Lies of the Heart

by Michelle Boyajian

  “Those are scars on the defendant’s ankles and feet. He said his mother made him stand in the kitchen sink while she poured boiling water into it.”

  “That’s a photo I took of the defendant’s chest. He said his mother hit him with an extension cord.”

  “And did he tell you why she hit him with an extension cord?” Donna asks.

  “He said his mother told him he had to be punished. Because he had sinned.”

  Donna pauses before she puts the last photo on the glass—she stares at it, flicks her eyes to Jerry, lips compressed in a grim line.

  The TV screen fills with a close-up of Jerry’s back. There are sounds of distress from some of the jurors, who look away and then at the TV again. Katie eyes the long white crisscrossing lines that fill the expanse of Jerry’s back, at the dozens of pink divots in his flesh and the large arrow-shaped pink scar in between his shoulder blades.

  Donna points to the pink divots. “These?”

  “The defendant said his mother poured hot oil on him because God was angry with him.”

  “And these?” Donna’s finger trails the white lines.

  “Radio antennae,” Agent Fortier says, looking away for a moment.

  “And this,” Donna asks, her finger trembling right above the arrow-shaped scar.

  Agent Fortier shifts in his chair. “The defendant said his mother tied him facedown on the bed and put a hot iron on his back.”

  Donna shakes her head, her fingers hovering over the photo as if she’s afraid to touch it. “Thank you, Agent Fortier.”

  “Just a couple of questions on recross, Your Honor.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Richard rises, walks around the table, and smiles confidently at Agent Fortier. “You realize that this is a trial about Nick Burrelli, who was shot point-blank in the face just over six months ago?”

  “I do.”

  “And that the defendant’s mother isn’t on trial here?”

  “Yes.”

  “And according to the defendant, most of the scars are over thirty-seven years old?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s quite a long time ago, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Richard saunters back to the table, nodding with satisfaction. He stops, turns around. “Oh, one last question, Agent Fortier. Did the defendant say anything else about the scars all over his body?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell us what he said?”

  “He said when someone does something bad, God wants them to be punished.”

  Richard waits for the murmurs to die down. “And did Mr. LaPlante share with you what Nick Burrelli did that warranted his punishment?”

  “Objection!”

  “Withdrawn.”

  Katie left her father outside the restaurant right after lunch, assuring him she was okay before heading back to the courthouse alone, so she’s surprised to see his car parked in the driveway, right behind Dana and Michael’s Jeep—another surprise. It looks like every light is on in the house, and Katie’s first thought is Jack—something has happened to Jack. She rushes up the walk, barrels through the door.

  The living room smells like Lemon Pledge and there are vacuum tracks in the beige carpet. Katie strides through the room toward the kitchen, notices that the knickknacks on the mantel are rearranged and that the fern by the entertainment stand has drops of water budding on its leaves.

  Katie reaches the archway, steps into the kitchen. “What’s all this?”

  Her mother stands at the stove, one hand on her hip as she stirs a wooden spoon inside a pot. The kitchen is rich with the smell of her mother’s Bolognese, Katie’s favorite.

  “Surprise,” her mother says, turning with a bright smile. “We’ve invited ourselves over for dinner.”

  Michael is slumped at the kitchen table, his eyes glassy; he waves at Katie, winks in slow motion. “Surprise,” he echoes, grinning at her. His left cheek is puffed out, and Katie remembers: root canal.

  Her mother points at Michael with the spoon. “Vicodin,” she states.

  The counters have been scrubbed and Windexed, and the floor is gleaming; the light reflects off of Jack’s metal food and water bowls, pushed off to the side of the stove near the louvered doors that open up to the washer and dryer. Beside them the dog toys are stacked neatly inside a wicker basket.

  “You didn’t have to clean,” Katie says to her mother’s back.

  Her mother stays focused on the pot, dismisses her with a wave. “It was no problem. Your father dropped me off on his way to court.” Strands of gray hair peek out the sides of her mother’s platinum wig.

  Dana emerges from the half bathroom, a slightly guilty look on her face as she wipes her hands with a towel. “Hey,” she says, walking past their mother to the laundry doors. She opens them, throws the towel into the washing machine.

  “Hi,” Katie says. “Did I get any mail, Mom?”

  “I sorted it, hon. I threw out flyers and anything that didn’t look important.” Her mother turns around. “Did you know that that dog likes to chew on it?”

  “You didn’t have to do all this.” Katie should thank her, yet something about having everything in its place, sorted through and cleaned by her mother, feels like an accusation.

  “I answered your phone today, too. The messages are over there.” Her mother aims the spoon at the answering machine—even the black casing shines now—but there isn’t any paper bearing messages next to it.

  Katie’s father emerges from the basement. “Hey, sweetie, there you are!” He snaps off the light, slams the basement door. “I put in a new bulb at the top of the stairs and checked the heater. You can’t be too careful this time of year.” He turns to Katie’s mother. “Did you ask her about this guy? What’s his name?”

  “Paul Minsky,” Michael says slowly. He rests his palm on his good cheek and gives Katie a sleepy smile.

  “How do you feel, babe?” Dana asks her husband. Michael gives her a thumbs-up and closes his eyes.

  “Your mother said this Paul guy sounded a little . . . you know,” her father says, raising his eyebrows meaningfully.

  “Dad,” Dana says, in a tone that sounds too much like her mother’s warning voice.

  “What?” he asks Dana innocently. He walks past her, ignoring her indignant frown, and peers over his wife’s shoulder to inspect the inside of the pot.

  “Jimmy, we don’t mind the gays, remember?” her mother says, sneaking a peek at Dana. She shoulders him away. “Why don’t you get the water started?”

  Dana gives Katie a look: Patience. “Dad told us about this morning, and Mom thought it would be nice if we all had dinner together.” Dana gives her a bright smile. “Wasn’t that a great idea?”

  “You looking at property in North Carolina, Katie?” her father asks from behind the counter.

  “What? Oh, no,” she says. “I was thinking of making an investment with some of the insurance money. You know, before it runs out.”

  “Paul Minsky is gay?” Michael asks, eyes still shut. He scratches his beard, the tip of his nose.

  They all ignore him, except for Dana, who smiles indulgently at him. “The Realtor from Topsail Island, honey?”

  “Mmmmmm, right.”

  “Hey,” Katie says suddenly, “where’s Jack?”

  “Oh, I let him out, hon. That dog has to urinate every two seconds.”

  Katie rushes to the slider door. “You can’t just let him out, Mom, you have to keep an eye on him.” She steps outside, marches to the edge of the deck. Scans the backyard, panic rising, when she sees Jack sitting by the trash cans, ears lowered.

  Dana walks up behind her, lights a cigarette. “It’s Mom,” Dana says, blowing out a long stream of smoke. “I’d be hiding out there, too.”

  “It’s okay, c’mon, Jack.”

  Jack takes a step forward, stops.

  “He’s kind of cute,” Dana says.

  “Jack.” Katie squats
down, holds out her arms. “Come here.”

  The dog charges to the deck, bounds up the steps and into Katie’s arms.

  “Are you going to keep him?” Dana asks.

  “For now,” Katie says, picking him up. He licks her face wet, wiggles his body over to give Dana some attention.

  Dana allows his frenzied licks for a few seconds; she steps back, scratches his long nose, raises her cigarette to her mouth. “Hello, Jack.”

  Katie turns toward the slider: Michael is resting his head on the table now, and her mother is directing her father to the dish cabinet with the wooden spoon.

  “Okay,” Katie says, looking Jack in the face. “Let’s get this over with.”

  She feels a little indulgent during dinner—ungracious, even—but everyone is so attentive as Katie relays the details of the day, and what will come next, that she feels an unfamiliar stirring of self-assurance sweeping through her body, urging her on. Her confidence grows throughout the meal, until she finds herself using a slightly superior tone with her mother.

  “Well, of course they’re allowed to open up all the bags of evidence, Mom,” she says, buttering a piece of bread with impatient strokes. “How else will the jurors get to see them?”

  Her mother takes in this information silently, with arched eyebrows.

  After the table is cleared, she watches her mother and Dana quietly skirting around each other to clean up and make the coffee, their movements brisk and economical. Michael snores on the sofa in her living room, and her father, who sits across the table from her, seems entirely captivated by the small silver spoon in the sugar bowl. As he taps it on the bowl, Katie skips her eyes between all of them, the suspicion mounting with this uncharacteristic silence in the room.

  Jack lies beside Katie with his body pushed into her leg; every so often, he sits up and pushes at her hand or thigh with his snout, like he needs reassurance that everything is okay. He turns his head toward the living room, where Michael’s snores have suddenly kicked up a notch. She pats Jack distractedly, watches Dana’s smiling approach.

  “So I can be in court tomorrow,” Dana says. She places the coffeepot on the table, pulls out a chair. “Mom promised to check on Michael, but I’m sure he’ll feel much better by then.”

  Her mother cuts her eyes at the living room “He’ll be fine,” she says, joining them at the table with a pint of half-and-half.

  “You don’t have to come if you’re busy.”

  “No, I put in for some personal days today,” Dana says casually.

  Katie’s mother gazes at Dana, and her father sneaks a look at both of them: Dana only takes personal days when there is an emergency, and apparently Katie has become just that; it’s clear now why they’re here—rather than feel relief or admiration that Katie is trying to take control of her life, they’re panicked. Her father dribbles more cream into his coffee, and Dana and her mother concentrate on their mugs, their spoons twirling almost in unison.

  “Okay, what?” Katie says.

  They all stare. Jack, startled awake, nudges her leg with his nose. “I know it feels like a gang-up,” Dana begins—and this is when Katie’s father gives her an apologetic smile, What can you do, sweetie, you know how this goes—“but have you considered what you’ll do after the trial, honey?”

  They wait for her answer, another too-familiar sight: even Dana, looking at her like she’s a puzzle with too many pieces, or pieces that don’t quite fit and never will. Jack bumps her again with his nose, then gives up and tramps off to the living room.

  “It’s only going to last a few weeks or so, right, hon?” her mother asks. She takes a delicate sip of her coffee, peers over the rim. “Then what?”

  “The trial just started,” Katie says.

  “But what about after, honey?” Dana says.

  Katie wants her father to say something—My Katie will find her way, she always does—or she wants Dana to answer these questions for her, instead of stubbornly aligning herself with their mother. The truth is, though, that for the past year her life has been figured out in her head by “when” stages—when she and Nick would get through their rough patch, when Nick would move back home, when the trial would start—that she hasn’t even considered the “after” part.

  “I’ll finish the Cohens’ documentary,” she says, shrugging, “and then poke around for a new project. Why?”

  “What if you don’t finish it, Kate?” her mother asks, face full of doubt.

  “Grace,” her father says, the first thing since dinner. They all look at him and wait for him to finish, to add something. He opens his mouth, closes it. Goes back to stirring.

  “I know the insurance money will run out and things will get tight—” Katie stops when she sees Dana shaking her head.

  “That’s not it,” her sister says.

  Her mother mimics Dana’s placid tone. “Do you remember what we talked about in the car last night?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, just plunges right in. “Well, Kate, when we see this new side of you, all riled up and such, we’re all just afraid.” Her mother darts her eyes to Dana, back to Katie, and suddenly blurts out, “Afraid that it’s just more of the same, but worse.”

  Dana gives her mother an exasperated look. “Mom.”

  “I’m sorry,” her mother says to Dana, “but I’ve tried to talk to her about this before, even before she met Nick, and she just shuts down on me every time.” She turns to Katie. “We were hoping that with Nick gone, it might give you an opportunity to really look at your life, Kate, to start coming around a little—”

  “To what?” Katie asks, throwing Dana a poisonous look.

  “To your own life, to yourself !”

  “Mom, please,” Dana says, then turns to Katie. “Honey, this may sound crazy, but it might be the perfect timing after all.”

  “Again, for what?”

  “A chance to get in touch with yourself, with what you want. Just you, honey, independent of Nick or anyone else.”

  “I do know what I want,” Katie says in an even voice.

  “Do you?” her mother demands.

  “Mother,” Dana says. And to Katie: “Tell us.”

  “I know what I want tonight. I want you all”—and she looks at her father, too, who refuses to trade glances—“to remember that I’m trying to get through—”

  “Yes, Kate, that’s it—No, Dana, you’re not saying it right, I’ll do it. Kate, it just seems like for a long time you’ve been ‘getting through’ with other people and their stories. You’re so worried about what’s important to them—”

  “It’s my job—”

  “Yes, but that’s it, it’s not just about your job, it’s always about someone else. What about you?” her mother says.

  “What about me?”

  Her mother gazes at her for a long, quiet moment. “What about your story?”

  “This is my story, Mom. Nick was and is—”

  “No, Kate, I think you’re purposely misunderstanding—I mean what’s important to you, just you?”

  All three stare intently at her, waiting, and the air in the room grows thin, needling. She stares back at them, her head swimming with confusion, and then anger. She stands.

  “I don’t understand what you’re asking, why you’re attacking me, when you know I have—this trial—” She chokes out these last words, her hands flat on the table.

  They hop up, too, her father sliding around the table, his arm curving around her waist.

  “We aren’t trying to attack you, sweetie. We love you,” he says simply, his eyes watering.

  “I think—I think I need to lie down for a minute,” she says, turning from the pity in her father’s eyes.

  “Okay, honey, it’s okay,” Dana says, glancing at their parents. “Another time. C’mon, let’s get you upstairs.”

  Later, after they’ve tucked her into bed like a child, after more coded words from her mother—No one expects it to change overnight—and they’ve reluctantly left the ho
use, Katie lies with the comforter up to her neck, the sheets below bunched inside her fists. Replaying their conversation over and over, seeing again their worried expressions.

  “I don’t get it,” she says to Jack, who lies at the end of the bed, his head nestled between his paws.

  And then, before the anger comes back, before the frustration starts to well up because they’ve only added to the questions swirling inside her head: “What were they saying, Jack?”

  She asks this in a whisper, watches the dog angle his head at her, staring back. Like he doesn’t understand her family one bit either.

  8

  The cafeteria at the Warwick Center was deserted except for the women wearing hairnets in the kitchen, chatting back and forth as they cleared away the morning snack trays and rinsed large plastic bins in the sink. It reminded Katie of her own elementary-school cafeteria—the bumpy concrete walls painted a light yellow, the faint scent of Salisbury steak and ammonia—but it was Nick, sitting beside her at one of the long tables and silently examining his fingernails, who occupied most of her attention.

  —This isn’t a reflection on you, Nick.

  He turned his head sideways at her.—Who said it was?

  —No one. But no one expects you to have all the answers either. It’s been weeks, and if he’s still not talking—

  —Please don’t lecture me on failure, Katie. Not you, Nick said, his mouth twisting with sarcasm. He went back to his fingernails, leaving Katie to absorb his words.

  Composing herself took a few minutes. She stared down at the floor, caught the fluorescent lighting sparkling off the sequins on the sides of her black pumps. Shook her head ruefully—so much attention to what she wore today, as if the right pair of shoes would make this meeting perfect, despite Nick’s resistance.

  —Jerk, she finally said quietly.

  —I’m sorry, okay? he said.—But this is ridiculous.

  —What if Marty is right? I’ve seen Jerry watching me, too.

  —And that’s going to convince him to work with me?

  —It might, if he—

  Conversation stopped with Patricia’s entrance; she gave them a brisk nod and turned back to the door. Nick sat up, folded his arms.