There Will Be Lies

by Nick Lake

  Uh, yes, I think. You told me my dad was DEAD.

  I glance out the window—scrub and sand as we join I-17, leaving the city behind. Mountains in the distance. Blue sky forever; no clouds. It’s weird: we’re actually, finally leaving the city, which is what I’ve dreamed about forever. But now I don’t even care.

  Shelby, say something, she says. She has to kind of turn in the seat to talk to me, which is super dangerous at this speed, but she doesn’t seem to care.

  My dad has been dead my whole life—it’s pretty much the only thing I actually know about him. It’s a defining feature of my life. It’s like being told that the moon actually IS made of cheese after all. I just can’t even. I can’t. Even.

  I look out the window instead, so she can’t talk to me. I curl up into my seat, like a wounded animal.

  It’s scary how quick, when you drive out of Phoenix, you’re in just pure desert. I mean, this landscape hasn’t changed since the Native Americans rode their horses across it. It’s not like dunes—it’s more like Wile E. Coyote, you know? Rocks and bits of grass in the sand, and these reddish outcrops sticking up, though not massive ones like in Utah.

  It’s partly why I didn’t like you leaving the house, continues Mom. Why I’ve always been so protective. He’s … a dangerous man. I don’t know what he’s capable of. Remember when we left Albuquerque? That was because he found us. He spoke to a woman I worked with in the court. A judge’s secretary.

  Now, I literally don’t know what to say to this. So my dad isn’t dead, he’s just some kind of homicidal lunatic chasing us down. Way to spring some serious shit on your daughter, Mom.

  At least I can be grateful you’re not wearing your pajama jeans, I say eventually.

  Shelby! This isn’t the time for your jokes.

  Then what is it the time for? What the hell do you want me to say, Mom? That it’s no big deal?

  Don’t curse, Shelby.

  Oh, no, you’re right, THAT’S the take-home message here. Cursing is bad.

  Mom sighs and turns back to the road, which I’m kind of happy about because she was swerving a little bit.

  For the longest time, neither of us says anything. We just eat up road, Mom sticking to the express lane, putting Phoenix behind us at eighty miles an hour, going as fast as the baseballs I like to hit.

  Where are we going? I ask.

  Flagstaff, says Mom.

  Flagstaff? Why?

  I don’t know. It’s not Phoenix. And it’s big, and surrounded by forest. It’s a good place to hide. She pauses. Hey! We could even go to the Grand Canyon. Like you always wanted, right?

  It’s dumb, because I’m still freaking out about my dad and everything Mom has just dumped on me, but I still get this spike of excitement. Yeah? I say. I don’t know why I want to go so much—I guess it’s the idea of this big crack in the world, like it’s a place where you can see under the world’s skin, to what’s beneath. To the truth below the earth. I don’t know. That sounds crazy, when I say it like that.

  Yeah, says Mom. We’ll be close enough to drive. No plane.

  Cool, I say.

  We’re climbing out of flat desert, following I-17 into the mountains. I’ve never been this far from the city before. It’s almost like I can feel the air getting colder.

  For miles and miles, it’s desert plateau—not just sand like around Phoenix, but a kind of scrubby desert, saguaro cacti like buried hands. And in the distance, high blue mountains, far away across the brush. It’s a vast landscape, incredibly beautiful, and I find myself, despite everything, kind of just gazing at it raptly as we drive. We pass a sign that says AGUA FRIA NATIONAL MONUMENT. There is hardly anyone else on the I-17—it feels like a road movie, the ribbon of highway stretching out in front of us, across the desert. The mountains dreaming in the distance.

  Then, like an hour later, we start to pull out of desert and into forest. I start to see pine trees—at first just a thin covering, red rock outcrops behind them. Then the world shifts slowly from reds and yellows to greens and grays. Big things jut out of the trees that make me think of the word “stone,” not “rock.”

  Mom pulls over at a gas station with a 7-Eleven. She gets out of the car and goes in—and when she comes back she’s got a disposable barbecue, and a bag that looks like it contains burgers and buns.

  After another half hour, there’s a sign that says we’re entering the Ores National Forest, and Mom swings off the highway onto a smaller road that very obviously does not lead to Flagstaff. Forest swallows us immediately, a throat of shadow around us. The sun is going down too, slanting low through the leaves and the needles.

  We drive another ten minutes, then turn onto an even smaller road, with a sign saying PUBLIC CAMPING AREA, NO BARBECUES, PICK UP YOUR OWN TRASH, THIS AIN’T COMMUNIST RUSSIA. Next to it there’s a mailbox and a smaller sign hanging from it: $10 A NITE. HONESTY IS A VIRTUE.

  Someone has shot the sign with a shotgun, it looks like, which I take to be promising.

  We pull into a graveled area scooped out of the woods—there’s one other car there, a newish Honda Civic, and near it, under the trees, a little one-person tent. Mom helps me out of the car. She shoots a glance at the tent and frowns. I look around. I’ve never been in a forest before. It’s weird—like being in a building but one made of wood and leaves. But I like the way it’s cool and smells like air freshener.

  What’s the plan here? I say. We don’t have a tent.

  We’ll sleep in the car, Mom says. It’s not cold. We’ll just have to snuggle is all.

  I hobble around a bit but there isn’t much to see and pretty soon I sit down.

  So, this thing with Dad …, I say.

  Mom runs her hand through her hair. He’s a violent man, Shelby, she says. That’s why I left him.

  Okay, I say. But why would he want to kill us?

  She hesitates. I consider the coyote, how it said, there will be two lies, and then there will be the truth. I think: is this the first lie? Is Mom lying to me right now, spinning me a story about this violent father? But I can’t figure the angle, if it’s the case. I mean, what would she gain?

  Anyway Mom at this point stops frowning, and her face settles, like water after the ripples have passed. He started hurting you, she says very softly. I threatened to leave. He said if I did he would hunt us down.

  Oh, I say.

  She puts her hands on mine. You are my little Shelby, she says. I would die before I let anyone hurt you. There are tears in her eyes, and I put my arms around her, which is awkward because the CAM Walker unbalances me, but she holds me up.

  When she straightens, I say, I just don’t understand how he—

  But that’s as far as I get, because this pasty overweight guy pops up from among the trees, swinging what looks like a can of water. He shields his eyes from the horizontal light of the nearly gone sun, and walks over to us.

  There is a knife in his hands—a hunting knife, with a long serrated blade.

  Chapter 11

  Mom backs away, pulling me with her.

  The man raises his hands in the air. Easy, he says.

  I am looking at his pale skin, the lines around his mouth. He has two chins and only one working eye, or only one that moves anyway. It’s weird—like he’s looking at an invisible person beside you. He’s maybe fifty, his hair gray around his ears. I know I should be scared, but I’m mainly thinking—is this my dad? Is this what he looks like?

  Then the guy, my dad, whoever he is, must see that our eyes are on his knife, because he looks up at it, and his mouth drops open. Oh, he says. He pulls a sheath from his pocket, slides the knife into it, puts it away in his jacket. Kindling, he says.

  He points with his foot to a little pile of sticks on the ground.

  You have to peel off the bark, if it’s green wood. If it’s damp.

  Mom has stopped retreating. She nods very slightly. This isn’t my dad, I realize. It’s some random guy.

  Let’s start again, s
ays the man. Howdy. He walks over to us, but slowly, like we’re small animals—mice, lizards—that might shy from an approaching figure.

  Howdy, says Mom. She’s on edge, I can see it.

  You folks vacationing? Or traveling? asks the man.

  Both, I guess, says Mom hesitantly. We’re headed to the Grand Canyon, but we’re taking it slow.

  Me too, he says. Then he sticks out his hand to shake Mom’s. She flinches instinctively, but then takes it. Luke. My wife died on me there a year back, and I’ve kinda been wandering ever since.

  I’m, ah, sorry to hear that, says Mom.

  Don’t be, she was a hard-ass, says Luke, without much emotion. Made my life hell for twenty years.

  Mom laughs and tucks her hair behind her ear, as if this was a really funny joke. I tilt my head, registering that she’s looking him in the eye too. Is she FLIRTING?

  Opening the car door, Mom pulls out the barbecue grill and the plastic bag. Join us for dinner? she says.

  Okay, I think. The weird behavior just hit the next level. Where is the shyness? What happened to addressing the ground?

  Luke hesitates, looking at the bag. If it’s pork, I can’t, he says.

  Mom acts surprised. You Jewish? she says.

  No, says Luke. I was a paramedic. First response.

  Mom looks at him, like, what?

  I don’t wanna spell it out, says Luke. But it’s the smell. After … after a house fire.

  I look at him. Joy! The man is talking about burning human flesh! This day just keeps getting better.

  Mom has blanched too, like this is too much even for Strange New Confident Mom. But she gets a grip on herself quickly, steps closer to him, and touches his arm. You poor man, she says. And no, it’s burgers. Beef burgers.

  Well, all right then, says Luke.

  This is officially now by about a factor of 5,000 the worst evening of my life. I mean, Mom touching Luke’s arm as he tells us that pork on a barbecue smells like people burning.

  I sit there, eating charred burger, while Luke and Mom continue to revoltingly flirt, like something on the Discovery Channel—Two People Doing a Mating Dance. Mom asks him about being a paramedic, and he tells some stories. They are not entertaining or fun stories. One of them is about a boy who swung too hard at a piñata and smashed in a girl’s face with his stick—she had to have three reconstructive surgeries.

  What happened to your leg there? he says to me, after this. Car crash?

  No, says Mom. She’s a climber. Fell off a rock.

  You don’t climb with a rope? he says to me.

  I shrug.

  You should be careful, he says. You only get one life.

  What I keep telling her, says Mom.

  I roll my eyes at her. In real life, when she’s not, oh, suddenly acting like a totally different person, she would as soon see me climb up a rock as she’d give me a loaded pistol and tell me to play some Russian roulette. When I was a kid, she wouldn’t even let me have a bike. Said I could kill myself just by hitting a curb too hard.

  So, what? I think. I fell off a ROCK? This means I’m 100 percent, for real, now living in some kind of thriller film where people start lying and suddenly there are violent people chasing you. It would be scary if it wasn’t so totally random.

  Your daughter’s not a talker, huh? he says.

  Mom laughs. Teenage blues, she replies.

  Luke laughs too. Never had kids—wife didn’t want ’em. But I got me a TV. I’ve seen My Super Sweet 16.

  Well, she’s not that bad, says Mom. But we have our differences. Climbing without safety ropes is one of them.

  Dangerous sport at the best of times, climbing, says Luke to me. You should give it a rest. I’ve seen—

  And he launches into this charming story about cutting down a climber who hanged himself with his own rope, by accident. I see Mom go slightly white again, but she has a core of steel, it seems like, because she keeps the smile painted on her face.

  I stand up and go sit farther away from the fire, just watching the shadows shifting in the forest. I see something fly past, maybe a bat, maybe an owl. It’s fast; it swoops, and then it’s gone.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mom beckon me over. I lever myself up and go inelegantly on my CAM Walker to her. She nods to Luke.

  Luke here is driving south, she says. To Phoenix, then Mexico.

  I look at her, like, so what?

  He’s been telling me about these … what were they?

  Ancient ruins. Pre-Columbus. They’re at the Agua Fria National Monument, like an hour south of here.

  I know, I think. We passed it on the way up here.

  I told Luke how fascinated I am by prehistory, says Mom.

  I think: oh yeah?

  He’s offered us a lift tomorrow, she goes on. To see them. And then he’ll bring us back here to our car. Does that sound fun, honey? We’re on vacation, a day off our schedule can’t hurt.

  It sounds WEIRD, is what it sounds like, since we’d be going back the way we’ve just come, and we’re supposedly running away.

  Also:

  He’s a man, I say. Men are bad.

  Not all men are bad, says Mom.

  I throw my hands up, like, what?

  Teenagers, says Luke, and Mom laughs.

  You’re going to Flagstaff, right? asks Luke.

  Mom nods. To see Route 66.

  This is news to me but I don’t say anything.

  Shame, says Luke. If you were going south too, we could travel together.

  Shame, says Mom. Still, we’ve got the ruins, tomorrow.

  Yep, says Luke. We’ve got tomorrow. The way he says this is nauseatingly romantic.

  They stay by the fire for a while, chatting, laughing. They talk Apache culture, which I’m surprised to find Mom knows something about. The Navajo Star Chant, whatever that is. Luke gets very excited about something to do with the four sacred colors, or something.

  At several points, Mom touches Luke’s arm and I nearly puke.

  Finally, she says we’ve got to go to sleep. Luke offers his tent, but, thank God, Mom says no, that we’ll be fine in our car.

  We climb in to the back seat, and kind of spoon together. Mom has brought sleeping bags, and we zip them together to make a duvet.

  When we see Luke go into his tent, I tap Mom’s shoulder.

  What’s the deal? I say. With this Monument place. It’s back the way we came.

  Exactly, says Mom.

  What do you mean exactly? I thought we were running away.

  We are. But now we’re acting unexpected. I mean, your father wouldn’t expect to find us at a tourist destination, with some guy. And if he tracks the rental car … well, we won’t be in it. We’ll be in Luke’s car.

  I have to admit there is some kind of logic to this.

  This is all freaking me out, Mom, I say.

  I know, honey, she says. I know. But we’ll get through it.

  Okay, I say. I know we will, because she has said so.

  I close my eyes and try to sleep. But there are constellations bursting behind my eyelids, and thoughts racing around like cats, and I can’t settle. I open my eyes again and stare out at the darkness outside the window, the faint glow of the stars.

  Clouds pass, and the moon is revealed, an eye opening.

  And there, under the trees, is a coyote standing in the light of the moon outside the car.

  I think: if a coyote crosses your path, turn back, or terrible things will—

  But then I think: screw that. This coyote has turned up like two times now, and it said that weird thing to me about how I would be given two lies and then the truth, and I’ve had just about enough of people messing with my head. People, coyotes, whatever.

  I close my eyes for a long moment.

  I open them.

  And the coyote is gone, like it was never there.

  I’m in the hospital.

  Not the hospital I was taken to after the car hit me. THE hosp
ital. The one I end up in, again and again, when I’m sleeping. So there’s a part of me that knows it’s a dream, but it doesn’t FEEL like a dream.

  It feels real.

  The walls are painted a yellow that is meant to be cheerful but just looks jaundiced. There are double doors in front of me, with round windows in them, the glass frosted. Behind the doors there is a child crying. I don’t precisely HEAR the crying—I feel it, deep inside my bones. A resonance.

  How can I describe it? The crying of that child? It’s … it’s beyond distress. It’s beyond pain. It’s NEED. This child needs me; this child has been hurt or abandoned and it needs to be held, to be comforted.

  I feel the pull of the child—I have to find it, I have to stop it crying, even though at the same time I know this is just a dream. I look around, I feel like doctors should be running, nurses, to this child—I mean, the walls are shaking with its crying—but there is no one.

  I push open the doors.

  I always do this.

  The crying is worse now. Not louder, but more insistent. I am 100 percent freaked out, and now I only 50 percent know this is a dream. The room I have stepped into is too solid, too detailed, to be imaginary. I’m in a square waiting room open at the other end, where there is a corridor that leads—I know—to another waiting room, and branching off that are the examination rooms.

  There are plastic chairs set out in the first waiting room, but they’re empty. To my right is a wooden kitchen, for young kids to play with. I walk past it. There’s a low table with Legos on it. Another with magazines for the parents, jumbled up, all of them tattered and old. I pass a poster that says

  If Your Child has Chicken Pox or has Been Exposed to Chicken Pox, Tell Reception Immediately

  I’m at the reception desk now. There are two computers behind it, papers, phones. A bell you can ring. But I don’t ring it; no one would come. I know that because I have done it before.

  Opposite the reception desk, on the other wall of the corridor, is an old rocking horse, its paint faded and peeled. It’s enormous—like a horse from a fairground ride. It must be a hundred years old. The mane looks like it’s made from real horsehair. Next to it is a plaque.