herself trying to let it go already, to just…accept that Dad did and said shit like this, and it didn’t matter.

  This time, it matters. It really, seriously matters.

  “I am sick of him jerking me around,” she said.
Each word dropped harder than the last. “And he’s gonna hear it from me. Me! Not Mom!”

  “Just as soon as you stop crying,” remarked Chelsea.

  “Oh, fuck!” Dana slapped the nearest pillow up against her face and bawled. And because Chelsea understood and Chelsea was her BFF, Chelsea grabbed a Kleenex and shoved it under the pillow.

  “Rag for the ugly cry,” she said. Dana laughed and cried and dropped the pillow and took the Kleenex and honked when she blew her nose.

  Chelsea handed a cupcake to Dana and took one for herself.

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “I’m going to find out exactly what the hell my dad’s talking about. Then I’m going to tell him he doesn’t get to hide me, then use me. Fuck that.”

  “Yeah, fuck that fucker into the middle of next fucking week!” Chelsea raised her cupcake like she wanted to make a toast. Dana bumped what was left of her cake up against Chelsea’s.

  “But…thing is, I need your help.”

  Chelsea glared at her, which would have been way more intimidating without the blob of frosting on her cheek. “I am not helping you do any more stupid stuff. Look what happened last time.”

  “Come on—it’s not going to be any big deal. I just need you to cover for me with my mom—that’s all.”

  “Yeah.” Chelsea scrunched the cupcake wrapper tight in her fist. “Cuz when everything’s fine and it’s no big deal, that’s always when you need somebody to cover for you!”

  “All I’m doing is telling my dad I know he’s full of it, and he should fuck off and never come back.”

  “So call him! Phone’s right there!” She stabbed a finger at Dana’s cell, which was next to her laptop.

  “I have to do this to his face. It’s the only way I can be sure he’s listening, and I’ve only got two days!”

  That stopped Chelsea in her tracks. “Why two days?”

  Dana swallowed. “Cuz Mom’s making me go away to this stupid ‘enrichment camp’ for rich kids whose parents need to get them out of the way while they’re investigated by the special counsel or something.” Telling Chelsea made it way more real. Her whole summer, her internship—everything—was all done before it even got started. She was being shoved aside. So she’d be safe and out of the picture. “I’m supposed to leave Wednesday.”

  Suddenly, Chelsea got up off the bed and stalked over to the window.

  “Fuck!” she said to the city outside. “Just…fuck! Dana! Why’d you have to go screwing around with this?! Huh? I told you it’d just mess everything up! Why couldn’t you listen?!”

  “What the hell, Chelsea? What’s going on?!”

  But it was like Chelsea didn’t even hear her. “You…you don’t think—that’s what’s going on! You get all tied up in knots and your own little world and you don’t even see what you’re doing to everybody else!”

  “Chelsea!” Dana jumped off the bed and grabbed her friend’s shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

  To Dana’s utter shock, Chelsea was crying.

  “Jesus, Chelsea, what…”

  “All the shit at home…it’s gotten worse. It’s…”

  Dana went cold. “Oh, Christ. Did Cody…did he…”

  “No, not that. But you remember that douche Ashton? With the pills? Well, he’s gone and got the whole goddamn band in on it with him. They’ve been getting all these frat party gigs and stuff, but it’s only because they’re bringing the drugs. And they’re around, like, all the time now. And it’s summer and I haven’t got anywhere to go and I know it’s gonna get worse. Cody got arrested last month, and Dad got it all hushed up and stuff, and Mom hasn’t left her room for, like, days…I think he’s giving her pills too. I don’t know if Dad knows…” The words trailed away. “I was going to ask if I could stay with you guys for, you know, a while, but…” She wiped at her eyes. “If you’re leaving…there’s nowhere to go.”

  “Oh. Oh no. Oh shit. Chelsea, I’m so sorry. But it won’t happen. Mom won’t leave you there. I swear she won’t.”

  “Yeah, like what’s she going to do now, when you’re not even going to be here?”

  “Maybe I won’t have to go. There’s still a couple of days. Maybe…”

  But even while she said it, she knew she was just bullshitting herself, and if she hadn’t known it, the look on Chelsea’s face would have absolutely clued her in.

  “At least promise me you’ll stay away from your dad.”

  “Jesus, Chels. I know shit’s bad and stuff, but we’re talking about my dad. He can’t put a Band-Aid on a cut by himself.”

  “You’ve…you’ve never really seen how desperate rich people get when somebody’s about to take their money away.”

  “And you have?”

  “Shit, yeah. You know how my mom talks about that ‘little separation’ she and Dad had when we were kids?”

  “Yeah?”

  “He was in prison for tax fraud. And beating up his accountant.”

  “Fuck. I thought your mom was the crazy one.”

  “Oh, in the Hamilton family, we are all about the equal-opportunity dysfunction.” She picked up another cupcake and started peeling off the wrapper.

  Dana made up her mind, all at once, about a whole bunch of things.

  “And don’t worry, we’ll figure out how to talk Mom into letting you stay for the summer.”

  “But you’re going to bad-billionaire camp.”

  “So, I’ll guilt her into letting you come with me.”

  Chelsea grinned. “We will be running the place inside a week.” She held up her hand, and Dana slapped it in a high five, hard.

  “Everything’s going to be okay, Chelsea.” Dana laced her fingers through Chelsea’s and held on. I will fix this. “It will. I promise.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Dana was going to be devastated when she found out her grandmother had vanished.

  I’m sorry, Dangerface. I’m so, so sorry. The words unspooled themselves inside Beth’s head. I don’t know how he got to her.

  When the office door closed behind her father, Beth stayed exactly where she was and counted to ten. She wanted to be sure she could move without shaking. She also wanted to be sure that Todd wasn’t going to decide it would be really funny to come back and have the last-last word.

  The door remained closed.

  Beth worked the keyboard on her desktop computer, shutting down the video-conference program that had been running during the entire meeting.

  Dana was right. It was time to be done with secrets.

  Except the one.

  Jeannie must have called him, and…and I just don’t know what happened. I’m sorry.

  She saved the file of her conversation with Todd, first to the computer hard drive, and then to her private Dropbox account.

  You tried to help. You really tried. She just…wasn’t ready to accept it. That’s all.

  Beth opened her desk drawer and pulled out the recorder.

  It was an old-fashioned one, with an actual microcassette in it. She quickly extracted the cassette and sealed it into an envelope, which she’d already addressed to her lawyer.

  Todd Bowen had very few blind spots, but one of them was that he would assume that if the sucker paid out, that was the beginning and the end of that sucker’s plan.

  Once Todd had Jeannie out of state and once Beth had settled whatever the hell was up with Doug, she could talk with Amanda Martin and any others that Kinseki tracked down. She could play them the recordings, tell them the truth, “help” them decide what to do about it.

  Lumination’s emergency communications team would help with any media attention that might arise. And it wouldn’t be the first time Beth had needed to finesse her own story for public consumption.

  Beth started collecting her things. She needed to get home. She had left Dana alone too long as it was. She lit up her phone and texted:

  Heading home. All okay there?

  She looked at the emoji for a while, seeking rea
ssurance. There was still this nagging whisper in her head that it had gone too well. That maybe she’d misjudged her father or overplayed her hand.

  But she couldn’t do anything more about her parents until tomorrow at the very earliest. Right now, she had to focus on the other half of this fine mess.

  She had to find out if Dad really was behind Doug’s money troubles, or if her ex coming to her for help now was just a coincidence. Not that Doug would ever voluntarily admit anything. And of course, neither would Todd.

  So, she would just have to go around them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “Dana?” Mom knocked on her bedroom door. “Dana, I’ve got some news.”

  Shit. Now what?

  Worry stabbed at her. Last night, Mom had come home grim but hopeful from meeting Todd. She hadn’t wanted to go into details, but that just made it easier for Dana to put the plan she’d worked out into action.

  Step One—explain very calmly and rationally why she should be allowed to go to the Vine and Horn on her own to explain why she was pulling out of the internship at the last minute.

  “I still might have a chance to work there,” she’d pointed out. “I can’t go in with my mom following me around like I’m just some irresponsible kid.”

  She’d expected hours of wrangling and maybe even having to throw a full-bore tantrum. But Mom had agreed almost right away. In fact, she’d maybe even looked a little relieved.

  Except maybe this morning, she’d changed her mind.

  “Come in!” Dana called.

  The door opened and Dana’s heart sank. Mom really looked like she was having second thoughts. No, no, you can’t. I have to do this…

  “I just got a call from the hospital.” Mom cut through her rising panic. “Jeannie’s labs came back this morning.”

  “What do they say?”

  Mom shook her head. “They can’t talk about it over the phone. Privacy regulations. But after I drop you off at the restaurant, I’m going to talk with the doctors, okay?”