State of Lies

by Siri Mitchell

  I eased the flap closed behind me and crouched next to Sam. “I never noticed that before.”

  “Dad says nobody remembers them.” He put his head to the ground and looked out between the branches of the bush. “I can’t see anyone.”

  Neither could I.

  Holding on to Sam’s hand, I led the way around the bush. Then, keeping to the darker parts of the yard, we moved out toward the street. As I pulled him along, I sent a glance back to the house. And as I was doing it, I ran right into—

  “Oof!”

  Chris. It was Chris.

  I put a hand to his arm to steady myself. “Sorry!”

  He’d recovered his balance and now he smiled. “Georgie. Hey.” He glanced toward the house.

  Was he the intruder?

  No. I discarded the thought. He wouldn’t have had time to meet us out in front. But maybe he was an accomplice. I followed his gaze, trying to figure out the best way to get rid of him. “We were just leaving.” I gestured toward Jim and June’s. “We really need to—”

  He released my arm. “I was just wondering if—”

  A door slammed. Then a strange light illuminated the backyard for an instant as a shadow went racing away toward the house behind ours.

  The sudden contrast with the darkness hurt my eyes. Squinting, I put my hand up to block it even as I backed away from Chris. It wasn’t safe to be on the street. I had to get Sam out; had to get him away. “Sorry. Can we talk tomorrow? Sam and I were—”

  There was a percussive boom.

  Chris put up a hand to shield his face. “What the—”

  I felt it in my chest, like the slap of a wave, before I heard it. The sound started low, then mushroomed. It swelled, threatening to obliterate my ears, and then it retreated, leaving me staggering.

  Ears ringing, I reached out for Sam.

  He’d been knocked to the ground, but he was pushing up from his knees. Arm extended, brow crumpled, he reached for me.

  I pulled him up, turned us away from the house, and folded my body around his as I felt to make sure he was okay.

  “Mommy?” I felt Sam’s mouth move against my cheek. He clamped his arms around my neck.

  “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” I spoke the words into his ear as I scooped him up and started running.

  But it wasn’t.

  Heat licked at my backside. The pavement, the houses next to ours, stood out in graphic relief. Windows had been blown out of the cars that were parked on the street.

  It was not okay.

  Our house had just exploded.

  51

  “Why didn’t I call about it? About the intruder?” My voice had climbed an octave in disbelief.

  The police officer sat across from me at June’s table, pen poised above his notebook. “That’s right.”

  “Because I didn’t have time. Literally.” I clutched at the blanket June had wrapped around my shoulders. “We escaped from the basement and then the house exploded.”

  “You didn’t notice any fumes beforehand?”

  “I noticed the sound of someone walking around in my house. That’s what I noticed.”

  “Setting that aside for the moment—”

  “Setting that aside? Setting aside the fact that someone was prowling around my house? While we were in it?”

  June put a hand to my shoulder as she leaned in and put a mug of coffee on the table in front of me.

  I cupped it, pulling it close.

  “There’s no one who might be able to corroborate—”

  “Chris Gregory was there. Outside the house with us. He saw it explode.”

  “Chris?”

  “He’s the one who called 911.”

  “And he’s . . .” The police officer glanced out into the living room where Jim and Sam were working a puzzle. “Is that him?” He gestured toward Jim.

  “No. Chris is—” Where had Chris gone? He’d been there, at the explosion. He’d made a phone call. “I don’t know where he is.”

  “Do you have contact information for him?”

  “I— No. He’s just a neighbor. We walk our dogs together.”

  “Address?”

  “He lives . . .” Where did he live? He always dropped me off on the way home and then continued on. I didn’t know anything about him really. Except that he didn’t have a son in fifth grade. “Um, he lives farther down this street.” Or maybe the next one up? Or maybe he didn’t live in the neighborhood at all. Maybe Chris wasn’t even his real name.

  Jim had pulled the curtains in the living room shut so Sam and I didn’t have to see the firefighters or watch flames devour our house, but against the darkness outside, the curtains still glowed. And they still pulsed red from the lights of the fire trucks.

  The police officer flipped his notebook shut. “It will probably take a while for everything to stop burning.”

  Everything. Every single thing I owned.

  “We’ll be in touch.”

  * * *

  I knew why my house had exploded. I knew who had done it. The FBI or the DoD. Agencies that shouldn’t have been trying to intimidate me in order to reach Sean.

  By the time my parents drove up, I was crying big, ugly tears of rage.

  My mother pulled me into her arms.

  I let her.

  My father stood outside in Jim’s yard, watching the house burn, one hand clutching his side, the other pressed to his mouth.

  We stepped out to join him.

  My mother tightened her hold on me. “At least you weren’t at home.”

  Pulling away, I very nearly yelled. “We were home. We were in the basement when I heard someone in the house. Had we been two minutes later in getting out”—of our own house!—“we wouldn’t be standing here now.”

  She blinked. “Pardon me?”

  “We were there. At home. In the basement.”

  Somewhere inside the inferno, something popped. Flames flared. A window exploded.

  The orange and yellow of the fire reflected off my mother’s face. She clutched at me, drawing me close, and whispered my father’s name.

  He eyed her. Dropped his hand from his mouth and extended it to her. But she didn’t see it. She just stood there holding me, transfixed by the flames.

  My father glanced beyond her to me. “I, uh, maybe . . .” His shoulders slumped as if all the air had suddenly left his lungs. “I don’t know. Why don’t we get your things? Sam shouldn’t be seeing this.”

  He wasn’t. He was still inside with Jim. “I don’t have any things.”

  My father’s brows collapsed in uncharacteristic confusion. “What things?”

  “Any things. I don’t have any things. I have nothing.” Nothing but the clothes we were wearing and two cell phones. Everything else was gone.

  “Nothing.” The word hung in the space between us for a moment. “Well.” He cleared his throat. “I just think that it would do you a world of good to get out of here. Leave all of this behind you. Your mother and I have found a house. A big one. There’s room for you. There’s no reason you couldn’t move in with us.”

  “We can’t.” My tears had dried up as the weight of reality had settled onto my shoulders. For myriad reasons we weren’t going to do that. I chose the easiest one for protest. “Sam’s school is here.”

  “But the new house is in a good school district and—”

  “His friends are here.”

  “He can make new—”

  “I’ll have to deal with the fire. The insurance company. There might be things that can be salvaged. If there are, I want to know about them.”

  “But your father’s right. Maybe this is a good time to start over.” My mother had reengaged.

  “Start over?”

  “Completely. Leave the past behind.”

  I choked down a laugh. It left me feeling strangled. “Leave the past behind?” My own father, her husband, was the reason I couldn’t. Because somewhere out in the desert in Iraq, something had h
appened. “Sean wouldn’t want me to.” But if I wasn’t careful, if I didn’t say just the right thing when I told him about the fire, he was liable to throw all caution to the wind, come back to life, and have to die all over again. For real. I gestured toward the fire. “That was my life. Everything we’d built together.” I wanted it all back.

  “It’s been eight months, Georgia Ann. Let us help you. We’ll be here now. Let us take care of you.”

  “But Sean was trying—” I’ll never know what I might have told them, what I might have admitted to, if my father hadn’t interrupted me.

  “Sean doesn’t matter!”

  I blinked.

  “JB.” My mother’s voice was low. She was sending him a warning.

  “Do you really think it was fate that led Sean to you? I sent him to that bar to find you. So whatever loyalty you think you still owe him is misplaced.”

  “You—you what?” The bottom dropped out of my world. My memories, the very foundation of my life with Sean combusted, turned to cinders, and disappeared through the huge, gaping hole my father had just blown in my heart. “But he’d gotten out.” Sean had gotten out of the service by then.

  My father dismissed my words with a frown. “Strong character. I could tell that about him. I’d thought I could trust him. I was hoping I could count on him. And truth is, I knew you were floundering—”

  “I wasn’t floundering!”

  “—so I asked him if he’d do me a favor.”

  Asked him? He’d asked Sean? Then it might as well have been an order. No one ever refused a general anything. I’d thought I was blossoming. That I’d finally become the butterfly bursting from her chrysalis. That I was pretty. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t. But it didn’t matter. None of it had mattered. Sean had been sent on a mission. Like any good soldier, he’d done what had been asked of him. I was the mission; he’d done his duty. Which made me wonder. Was he part of all of this too?

  52

  I left my mother and father standing there, walked up the steps into Jim and June’s house, and locked the door behind me.

  After plying us with multiple mugs of hot chocolate and a dozen freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, they settled us into their guest room. It would have been nice if Sam had been a cuddler. I would have liked something to hold on to. But he was a spinner, rolling in his sleep. At least he always spun in the same direction. I kept myself out of his way as I stared into the dark, trying to wrap my mind around all there was to do. At one point I almost got out of bed to make a list, but then I realized my attaché had burned along with everything else.

  I’d have to ask June in the morning if I could borrow a piece of paper. And a pen.

  And shampoo. And a hairbrush. And a towel.

  And a cereal bowl. And a spoon.

  And maybe a clean pair of socks.

  And some dental floss.

  I’d have to ask the DMV for a replacement driver’s license. I’d have to contact my bank for a new credit card and ask the post office to forward my mail to a new address. And then . . . and then . . . I couldn’t quite remember . . . and finally, I fell asleep.

  * * *

  I didn’t text Sean about the house until morning; I didn’t know what to think about him anymore. I didn’t figure there was any way for him to help, and I didn’t want him to do anything rash. Which is probably what someone had been hoping for.

  I put some effort into figuring out how to tell him, but I finally gave up.

  House exploded last night.

  S ok

  At J Js

  It was Friday and that was both good and bad. I could send Sam off to school and he wouldn’t have to see the smoking ruins of our house, but all his fears about leaving me had come back. Jim and June tried to make him feel better about everything by telling him it could be Samday every day now, but he wasn’t buying it. They offered to take him to a movie and out for lunch over in Ballston the next day. That cheered him up.

  * * *

  I borrowed June’s car that morning, went to Kohl’s, and picked up some basic essentials. Pajamas, a change of clothes for us both. A purse for me. A backpack for Sam. I used a phone app to pay.

  When I got back, I wandered over to the house. It looked as if someone had doused our entire lot with a bucket of charcoal-colored paint. My nose wrinkled at the acrid scent of burnt wood and burnt wiring.

  “Georgie!”

  I turned around to find Chris walking down the sidewalk toward me. “Hey. How are you doing?”

  I slipped my hand into my pocket and grabbed my phone. I didn’t think he knew that I was on to him, but I was wary just the same.

  “I keep wishing I’d been able to do more for you than just call 911.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” I tried to sound convincing.

  “You guys okay?”

  “The police were asking about you.”

  Did his eyes sharpen beneath his baseball cap? “Me? Why?”

  “I told them you were there with us. They wanted contact information, but I realized I don’t have any.”

  He pulled at the brim of his cap. “Right.”

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket, pretended to open an app while I opened my camera instead. I held the phone up, gesturing with it, and took a picture of him. “If you give me your phone number, I can pass it on to them.”

  “Sure.”

  I opened up my contacts and thumbed it into my phone as he gave it to me. “Thanks. Well. I should go. Lots of things I have to do. About the fire.”

  “Sure. If I can do anything, let me know, okay?” He lifted a hand by way of good-bye and left.

  I let out the breath I’d been holding.

  A lawn maintenance crew had gone to work blowing leaves in the yard next door to mine. They came every Friday. As the leaves began to swirl, I stood there staring at the ruins of my house.

  The picket fence dipped toward the street as if trying to escape the wreckage. The gate had been blown off its hinges.

  There was just so little left.

  And what the fire hadn’t destroyed—the massive support beams, the fireplace and chimney, the concrete laundry basin in the basement—wasn’t anything I would have wanted to save.

  Ten years of life together and there was nothing. I didn’t have the strength to stand anymore, so I squatted. As I swept a hand over a pile of ashes, something brown and lumpy caught my eye. I pulled it out of the debris. A melted Lego brick. Next to it was a picture frame. It was a photo of Sean and me on our wedding day. The frame was blackened. A corner of the photo was singed.

  One of the lawn workers approached the edge of the property line. His leaf blower sent a stream of powdery, acrid ashes in my direction.

  I stood, spitting ashes from my mouth. “Hey!”

  He didn’t appear to notice.

  Clutching the picture to my chest, I stomped over, skirting a pile of still-smoldering embers. “Hey!”

  He turned.

  “Can’t you see what you’re doing?”

  He idled the leaf blower.

  I looked past the work boots. Past the company jacket. Past the sunglasses. It was Sean. Of course it was Sean.

  He held the leaf blower away and leaned close. “Argue with me.”

  Argue with him? He wanted an argument? Well, I had one for him! I raised my voice. “I always really liked our story. The way we met at the Ballroom. The way we found each other.” I tossed the picture behind me onto a still-smoldering pile of charred wood. “My father told me last night that he put you up to it!”

  “What?” He powered the leaf blower up a notch and swung it back toward the house, sending up another stream of ashes.

  I kept pressing him. “Did he? Did my father ask you to find me that night?”

  “What night? What are you talking about?”

  I grabbed hold of his coat. “Did my father set you up with me?”

  He twisted away.

  “How am I supposed to
trust you? What am I supposed to believe?”

  “Georgie—”

  “Is my father telling the truth?”

  He pointed the leaf blower out toward the street. “No! You have to believe me, Georgie.”

  “How?”

  “I am not the bad guy here.” He gestured to the ashes. “Our house blew up. My son got beat up. I got run out of my job. You’re not asking the right question. You need to ask yourself why your father would lie to you about something like that.”

  “I want to believe you.” I closed my eyes. “I want to. Just tell me how.”

  Everyone trusted someone until they realized they couldn’t. Everyone thought they knew what love was until they discovered they didn’t. Everyone thought they knew the truth until they found out it was a lie. But how do you let go of one to take hold of the other?

  “I have always tried to act in your best interests, Georgie. I might not have always succeeded, but I have always tried. Because I love you. And that’s what love does.”

  Love. Sean claimed that he loved me. He’d never stood me up beside him to portray the perfect American family. He’d never used me to bolster enthusiasm or display patriotism or recruit supporters. He’d never made me part of an argument that made him look better than he was. If Sean had used me at all, it was to make me better, not him. When it came down to it, the decision to believe him was simple. It didn’t have anything to do with anything he said. It had everything to do with all the things he’d done, including lying to protect his family. “I believe you.” Maybe he wasn’t Saint Sean, but he was something better. He was my Sean. “This is where it stops.”

  “This is where it stops.”

  I pulled my phone from my pocket, showed him the picture of Chris.

  “He’s FBI,” Sean said. “Be careful.”

  53

  As I walked back across the street to Jim and June’s, I called the number Chris gave me. Just to see what would happen.

  No one answered.

  No voice mail picked up.

  My mother called while I was helping June clean up from a batch of Rice Krispies Treats she’d made for Sam. “Georgia Ann. Sugar pie.”