True Stories from an Unreliable Eyewitness

by Christine Lahti

  “mahhhhhh,” taunted the devil that lived inside me. “I’m warning you, Chris. Don’t you touch this sandwich again,” she yelled as I headed for the hills. She resumed dripping her pathetic honey pattern. As she saw me coming back, she grabbed the knife she was using. Twisting her blade in the air as if she were gutting a mackerel, she made it crystal clear what she would do to me if I didn’t obey.

  But again I stuck my thumb in her sandwich and mushed it around. This time, as I bolted away, she flung the knife at me, hitting me in the shoulder. That stopped me in my tracks. My sister just threw a knife at me. I stomped into the powder room and lifted my T-shirt to examine the damage in the mirror. Disappointed, I noticed only a barely discernible pink mark that looked more like a flea bite than a stab wound. So I proceeded to scratch my back with my stubby fingernails over and over again, just to make sure my parents understood the full horror of the assault. Then, just as I was manufacturing some very real tears, I heard them come home and flung open the bathroom door.

  “Mom, Dad, Carol threw a knife at me! Ow, look, I’m bleeding!” I tenderly touched my scratches for dramatic effect. As further proof, I showed them the dagger, which I’d confiscated from the kitchen floor. But little did I know at the time that this deadly weapon happened to be . . . a butter knife. My parents took one look at my angry red gouges, one look at the pitiful knife, and grounded me for two weeks.

  Could I have so brazenly lied to Miss Beasley, as I did to my parents? Even at six years old, I knew I was supposed to be a good little girl and that pooping on the floor in class was not in my job description—especially in this particular classroom.

  So at the behest of my friend, to potentially free Mr. Funky from any more shame and humiliation, I hereby allow the tiniest possibility that it could have been . . . me. If I falsely blamed him, I apologize, once and for all. John, if you’re reading this, please forgive me. And who the hell knows, maybe it was a third kid who did it and just lobbed the crap over to us. What if it wasn’t shit at all, but actually just some discarded brown Play-Doh?

  Okay, clearly memories can be fallible and fluid, but does that mean I have to disavow all the stories that, over the years, I have reliably told myself and others? So what if some fiction gets mixed in with our “facts”? Maybe we need to protect ourselves from remembering experiences that threaten our sense of self.

  But if more of my memories start shifting around like fault lines, will they cause tremors in my identity? Isn’t our collection of memories the bedrock of who we are? Aren’t our stories what give us hope and help us make sense of the world?

  Fuck it. John Funky shat on the floor in first grade. It’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

  2

  The Smile of Her

  During recess, as I climbed up the big kid’s slide, Corky Gordon yelled from below, “I see London. I see France. I see Chrissy’s underpants.” Instantly a dozen other kids on the playground swarmed around to gaze up my skirt.

  After school, my wet eyes fixed on the sidewalk, I rushed home to my room and waited.

  “Oh, yoo-hoooo! Yoodee-hoodee! I’m hooome!”

  And as if by magic, all was right with the world. The six of us kids stopped whatever we were doing and came running. Even our dog started leaping into the air to catch a glimpse of my mother’s ruby-red smile as she entered our house. Framed by two deep dimples and a glamorous black beauty mark, her smile seemed to light her from the inside out.

  This was 1950s Birmingham, Michigan, an affluent, bucolic suburb of Detroit where everyone had swimming pools filled with water that our parents told us would turn purple if we peed in them. Mom was a housewife, and everybody adored her. If there had been a contest for most perky, she would have won it hands down. She gave her smile as a gift to everyone, whether they wanted it or not. Walking by her side, I watched with pride as people fell helpless under its spell.

  Every morning we’d hear her in the kitchen, her voice like a chickadee: “Rise and shi-ine! Breakfast is ready!” Then she’d sing to my dad, “Here’s your Sanka, darling. How are you on this ga-lor-i-ous day?”

  Dad’s head would be buried in the Detroit Free Press sports section, but he’d respond “Never felt better in my life” as he sucked the life out of his Meerschaum pipe. It’s what he always answered, every time, no matter what.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, pipe down, will you, Betty? You’re not making any sense!”

  “See, you don’t respect me. You won’t even listen to me!”

  I was in bed, under the covers, with all my stuffed animals and dolls. Just outside my door, in the hallway, a tornado was raging.

  “Hey, I said pipe down, Betty!”

  “Ahhh, I can’t stand this! I’m sick of you always trying to shut me up!”

  I dove down under my giant teddy bear and didn’t hear any more. I pulled my Chatty Cathy doll’s string to drown them out. “Please brush my hair, take me with you, I love you, please brush my hair, take me with you, I love you!” Cathy pleaded. I’d never heard my parents fight before. I’d never, ever, heard my mom sound like this.

  The next morning, wary of leftover debris from last night’s storm, I went downstairs. “Hey, Dad. How’re you doing?”

  “Never felt better in my life!”

  Mom chirped through her biggest, most excited smile, “Hi, honey! Want to get dolled up and go to the grocery store with me today?”

  So there we were, two sparkly girls out shopping. I saw a floral dress with a white petticoat in the window of a clothing store. I stopped, dazzled by the wonder of it.

  “Oh, Mommy! Look at all those red roses! Do you think we could—”

  “Not today, honey.”

  “Please, Mommy, pleeease!”

  “I’m sorry, Chrissy, but I just can’t swing it.”

  “Oh please, look, it’s on sale and I could wear it for my birthday party!”

  “No, you don’t understand, honey. Your dad . . . um . . . your dad took my credit cards away this morning.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I misbehaved.”

  “You what?”

  “I misbehaved, you know, honey, like when children get grounded sometimes? Like that.”

  “Oh, well, okay.”

  She took my hand. “But it doesn’t mean we can’t go get some yummy Neapolitan ice cream!”

  I looked up at her million-dollar smile, and once again all was well.

  When Mom didn’t smile, it scared me. Her smile had become my barometer of well-being. There was the time she caught me teasing my older brother, mimicking his severe stutter. Her smile vanished. The room emptied of life, like a river gone dry. “You just wait until your father gets home,” she said in her deepest voice. Translated, that meant You just wait until your dad straps you with that leather belt of his!

  Then there were those times when, after a jam-packed day of being Super Mom, she’d fall asleep on the family room couch after sipping her Manhattan, collapsing around eight o’clock.

  “Dad, Mom’s snoring again,” I’d whisper.

  “Yeah, I can’t hear the TV!” my brother would complain.

  Dad would turn up the volume on Father Knows Best. “Ah, leave her alone, she’s exhausted.”

  One of us would quietly ask, “Are you asleep, Mom?”

  “Nope, just resting my eyes!” she’d respond, popping up, snapping to attention, her smile back intact, as if she’d been caught sleeping on the job.

  Mom had much to be happy about, though. She was so proud of her brilliant, handsome surgeon husband, her six adorable children, and her traditional six-bedroom red-brick house with its grand front yard and circular driveway. Her favorite room was our all-white living room: white carpet, white furniture, white curtains. When she had parties, I’d overhear her friend, Penny, say “Oh my goodness, Betty, how do you do it? With all those rambunctious children and a dog in this house! Why on earth would you pick white?” Mom would just grin, never divulging her secret—the pl
astic she’d put on all the furniture during the day.

  In addition, we kids and the dog were never allowed to enter the “living” room—which was clearly not meant for living—without permission, except for the rare times when relatives came over and we were invited in.

  “Chrissy! Get over here, you little cutie-pie! Come give your auntie a big kiss!” bellowed my mom’s sister, Barbara, her chin glistening in the sun-drenched room.

  “Hi.” I hovered in the doorway, my tiny grass-stained toes butting up against the forbidden carpet. It stretched out before me, perilous, like a swamp of hungry white crocodiles.

  “Sweetie, don’t be shy! It’s fine!” said Mom.

  “Ahh . . . uh, uh.”

  “Chrissy, it’s okay. Come in!” Mom’s smile grabbed me and pulled me in.

  I took a deep breath and, as fast as I could, pranced over to them, barely letting my sticky feet brush the surface of the carpet. Mom scooped me up onto her lap, “It’s okay, honey, I got you.” Then she enveloped me into the body of her smile.

  When I was nine years old, Mom gave each of us four girls a laminated checklist headed “Good Grooming Habits for Young Ladies.” They included brushing your hair fifty strokes every night, moisturizing elbows and knees daily, and tips on how to keep your smile bright and pretty. I followed them all dutifully. I’d brush my teeth as long as it took me to hum “Happy Birthday.” Then I’d rehearse smiling in the mirror, jabbing my fingers into my cheeks, trying to make my dimples as deep as hers. I even created a beauty mark with one of her eyeliner pencils, though it looked more like a tick sucking on my face. Mom was the epitome of a lady, and I wanted to be just like her.

  Until one day I walked in on her getting dressed.

  I instantly looked away. “Whoa, Mom! What in the world are you doing?”

  She was naked, squeezing into a full-size girdle from her ankles to her waist. Next, she hooked on a corset into which she was trying to stuff her six-children-plus-two-stillborns floppy stomach.

  “Why are you wearing that?”

  “Oh, it’s fine, honey. See, I’m wearing slacks today.”

  “But why are you putting all that tight stuff under them?”

  “Oh, this is a piece of cake! I’m used to this!”

  Taking in little gasps of air, she pulled her stretch pants and sweater over the underarmor. If you want to be pretty like her, I thought, you just have to do this stuff. I knew that cooking and cleaning were her household duties, and that caring for us was crucial. But her beauty seemed to be an additional critical responsibility. Repeatedly, we heard “Eeek, close the windows, the hair, the hair!” or “I’ll be right out! I just need to put my face on!” or “See, honey, how these jowls go away when I smile?” So there went Mom, walking through her day, coiffed and jowl-free, in a head-to-toe girdle, unable to breathe.

  It wasn’t until I was about ten years old that I began to see Mom’s perfected smile as something a bit more complicated.

  “Betty, put out the cigarette, please.” Dad had both hands on the faux-wood steering wheel of our Buick station wagon.

  “What do you mean, Ted? I just lit it,” she responded, taking in a deep breath of smoke.

  “You shouldn’t be smoking with all the kids in the car. You shouldn’t be smoking at all.” It was dusk. We were all packed in, having just visited the Chicago Science Museum, and it was snowing hard. What’s the big deal? I thought. Mom always smokes in the car with us. How bad can it be?

  “Just come down one time to my operating room, Betty, and see the black-tarred lungs of my patients.” (This was a standing invitation for all of us; a “guaranteed smoking deterrent.”)

  But Mom kept puffing away. I had never seen her not obey my father.

  “Betty, did you hear what I said?” The wipers scraped across our icy windshield. “Put the cigarette out now, Betty,” he warned under his breath.

  She kept smoking, the tension in the car as thick as the fumes.

  “Either you put it out or you’re getting out.”

  She just kept smoking. So Dad pulled the car over and slammed on the brakes. Betty didn’t move. With eyes locked straight ahead, she exhaled slowly, pushing out little ghosts of smoke that floated in the air around Dad’s head.

  “Get out now!” He leaned over and threw open the door, his slicked-back hair flying wildly around his reddened face. A shock of snow blew in.

  “No, Mom! Don’t leave! Close the door!”

  But she got out. Holding down her hair with one hand, the other hand glued to her cigarette, she whacked the door shut with her hip. Dad zoomed off. From the far back seat of our station wagon, all I could see was her body getting smaller and smaller, until she disappeared altogether.

  “Dad! No! Go back for her!”

  But Dad kept driving. The longer he drove, the more certain I was that she’d be lost forever. Where will she go? I thought to myself. How will she find food? How will she fight off all the scavenging packs of rabid dogs that must roam this frozen city?

  A few minutes later—though it felt like an eternity—he turned another corner. We saw Mom walking alone on a snow-covered sidewalk. He pulled up beside her, shifted over to the passenger seat, and opened the door. She threw down the last of her butt. It hissed as it hit the snow. She got in. Dad didn’t say a word. Mom wouldn’t look at him. She then planted a smile across her makeup-smeared face and looked back at our faces, which were overflowing with relief.

  “Aw, your dad wouldn’t have left me, kids,” she said. “He was just mad at me and wanted to teach me a lesson. I knew he’d come right back.” But this time I chewed my cuticle, tasting a sting of blood. This misbehavior might not just get her credit cards taken away. She might be grounded forever.

  One night, when I was around fourteen, Mom sat with me on her bed after dinner. “You know, honey,” she said, “I was the editor of my high school paper.”

  “What? Really, Mom?”

  “Yes, and I won several literary awards and art contests,” she said, focused on chipping off remnants of her nail polish.

  “Mom, you never told me that. That’s so great! Why don’t you do any of that now?”

  “Oh, no, honey, don’t be silly. I love just being your mom! Maybe in another lifetime,” she said with a little chuckle. Her smile looked a little strained now, its dimples less defined. She brushed bits of red polish off the floral peach bedspread into her matching wastepaper basket.

  I was eighteen now, a senior in high school. My first boyfriend, the love of my life, Billy, was leaving my room, tucking in his shirt. He passed by Mom, who was standing just outside my door.

  My father walked into my room. “Why buy the cow, Chris, when you can get the milk for free?” he whispered.

  “What, Dad? I’m sorry . . . um . . . huh?”

  “Trust me, all men want is one thing—to get into your pants. That’s all they care about. So why buy the cow, if you can get the milk for free?” He spelled it out again, urgently, as if he were pointing out the exit doors in a theater engulfed in flames. The air in my tiny bedroom thickened. I couldn’t wait for my father to leave. I stepped out into the hallway to see if Mom was still there. Startled, she slapped on one of her Betty Lahti smiles.

  “Oh, uh . . . dinner’s in ten minutes, sweetie.” She turned and marched down our long hallway, leaving only whispers of her Chanel No. 5 lingering behind.

  When I set off for the University of Michigan, with my properly moisturized elbows and knees, I promptly joined a sorority famous for its members’ great success at finding husbands. It was what I knew. Mom and I took a picture together the day she came for our first Delta Gamma mother-daughter brunch. With our identical frozen smiles and color-coordinated silk scarves, we sat, legs crossed at the ankle, hands in our laps, as if patiently waiting for something exciting to happen.

  Sunday evening, at the end of my first week there, a loud bell was rung. All the DGs were told to come down to the living room for the “candle ceremo
ny.” I expected it to be some kind of religious ritual.

  “Oh, no!” my new blond “sister” Nancy explained. “See, we all stand in a circle, almost every week, and depending on how many times the candle goes around before it’s blown out, someone is either going steady, getting lavaliered, or—drumroll, please—getting engaged!”

  The candle completed the circle three times. When it was finally blown out, there was a kind of surreal sorority group orgasm. These smart young women with their promising futures crazily leaped upon the bride-to-be, hooting and hollering, as if she’d discovered the cure for cancer. The room, with its varying shades of designer beige, became cramped, almost claustrophobic. As I backed away from the circle of stretched lipstick smiles, I felt myself backing away from my mother for the first time.

  A month later, I quit that sorority. I spent the rest of my college life protesting the Vietnam War, marching for civil rights, and going to women’s consciousness-raising meetings. The status symbol in my new circle became a lump on the head from a cop’s billy club, a far cry from the coveted poodle skirts of my youth. To me, Mom now looked like a Stepford wife. To her, I probably looked like someone who might at any moment burn their house down.

  “Jesus Christ, Mom, what’s wrong with you?”

  “Why, what?” She touched her hair, capturing any strays that had escaped.

  “Why are you smiling so much? It looks totally fake.”

  We were entering the grocery store during one of my obligatory visits home. She proceeded to chirp, “Hello, how are you?” to the cashier, the customers, the grocery bagger, and the produce man. “Hello! How’s your wife? Love your dress! Oh my goodness, don’t your tomatoes look absolutely sca-rumptious today!”