Bed of Lies

by Teresa Hill

  "Still on a job site. He should be home soon. He'll be so glad you're here." She glanced at the bag in his hand. "Can you stay a while?"

  "If you'll have me."

  "I guess we could put you up for a few days," she said. Then she turned serious on him. "You should know I was this far away"—she held up two fingers, a centimeter of space between them—"from getting on a plane to Memphis and dragging you back here."

  "Sorry. Things got a little crazy down there."

  "No, Zach. It didn't happen there."

  He stopped just inside the door, slipping off his coat and hanging it up in the closet with more care than the act required, then finally faced her. "Okay. You're right."

  She always was, and she'd been more than patient waiting for him to come clean on this. He still didn't know if he could do it.

  "I'm starving," he lied, deciding he couldn't quite launch into it a couple of feet inside the door. He headed for the kitchen, and his mother followed. He opened up the refrigerator and studied the contents until another delaying tactic occurred to him. "And I was thinking you might be able to help me sort out my love life while I'm here."

  His mother reached around him to grab a foil-covered pan. "Lasagna?"

  "That'll work." He'd choke down a few bites somehow.

  "I didn't think you had a love life," his mother said, her back to him as she reached for a microwaveable plate.

  He was digging through the silverware drawer for a fork and something to scoop out the lasagna, and he didn't look up. "You didn't?"

  "No."

  Okay, he couldn't hide with his head in the silverware drawer forever. He turned back around and handed her a spatula. "But... Gwen..."

  "No, Zach," she said emphatically, staring at him.

  "We're engaged," he said. "Kind of."

  His mother put a mound of lasagna on the plate and put it in the microwave. "There's no such thing as being 'kind of' engaged."

  True, he supposed. When he couldn't find anything else to do, he looked down at the floor as if he'd never seen it before and said, "I thought I loved her."

  "No, Zach."

  "Never?" he asked, because maybe she knew better than he did.

  "You two have known each other for... what? Five years? And you couldn't find time to get married? Not once in five years?"

  "We were busy."

  "No, you didn't care enough about each other to find the time. You never even see each other. What do you think that says about the two of you?"

  He frowned, but finally looked at her. "Is this a trick question?"

  "No."

  "Then, I guess... I didn't really love her?"

  She smiled. "There you go."

  "You knew that?" he asked.

  "Of course." The microwave dinged. She made no move to turn around, just kept staring at him.

  "You could have told me."

  "You're a smart guy. I was sure you'd figure it out sooner or later."

  Zach scratched his head and wondered how he could have been so wrong. "I thought she was perfect for me."

  "Maybe if you were looking for a business partner, but not a woman to spend the rest of your life with."

  He was really surprised she'd seen it when he hadn't. But then, he'd just found Gwen naked in their bed, which she'd just shared with one of their friends, and he was more irritated than jealous. He supposed that said just about everything.

  "We're not really engaged anymore," he said.

  "Which is what? One step down from being 'kind of' engaged?"

  He tried to laugh then. It came out sounding more like he was choking.

  "Zach?"

  "Yeah, that's where we are. I've got to go talk to her. I'm afraid I haven't handled this well. I uhh..." He stopped and took a breath. "I messed it all up."

  "Well, we all do that from time to time."

  He stood there, waiting for her to be surprised or disappointed or shocked. She wasn't. He was just finding more of that really nice acceptance that came so abundantly from Julie, along with understanding and kindness, as he'd always found when he was growing up. But he still felt like he was about to disappoint his family terribly, and probably scare them. He hated to do either one.

  "I hurt her."

  "Gwen?"

  "Not just Gwen. Her and Julie. I was engaged to Gwen. There was no 'kind of' to it at that point, and I... uhh... did something I shouldn't have with Julie." There. That was part of it.

  He looked down at his mother. It still took him by surprise sometimes, even now, looking down at her. It had been an endless source of amusement at first when he'd gotten taller than she was, and it had seemed like something had gone haywire with the world. He was bigger than she was, and yet he would always look up to her in every way but this one.

  "What do you want me to say, Zach?" She brushed her hand over his shoulder, smoothing out a wrinkle in his shirt, and then giving up on that pretense and just taking him by the shoulders and hanging on. "Do you want me to give you a hard time for that? I could, but it looks like you're doing a great job of it yourself."

  He nodded. Damn, this hurt. "It's not just that."

  "I know."

  She knew?

  Okay.

  "Do I need to say the rest of it?" he asked. "Or do you know it all?"

  "I think I know," she said. "But I think you still need to say it."

  * * *

  "I really hated seeing George Greene," Zach told his father later that night.

  "I know, Zach."

  With his mother that afternoon, he'd stumbled through a little more of what was going on. She hadn't pushed, had just listened and understood and hung on to him. Which had been nice. He wasn't quite so wound up once he'd talked to her, and he was thinking he had a plan.

  It was great to have a plan again. He'd never in his whole life been completely without a plan for how he was going to handle something. So this had been terrifying for him.

  But now he knew he would tell them what was going on a little at a time. See how they handled that much, and if that was okay, he'd tell them a little bit more. Maybe, in time, he'd get the whole thing out.

  He and his father were in Sam's office, an old carriage house Sam had converted into workspace years ago. Zach had spent so many nights and summers out here, learning patience and how to be careful. He'd seen his father take things that looked hopelessly broken and put them back together. As they talked about that other man who wanted to claim the title of father, Zach wished his father could pick up one of his tools and put him back together again.

  "I hated that man's voice. I hated the way he looked, the things he said, the things he made me remember. I hate letting him matter at all to me," Zach admitted. "I feel like I'm being disloyal to you and Mom by letting him mean anything to me, even just being someone I despise."

  "Don't worry about me and Rachel. We're fine. We're just worried about you." Sam finished locking up his office and they headed through the backyard toward the house.

  "And what's with that? Everybody worrying about me all of a sudden. Did everybody suddenly decide I can't take care of myself?"

  "Everybody needs a little help sometimes, Zach." This from Sam, who always seemed invincible. "What happened? Other than with you and Gwen?"

  Zach stopped on the back porch. "I lost my case in Memphis," he began. "There's a boy who's going to spend his life in prison—"

  "Not because of you," Sam insisted.

  Zach shrugged, thinking about arguing that point and deciding not to. "I kind of lost it in court and yelled at the judge, who told me to get the hell out of Tennessee and stay out."

  "Not too smart, but definitely not the end of the world."

  "The judge called my boss, and I kind of yelled at him when I got back into town, and now I'm not supposed to show my face in the office for two months."

  "Well, you could use the time off."

  "I can't say I did much better handling my last case or the one before it, Dad."


  "Nobody wins all the time. You know that."

  Zach finally just spit it out as he leaned against the porch railing like it was the only solid thing in the world. "And I don't know what's going on inside me. It's like I have all this stuff inside that my skin can't hold in anymore. Like a force of some kind is zipping around inside, making everything go haywire. My heart. My head. My lungs. My bones, even. And the harder I try to hold it together, the worse things get. I'm afraid my body's going to split open, and all this stuff is going to come spilling out, and I don't know what's going to happen then."

  He risked a glance at his father, who, through the dim light looked worried but not shocked, which gave Zach the courage to go on. Now that he had started, it just kind of poured out.

  "I'm afraid I could screw up my entire life right now... Everything I've cared about. Everything I have. I could lose it all, because of the way I'm feeling inside, like I might keep losing parts of me until there's nothing left, nothing I recognize as me, at least. And it all started with that damned man who just had to see me. That man who's supposed to be my father."

  "I'm your father," Sam said, grabbing Zach by the arms and hanging on, looking him right in the eye. "Listen to me. I'm your father. And you're my son. You always will be. No matter what."

  "I know that." Zach had never doubted that. "I told myself that man couldn't do or say anything that would change anything. That he didn't matter at all."

  "He doesn't," Sam said. "But these feelings he's stirred up inside you? They matter, Zach. They're something you have to deal with."

  Okay. That might work. He sure hadn't gotten anywhere with trying to tell himself George Green didn't matter at all.

  "I just feel like shit, Dad," he said.

  "I know." His father still hung on to him. "But it's going to be all right."

  "You don't know that."

  "Yeah, I do."

  Zach stepped back. "How could you possibly know that for certain?"

  "Because I've been there. I've been right where you are, and I know it can feel like the end of the world, but it's not."

  Zach wasn't sure he believed that. Not that he thought his father would ever lie to him. It was just so unlike the Sam he knew. Sam who could do anything.

  "What happened to make you feel like this?" he asked.

  "Everything. Everything I was feeling and never wanted anyone to know. Every feeling I tried to hide or run away from."

  Zach knew Sam had been through all kinds of shit himself, losing his own parents at a young age, separated from his only brother for years, tossed around from relative to relative, finally ending up with a grandfather who hadn't wanted him. He and Rachel had married young and lost a baby. Their scars ran deep, but Sam had always seemed like a rock. As solid and steady as a man could be.

  "What happened?" Zach asked instead. "When you felt like this, what did you do?"

  Sam took a breath, looked Zach in the eye again, and said, "I decided to leave Rachel."

  "No way," Zach shot back. His parents' marriage was the kind no one believed existed anymore, as strong as anything in this world.

  "I did. And when Rachel's aunt showed up at the door with you and your sisters, I told her no, Zach. I would have turned you all away, if it hadn't been for Rachel." Sam's gaze was unwavering. "Would have been the biggest mistake of my life."

  "But you love Mom. You always have."

  Sam nodded. "Always."

  "And you didn't leave, did you?"

  "No. I never did."

  "And Emma and Grace and I ended up here. So what happened?"

  "The three of you happened. Rachel happened. Letting her in. Letting the three of you in. Being honest about how we felt. Turning to each other, helping each other, instead of hiding our feelings and drowning in them. Zach, that feeling like you can't hold all those things inside you anymore?"

  "Yeah."

  "That's part of the problem, but just a part. The rest is about what you let in. Who you allow to help you. Who you allow to love you."

  "Dad, I know you all love me."

  "But you couldn't come to us, and you couldn't go to Gwen. Why was that?"

  "I don't know."

  "Yeah, you do," his father quietly insisted, not letting him get away with a lie.

  "Going to Gwen wouldn't have helped. And the rest of you... I knew you were worried. I knew you cared, and I knew you'd try to help…."

  "But?"

  "I guess I didn't want you to know how crazy I feel—"

  "Zach, we all feel a little bit crazy sometimes."

  He shook his head. "Not like this. I can't believe other people—normal people—feel like this. The feelings just keep building up inside me until I can hardly breathe, and I don't know what's going to happen."

  "This is all that happens," his father insisted. "Eventually you can't hold it in anymore, and it comes out. Like this. That's what happens."

  Zach felt close to panic again, felt like, despite what his father had said, he didn't really know how bad it was. "I really hate this. What the hell do I do with this?"

  "Just what you're doing now."

  Feel like shit? Feel like he was coming apart? He was tempted to look down at his body and check for cracks at the seams, stuff oozing out. But as far as he could tell, he was still whole. Still standing. Still breathing, even if it hurt and it was hard to get enough air.

  "And then what?" he asked.

  "Let it go. Put it behind you. Move on."

  "I don't know how to do that," he admitted, feeling utterly defeated and plain exhausted. "I just don't know."

  "It's all right. We do. This is the part where you let the people who love you help you."

  Oh. That. The other thing he really wasn't good at. He couldn't even bring himself to tell them everything.

  "We're right here," Sam said. "Always will be. You don't even have to ask."

  But he did. He finally said the words. "Help me." And much as he expected it, the world didn't fall apart.

  * * *

  He thought he was okay. He'd made it home and taken a big step toward admitting to his family what was going on. From here, things would start to get easier.

  But he'd met the two girls his parents were taking care of. They'd come home from school, kindergarten and second grade, and they'd looked so tiny, so helpless, so solemn. He couldn't stop himself from imagining what their lives had been like, what they'd gone through, how scared and lost they must have felt.

  The world just seemed to have so many terrible, scary, overwhelming things at the moment.

  And that night, when he finally tried to go to sleep, it started again. That feeling like every nerve ending in his body was on high alert, that cold, clammy tingling over his skin, his thoughts racing, the idea that his life was falling apart, and he couldn't stop it.

  His heart pounded in his chest, faster and faster, and suddenly, once again, he absolutely could not be still. He got up out of the bed, pulled on a pair of jeans and the shirt he'd worn that day and paced—his bedroom at first, then the downstairs.

  He paced until he knew every creaking spot on the floor, and then he thought about going for a run. Sometimes physical activity helped. Sometimes he could outrun the feelings. He wasn't supposed to do that anymore, but it was late and everybody was asleep.

  So he found an old pair of athletic shoes in the hall closet and slipped out the back door and around to the sidewalk in front, and started walking first, to warm up his muscles, see how he felt.

  The first time he ended up in front of Julie's house, he kept right on walking. Not going to do that again, not yet. He circled the block four times, and on the fifth, when he still felt like his heart was about to explode inside his chest, he walked around to the backyard to see if he could spot any lights on that he couldn't see from the street.

  And there it was, light shining through the kitchen window, her in what looked like a silky robe. She finally looked up, saw him, looked startled at first, but t
hen he waved as she figured out who he was.

  She smiled so big it hurt him just to look at her, then pointed toward the back door. He walked over and she opened the door, and he could really see her.

  She was wearing a beautiful, long, silk nightgown the color of warm, thick cream, simple as could be and kind of old-fashioned, molding itself sweetly, sensuously to her body, and he didn't mind so much that his heart was still pounding. It made sense that it would be now, looking at her like this.

  "What is this thing you're wearing?" he asked, so ready to go there instead of where he'd been in his head just moments ago.

  She grinned even bigger. "You like it?"

  He nodded. "It's beautiful."

  "I found it in a drawer. I think I used to play dress-up in it when I was a girl and that it belonged to my great aunt, the one who used to own this house."

  Zach reached out and touched her, just her bare arm, running the back of his fingers up and down in a light caress. "It reminds me of the dress you had on at the party. You were so beautiful, even if you were mad at me for being there."

  "You thought I looked beautiful that night?"

  He nodded.

  "I felt like a complete imposter."

  "Everybody does sometimes," he admitted.

  Like him, right now.

  "You couldn't sleep?" she asked.

  He shook his head.

  "Me neither. Too many memories here, everywhere I turn."

  "I shouldn't be here."

  "And yet, you are," she pointed out.

  "I'm not being fair to you, Julie. Things are going on, things I haven't told you—"

  "About your fiancé?"

  "Well, that's not what I was talking about, but... I did find her in bed with a friend of mine today."

  "Oh, Zach. I'm sorry—"

  "No." He shrugged. "Honestly, it made things easier. Made me not feel so guilty about you and me."

  "Still, it had to hurt."

  "Actually, I felt more annoyed and foolish than anything else. For two such smart people, we made such a mess of our relationship. We seemed so alike. It should have worked, and it didn't." He was baffled by it, actually. They had been together for so long, and yet, he didn't feel like he really knew her at all.

  Julie gave him a sad little smile. "I couldn't begin to help you there. I spent a couple of years trying to convince myself I should marry Steve. But I'm still sorry about what happened."