by Robin Brande
I made my way back past the tables, past my mother and Toni Margress and that asshole Greaves, through the little wooden gate that would be sweet outside a cottage but seemed out of place in a courtroom, out through the double wooden doors into the corridor as Posie padded behind me and whispered, “You did great.” Bless her heart, she’s such a liar.
My father sat on the bench in the hallway outside the courtroom. As soon as he saw me he cried, “Lizzie!”
And collapsed onto the floor.
The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things
[1]
It wasn’t real, of course—or at least I didn’t believe it. I knew it was just another ploy.
I stood in the corridor with Greaves and Posie and my mother and everyone else and stared at my father lying on the dirty linoleum. Someone propped up his feet with a sports coat. My father kept his hand over his heart and panted. His eyes were closed most but not all of the way. I could see he was watching us.
I kept my distance, the way you would if you came upon a wild animal injured in the forest. He might have rabies. He might bite.
What do you do if you’re in my mother’s situation? Do you go to him or turn away? He was her husband still, and he was another human in need, but bully for her she let others take care of him while we all waited for the ambulance.
The paramedics took his vitals, asked questions of him and some of us, then bundled him onto a rolling stretcher and transported him out of the courthouse.
“Do you think it’s real?” Posie whispered to me.
“No.”
We followed my mother down the stairs. She watched the gurney disappear through the doors and said, “Maybe I should have gone with him.”
“Why?”
“It looks serious.”
“It’s not,” I assured her.
“He’s still my husband.”
“Go for it,” I said with a roll of my eyes.
She hesitated, and then the moment passed. “I’m going home,” she said wearily.
“See ya.”
What had my father said in his letter? The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. We were all liars, weren’t we? My mother sneaking out on him to fool around with her lover. Me and my lies. My father and his. And now this last big effort—this one last lie—to get my mother back. It wasn’t going to work. My father was only forty-seven, so a genuine heart attack was out of the question.
I couldn’t wait for the doctors to call his bluff.
[2]
Posie and I exited the courthouse, and there she was, smoking a cigarette, hair bright red, like Raggedy Ann’s.
Leave it to Tessa to be late for her own performance.
I couldn’t move. It’s like seeing a rattlesnake in front of you on the path. You want to give it enough room.
Tessa looked me straight in the eye. Deeply inhaled her cigarette. How come it looked so much less frightening when Angela did that? Somehow Tessa made it seem like she was sucking out my very soul.
“Is that . . . her?” Posie muttered.
“Yes.”
“Don’t be afraid. Let’s go.”
Posie linked her arm in mine. We strode right toward Tessa, intending to pass by without a glance.
But of course I couldn’t do that. I’m like Lot’s wife—I have to peek. And just like her, I froze.
“Lizzie,” Tessa said breathily, like she was getting ready to seduce me.
“Come on,” Posie said. She tugged me along.
“This your new bitch?” Tessa asked. She took another hit.
Posie halted. “Ex-cuse me?”
Tessa laughed. “Must be.”
Posie took one step toward her.
“Poz—”
“Lizzie told me all about you,” Posie said. “You’re a horrible, wicked person. I only wish you had the chance to perjure yourself today. Then your crimes would be complete.”
“Yeah,” Tessa said to me, ignoring Posie. “I saw your dad gurneyed outta here. You finally manage to kill him?”
“Stay away from me,” I said, and this time it was my turn to tug at Posie. We walked away quickly, both grateful, I think, to escape without any more venom from those eyes.
When we were a reasonable distance away, Posie asked, “How could you ever be friends with her?”
“I was insane.”
But it wasn’t that at all.
I think you meet people sometimes, and you’re ready for them or not. Like meeting Posie, or meeting Jason.
There’s something in your soul, like a heat sensor, telling you when you’re ripe. It’s like those stories you hear about people who go to the same high school but never speak to each other, then they go to a class reunion ten years later and fall completely, madly in love. It could have happened earlier, but neither of them was ready.
If I had met Posie when I was in elementary school or junior high, would she and I have been friends? Or did we have to wait until I was free of Tessa and her poison before I could ever have a friend like Posie?
Same with Jason. Maybe we’re meant to be together some day, but does that mean I should go for it now? What if I know I’m not ready? Will he still be there when I am ready?
They’re the kinds of puzzles that can drive you out of your mind. All these questions of fate and destiny and free will.
Like this one, for example:
If I hadn’t been making out with Jason on my birthday;
If I hadn’t walked in on my father and Mikey wrestling in their underwear when I came home that night;
If I weren’t friends with Posie at the time;
If Posie hadn’t been following Angela Peligro’s career;
If the priests hadn’t molested those children, and given Angela all those cases to win;
If Angela hadn’t given me the idea of how to trap my father;
If my father hadn’t written that letter, and dug his own grave;
If I hadn’t testified at the hearing, and made up all those lies;
Would anything that happened next ever have happened?
It’s enough to drive you insane.
Victory Party
Toni Margress called my mother a few hours later to say the judge was granting my mother temporary custody, at least until the rest of the divorce case was decided.
My mother invited me out for pizza with her and Mikey to celebrate.
“The judge says you’re supposed to live with me too, Lizzie, but if you want to keep staying at Posie’s you can—as long it’s all right with her mother.”
“Yeah, Mrs. Sherbern said it’s okay.”
“I should probably call her,” my mother said.
“If you want.”
“Stop that, Mikey.”
Mikey blew bubbles with his straw one more time, then gave it up. He played with his pizza next, rearranging the pepperoni to make faces and shapes and to spell his initials.
Well, someone was in a good mood. I wondered if he understood exactly what had happened. Had my mother told him? Did he know how large my lie had been? Did he realize I’d done it for him alone?
I had to not care. You don’t do good things because you want credit for it. You do it because it feels good to your soul. If there’s credit to come from it, let it be the riches you store up in heaven. I didn’t want to be the kind of person always saying, “See? See? Look how great I am!”
“We should talk about college,” my mother said abruptly. “What are your thoughts?”
“Uh, well, I was thinking I would go here, to the U. They already accepted me, I was just trying to think of how to come up with the money.”
“Did you apply anywhere else?”
“No. I didn’t really see the point. Besides, Posie’s going there.”
“Oh.” My mother studied her deep dish slice and appeared to consider her words carefully.
“I’m sorry, Liz, but I’m sure you understand—I can’t really afford—”
I hurried to fill in the gap.
“I know, Mom, I wasn’t expecting that. I already applied for financial aid.” I didn’t want to mention Mrs. Sherbern’s offer. I didn’t intend to accept it, and I thought another mother offering to send me to college might make my own mother feel even worse.
After pizza we returned to my mother’s megaplex. I let her go on ahead a little ways so I could walk alone with Mikey.
I draped my arm across his shoulder. “Happy?” I asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Good.” I squeezed him in closer and felt how nice it was to have a little brother who would still let me hug him.
“You should come live with us,” Mikey said.
“Where would I sleep? You already have the couch.”
“You could sleep in Mom’s bed.”
“No, thanks. That’s a little too much togetherness for me. I like having a bed to myself.”
“You could come on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Mikey tried again, “when Mom’s at Charles’s.”
I halted. “She leaves you alone? All night?”
“Yeah, but it’s okay—I have her number.”
“Does she feed you?”
“She leaves me something,” Mikey said.
“Aren’t you scared to be alone in there?”
“Nope. But you could come. We could stay up and watch movies.”
I didn’t like this at all. So much for her selfless acts of motherhood. Apparently her own sex life was still her priority.
“I don’t think she should leave you alone.”
“Don’t say anything,” Mikey begged. “Please. I shouldn’t have told.”
“Mikey, you can always tell me anything—you know that.” I waited, hoping he would.
“I know. But don’t say anything, okay?”
We walked the rest of the way across the parking lot, then up the stairs. I felt unspeakably lonely for my little brother. What little kid really wants to be left alone overnight? He might think he wants that—total freedom to string torches onto cats’ tails or make crank calls or whatever they do at that age—but I couldn’t forget the sorrow on his face when he stood in the kitchen doorway and told me he missed our mother. That boy had been long enough without one. How dare she go back to her own life and leave him behind again?
“Mother,” I blurted the second I entered her apartment, “you’re leaving Mikey alone at night?”
“Lizzie, no,” Mikey muttered, pulling at my hand.
“Look, Mikey, it’s not right.” I turned to my mother again. “Don’t you think you could give up your dates so your little boy could feel protected?”
“He’s fine,” my mother protested. “I lock him in—”
“Mother, he’s just barely turned nine. What if something happened?”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” Mikey butted in. “I can take care of myself.”
I was doing a good job of working myself up by now. The day had been stressful, and it felt good to let off a little righteous indignation. “Maybe Mikey should come live with Mrs. Sherbern, too. At least she’d know how to take care of him.”
“Lizzie,” my mother scolded me, “that will be enough.”
But I was enjoying being right. “How is it enough, Mother? You left him alone with Dad, and look how that turned out. Now you’re—”
“What do you mean,” my mother asked, “‘look how that turned out’?”
My eyes darted to Mikey, but he didn’t try to stop me.
“You realize,” I said, “that I made all of that up. It wasn’t me being molested, it was Mikey.”
“No, it wasn’t!” he shouted. “That’s a lie!”
“Mikey, I saw it. Don’t lie—she needs to know.”
“He wasn’t, I swear! Lizzie, shut up.”
“Sit down, both of you,” our mother ordered. I rolled my eyes at this unnecessary family drama, but sat next to Mikey on the sofa.
“Mikey,” my mother said, “look at me. Tell me the truth—was your father molesting you?”
“No.”
“Do you know what I mean by that? Molesting—”
“Yeah, I know,” he said impatiently. “He wasn’t.”
“Lizzie, what do you think you saw?”
“They took showers together, Mom. They wrestled right in front of me in their underwear and Dad had a—” I shielded my mouth with my hand so Mikey wouldn’t see me mouth, “Hard on.”
“Did you take showers together?” my mother asked him.
“Yeah, but so?”
“So, that’s not normal,” I said. “That’s gross. A grown man and a little boy.”
My mother’s voice was shaky. “Did he ever touch you? In the shower?”
“No,” Mikey answered surlily.
“Then why were you taking showers together?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Just because.”
My mother clutched Mikey’s hands in her own. “Mikey, it’s okay, sweetie, you can tell us. I believe Lizzie. She’s the one who told—not you—you don’t have to worry. Did your father ask you not to tell?”
“Mom!” Mikey squirmed out of her grip and stood up. “Stop asking me all these stupid questions.”
My mother sat back on her heels and watched him go to the kitchen. She turned back to me. “What, exactly, did you see?”
“I told you,” I whispered, “plus he went to Mikey’s room at night.”
“For how long? To do what?”
“I don’t know. He was in there a long time.”
Wearily my mother dropped her chin to her chest. She stood and then joined me on the couch.
“And so what you said—what you swore to under oath—that isn’t true?”
“I did it to protect Mikey.”
“Your father never touched you.”
“He must have. There was sperm—”
“I mean now—recently. He didn’t force himself on you.”
“Not that way. He touched me a few times, but not like that.”
My mother slumped forward and hung her head.
And here’s where I have to admit something: I wanted to see her that way.
I hadn’t done any of it on purpose to upset her, but I didn’t mind at all that she was. It wasn’t my job to protect her. It wasn’t my job to make her life easy while Mikey’s and mine had been hell. Now, finally, maybe she knew what it was like to have too much awful garbage coming at you day after day, sometimes moment to moment. It was about time she gave up this frivolous little life of hers and came back to reality. This stuff was hard. She had left us to deal with it alone.
“What else was I supposed to do?” I demanded. “You weren’t there to protect him—I had to think of something.”
“You should have told me.”
“Why? So you could send me another postcard saying how much fun you were having with your lover, and oh, by the way, tell Mikey I’m sorry his dad is molesting him?” I didn’t care that Mikey could hear me. “Come on, Mom—you were too busy out there screwing Charles to give even a small shit what was happening to your children.”
“Stop it, Lizzie, that’s not true,” she cried. Her face was ugly with tears the way mine sometimes got. This wasn’t an elegant cry—this was from the gut and it hurt.
So I kept going. “I’m glad Charles’s so great in bed, Mom, because maybe he’ll be around when you’re an old woman and you’re wondering where your children have gone. You have to put in your time, you know? What’s Mikey going to take from all this? That you love him? That you’ll protect him? You know how hard it’s been for him and you still leave him alone! I should have told that judge not to give Mikey to either of you.”
Mikey was sitting on the kitchen floor now, staring at me hatefully for what I was doing to our mother. Fine—he could hate me—I didn’t care. It was time I told the truth.
“I am a virgin, Mom, do you even know that? While you’ve been out there messing around I’ve been trying to live a good life. I actually believe that stuff you used to tell me about how precious
my body is and how wonderful if will be some day when I meet the man I love. Who else have you slept with, Mom? Did you love every one of them?”
She wasn’t crying anymore, just staring at me. “Are you done?”
“No. Do you know that Mrs. Sherbern—a practical stranger—offered to be my foster mother? She wants to be my mother.”
“So do I, Liz—”
“And she even offered to pay for my college. Can you believe that? I told her no, my parents will surely come through—I’m their only daughter after all—but maybe I should take her up on it. Mikey, you want to come along?”
“Stop it, Lizzie. I’ve had enough. I’m glad you’re so sure of yourself. It’s easy to condemn me, isn’t it? You have no idea all the sacrifices I made for you.”
“Oh, really? Why didn’t you go to the police, Mom? If you thought Dad molested me when I was a baby, why didn’t you tell someone?”
“I was so young! I believed him. I was afraid to push it any further.”
“Thanks a lot. Big sacrifice.”
“I’ve been home for you for sixteen years,” my mother argued. “I stayed married to your father so you kids could have a stable home.”
“You did,” I pointed out, “but then I guess you got over it. So I got to take your place.” I had had just about enough family drama for one day. I stood and walked to the kitchen. “I’m sorry, Mikey, I didn’t mean to mess up your night.”
“You’re a big mouth,” he said. “I wish you never came.”
“Thanks a lot. I was trying to look out for you. Whether you know it or not, Mom’s not taking care of you. She should never leave you alone.”
“Dad didn’t touch me,” Mikey insisted.
“Whatever. Been a blast, gang. See ya round.” I slammed out the door and down the stairs and looked for the nearest pay phone. At times like these I wished desperately I had a car. I’m sure Posie was tired of always coming to my rescue.
Yet another Aimes family crisis.
If only that were the end of it.
The Prodigal Daughter
[1]
I once asked Mr. Marsh, one of my Sunday school teachers, what “prodigal” meant—from Jesus’s parable about the prodigal son. Mr. Marsh thought about it for a second and said, “Someone who goes away and comes back.”
