The Truth About Us

by Tia Souders

  “And I suppose that doesn’t include me, then. I get it.”

  Abby blinked, her eyes growing blurry from tears. She swallowed over the lump in her throat. The silence between them said more than words. Still, she said nothing, allowing her fears to take hold. What if she said the wrong thing? What if her willpower dissolved and she stepped into his arms and kissed him instead of keeping the pretense she wanted nothing to do with him? She kept her mouth shut because it was best for him. Rip off the bandage fast.

  But Kaden wasn’t having it. He stepped toward her, gripping her arms, and dipped his head so he could see into her eyes.

  “Would you at least look at me? Abby, please.”

  When she didn’t comply, he placed his fingers under her chin and tilted her head up to his. She squeezed her eyes shut, afraid to look in his eyes, afraid to see his pain in the face of her rejection because it mirrored her own.

  “Look at me. Look into my eyes and tell me why you don’t want to see me anymore. Tell me what went wrong. What I did. You at least owe me that much.”

  Her eyes locked on his, and her heart took a nosedive. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this right now.”

  The moment the words left her mouth, she turned and left him standing there alone.

  It was the most cowardly thing she could do, and she knew it. She hadn’t given him the finality of closure, and yet, she hadn’t given him hope either. But how could she do either of those things when her mind was telling her no and her heart was screaming yes?

  Her throat threatened to close. Her feet carried her past the room where she was supposed to eat her lunch while she studied. She felt lost in the sea of students as she weaved through them, having no idea who she was anymore, nor why she was there.

  Maybe she was a monster like her grandfather, intent on hurting others. She couldn’t even bring herself to tell Kaden the truth. Instead, she left him hanging on a string, unbalanced and not knowing where to go. And as usual, she had shelved her feelings so she wouldn’t have to deal with them.

  Just like her grandfather. The thought rang in her head—a warning bell to her weary soul.

  An emptiness settled inside her chest, sinking into the pit of her stomach.

  They shared the same blood, the same genes. She was a part of him, and so it stood to reason the same monster inside of him lived in her. How many times had her mother or father compared her to him?

  They both found displays of emotion reprehensible and would rather set their feelings aside than deal with them. They both hid how they felt. Heck, he hid from the world for more than sixty years, and as she thought about it, maybe that’s what Abby had been doing, too. With Cammie, with her friends. Maybe it wasn’t all about family first all these years. Maybe it was easier not to share her full self with anyone but family.

  If she had been in an identical time and place as he had been, faced with the same decisions, would she have made the same choices? Would she have somehow fallen into the wrong side?

  Without thinking, Abby turned into Miss Mandie’s office, her guidance counselor plaque staring back at her with judging eyes as she burst inside without knocking.

  Miss Mandie glanced up at her with soft, green eyes, her dark hair pulled back into a knot at the nape of her neck.

  “I don’t have an appointment,” she blurted, stating the obvious.

  A smile curled Miss Mandie’s lips. “Abby! I’ve been wanting you to come see me. It just so happens I’m on my lunch. Go ahead and close the door, will you?” She nodded to the door.

  “I can come back.”

  “Nonsense.” She shook her head. “No need. I hate eating alone. If I’m not mistaken, it’s your lunch too, right? Why don’t you eat with me?”

  Abby sunk into the chair across from her. “How do you know my schedule?”

  “I know a lot about the students, even the ones that avoid coming to see me,” she said, obviously referring to her, despite her lighthearted tone.

  Abby brought her book bag to her lap, folding her arms over the top of it, unable to eat anything through her nerves. She hugged the bag to her chest, needing something to displace her discomfort.

  “What can I do for you?” Miss Mandie asked, taking a bite of her sandwich.

  Abby had no idea where to start when she barely even knew why she was there in the first place. Only knowing she had needed an escape from Kaden, from her feelings, and her incessant thoughts.

  “I have a secret,” she murmured, somewhat appalled by how easily the words fell from her lips.

  “Okay.” Setting her food down, Miss Mandie leaned back in her chair, counselor mask on, waiting.

  “Actually, it’s kind of more than one secret.” Her thoughts flickered to Mr. Oliver and her promise to stay away from Kaden. “And I don’t know whether to keep them secret or to tell someone. How do you know when a secret is something you shouldn’t keep silent?” Abby asked, her gaze pleading.

  She needed answers. She needed someone to tell her what to do, so she no longer had to choose what was right through her muddled thoughts.

  Miss Mandie pursed her lips, giving Abby’s question a moment of thought before leaning forward in her desk. “It’s hard to make a determination like that without knowing more details, but I suppose, I would say, keeping the secret would be determined by whether it hurt someone. Would keeping it hurt someone more or less, in the long run, by holding it in or telling them? For example, if the secret is you discovered your friend’s boyfriend was cheating on her, and you tell her, she’ll be upset, possibly even mad at you, but she will be more upset, in the long run, if you keep it from her because she will eventually find out and then she’ll have invested even more time in this person by then. She’ll feel betrayed by you, as well, if she discovered you had known and kept quiet. But sometimes the truth is unnecessary. Sometimes it’s better kept quiet.

  “For example, if your friend is at school and asks you if the outfit she chose makes her look fat, and it does, telling her the truth would only hurt her and have no benefit. She is already at school. She can’t go home and change now. Telling her would be cruel and serve no purpose other than to make her feel like crap.”

  Abby moaned. None of her examples were even close to what she was dealing with. This wasn’t a bad outfit or a douchebag boyfriend.

  “What if the secret is about something someone did, something terrible? Illegal. But it was a long time ago?” Abby asked, thinking of her grandfather.

  “Does keeping it a secret hurt anyone?”

  Abby ran a hand through her hair, frustrated. “I don’t know,” she said. “Not really, but kind of indirectly.”

  She pictured Anna Gutman in her head. It’s the only thing that explained her bizarre reaction. She must’ve recognized her grandfather in the picture that day. What she had to have felt in that moment, Abby couldn’t begin to understand. To know one of the men responsible for the murder and torture of so many people, including her own family, was close by, alive and well, had to be nightmarish at best. Especially if that person was pretending to be family.

  “Does telling the secret hurt anyone?”

  “Yes,” Abby said. Her parents—her mother, especially—would be devastated; their reputations ruined. Her grandfather would go to trial and be sent to prison. Or worse, be put to death.

  “Well, then. Maybe that’s your answer.”

  Abby nodded, biting her lip. So, keep the secret to herself. Keep the past in the past. Turning her grandfather in would help no one now. What was done so many years ago was done. Nothing can turn back the clock and change it.

  She should be relieved. So, why did she feel sick at the thought?

  Abby fisted her hands in her lap. Her nails digging into her palms. “What if hurting someone doesn’t matter? What if telling the truth is the right thing to do no matter the cost? When do you know to choose what is right over what hurts the most? No matter the personal cost?”

  Miss Mandie fell quiet. Her emerald eyes ch
urned with unanswered questions as she stared unblinkingly, and Abby sensed a shift in her, a knowing they were not talking about teenage drama, boy problems, or the average secrets teenagers kept from each other but something big. Unthinkable.

  She toyed with a pencil on her desk, tapping the end of it over the stack of papers there before answering. “Sometimes, doing what’s right is the hardest thing in the world. Personal sacrifice is a sign of true character. Turn everything off, Abby. Chances are, you already know what you have to do. You simply fear it in your heart. Sometimes, if we stop and listen to that voice deep within, we usually have all the answers we need.”

  ABBY DROVE AROUND FOR hours following school. Miss Mandie was wrong. No matter how much Abby tried to drown out all thought, everything around her, her gut told her nothing. It remained silent, leaving Abby a hollow ache in her chest and no clue what to do.

  She returned home, discouraged her heart hadn’t spoken to her, other than to remind her how much she missed Kaden. Thankful for her grounding so she could sneak up to her room, she opened the front door, defeated, and trudged her way to the kitchen where she knew her mother would have dinner waiting.

  “Abby, we’re in here,” her mother called out, and Abby glanced up, realizing they weren’t at their usual spot at the little eat-in table but were seated in the formal dining room instead.

  Abby washed her hands in the kitchen sink, then made her way into the dining room with a frown. Covered dishes, along with a giant platter of roasted chicken dressed the table. A giant layer cake with fluffy white frosting towered over the basket of rolls.

  Abby motioned to the giant dessert. “What’s the occasion? You win a case or something?” She glanced between her parents, hearing the flat sound of her voice but unable to muster any enthusiasm.

  Her mother’s answering frown said it all. “No. It’s your grandpa’s birthday.” Her eyes darted to her grandfather. “Dad is eighty-eight. Can you believe it?”

  “Oh, gosh. Right.” Abby scratched her head, wondering how she could get out of this.

  She stole a peek at her grandfather. The conflict she felt inside raged like a churning sea, and the last thing she wanted was to celebrate anything, let alone him.

  “Well, I know GG’s not with us, but we need to be thankful for the people still in our life,” her mother said and reached across the table, giving her grandfather’s hand a squeeze.

  Knowing there was no way out of this, Abby sunk into an empty chair. At that moment, she wished he had died instead of GG. Things would be so much easier now. She could’ve remembered him as the man she loved her entire childhood, instead of seeing him as the man she hardly knew

  A creeping sensation crawled up her spine. She could feel his eyes on her but hadn’t the strength to acknowledge him.

  Her mother waited until Abby was settled and poured herself a glass of ice water in the crystal goblet in front of her before raising her wine glass in a toast. “Bill, you want to do the honors?”

  “Of course.”

  Her father raised his glass, as did her grandfather. Abby was the last to comply, lifting her water as her father said, “We’ve had a tough go the last few weeks, but Yoel, we’re all so grateful we have you, and we hope you’ll consider staying here permanently. You’re the best father-in-law anyone could ask for. You were always such a great grandfather to our daughter, and I happen to know from my wife you were a dang good father, as well.” With a flash of pearly whites, he turned to Abby. “Anything you wanna add?”

  Abby froze. What could she possibly say when she was so entirely mixed up inside? Thanks, Grandpa, for lying to us for our whole lives? Thanks for changing from the monster you used to be? Thanks for keeping such a colossal secret from us? Thanks for the totally messed-up bloodline?

  She swallowed, then cleared her throat as her grandfather continued to stare a hole right through her. She shook her head no.

  “Come on. Nothing sentimental to say?” Her father sighed and glanced at her grandfather. “Apple doesn’t fall too far from the grand-tree.”

  Abby’s gaze flickered to her father. He chuckled. He was joking, of course. She knew this, yet his words were like daggers, and she felt every bit of pain from the wounds he unwittingly inflicted as he lifted his glass in a final toast and cheered. “Here’s to Yoel!”

  After they clinked glasses, Abby felt the flush in her cheeks slowly fade, replaced by numbness. She tried for a smile but failed, her facial muscles seemingly frozen into a frown. As they ate, she studied her grandfather in silence. She watched the way he brought his fork to his mouth, the way he chewed and interjected occasionally in her parents’ conversation but mostly keeping to himself. She watched for signs he was the man she had grown to love and not the man from his past. She watched for signs that he wasn’t. She watched him blow out the single birthday candle on his cake and wondered what he wished for.

  To start over? Absolution? For Abby’s silence?

  By the time her mother cleared the dinner dishes, Abby excused herself to do her homework, but instead of mounting the stairs, she continued down the hall to the guest room, where she waited for her grandfather.

  Several minutes later, he stepped inside and closed the door behind him, his expression placid, and she wondered if he had known this had been where she’d really come all along.

  She said nothing as he made his way to the wingback chair in the corner of the room, across from her position on the edge of the large four-poster bed.

  “I figured the other night was probably not the last you’d want to discuss this. How did you find out?” he asked.

  Abby’s eyes widened. She had prepared herself to ask the questions, not the other way around. Unsure of how much she wanted to give away, Abby surprised herself by telling him a half-truth. “Grandma. After she died, she left me her jewelry box, and inside was a letter where she told me everything.”

  He nodded, saying nothing.

  “Based on your lack of reaction, I take it you knew she had found out?” Abby asked.

  “I suspected as much. She found the journal and started asking me about it. I got so upset, eventually, she let it go.”

  Sighing, Abby could imagine he did more than get upset. She was willing to bet he put on such a display, he practically forced her to drop it.

  She ran a hand over her face. Despite having some answers, she needed more. If the other night was about denial and confirming the truth, tonight was about understanding. Who was the guy watching her at the coffee shop? Who was responsible for Lawson and McBride’s murders? Was that him, too? She needed to know everything, her grandfather’s whole story. Because if she was being honest with herself, a part of her hoped and prayed there was an explanation for this that made it somehow better, despite knowing there could be no such thing.

  “How...” Abby paused, pressing her palms to her eyes. “I can’t even believe I’m about to ask this.” She dropped her hands and continued. “I need to know everything. From the beginning. How did you get on the wrong side of the war? How did you become, not just a Nazi officer but a renowned one? You were coined...” She couldn’t say it. The words stuck in her throat and on her tongue, but she ground her teeth and pushed through. “...The Butcher of Auschwitz.” She nearly gagged saying it out loud.

  “I was seventeen when my parents were killed by a drunk driver. The driver of the car was a Jewish shop owner in town. I was left to provide for my three sisters by myself. Me. No one else. By the time Hitler came into power, several years later, I was thirsty for someone to blame for the life I’d been unfairly dealt. I was thirsty for a role model because mine were taken from me so early. I felt...lost, until he took me under his wing. I don’t know why. At the time, I felt special, I guess. He had chosen me, among several others, to align himself with, to confide in, to lean on.”

  Her grandfather pointed at himself, wincing with the words. “He made me feel special, and so when he started his propaganda on the Jews—his war against them, s
preading stories of their destruction and started proclaiming how they’d ruin us—I believed it. He argued that they stabbed us in the back and were the reason for the defeat of the German Empire. It was a slow, but powerful, grooming of his men that made us believe Jews were a lesser race. He convinced us they would ultimately ruin Germany if given the chance.”

  He blinked and continued, rubbing his hands on his pants as he spoke. “I was still very angry about my parents and so I drank this in, soaked it up. I believed every word because I was mad. It wasn’t hard to convince me to follow him. He believed in me, and all I saw was a man who wanted to control the people who killed my parents.”

  Abby swallowed, unsure of what to make of what he said.

  “Even if I believe that, when you started working in the camps, when you saw the people being killed—women and children brutally murdered—how could you continue to follow? No matter how much you hurt, I can’t rationalize killing innocent people. Why did you go along with that? Why did you kill people by your own hand? I don’t think I can ever make sense of that, no matter what happened in your past.”

  She waited for an answer, but his gaze shifted from her to the floor. A vein pulsed in his forehead, as he stared at a spot on the rug in silence.

  “Grandpa?”

  “What do you want me to say?” he growled. “That I’m sorry?” He glanced up at her with eyes of steel. “I told you the other night when you asked me about it that I was sorry. I told you I regretted all of it. I’d trade places with them if I could, but you and I both know life doesn’t work that way!” He shook his head, his lips trembling.

  When he spoke again, his voice cracked, thick with tears. “After the war, I ran like many of the other officers. A church took me in, providing me sanctuary since we were being persecuted. In my time away, I reflected and began to realize the horrors of what I had done. Away from my men, the lies, the pressure and commands of my superiors, I fully realized the monster I had been. I repented, and when I was presented with the chance to escape, to form a new life, I took it. I tattooed my arm, not only as a means of escape, but as a reminder—to never forget my past mistakes, my vow to change. I took Yoel’s name because it was by reading his journal that I came to realize the depth of my sins.”