House Without Lies (Lily’s House Book 1)

by Rachel Branton

  “What are you saying? How do Zoey and Bianca figure in this conversation?”

  “I should have been the one who decided to tell Bea about them after I checked her out.”

  “But I thought—”

  “You thought wrong. It was my choice! I’m the one who cares for them, not you. I’m the one who’s sacrificing to feed them. I’m the one who comforts them when they cry with their nightmares.”

  “I’m not saying we turn Halla over. I just think we ought to research—”

  I hopped out of the car, my voice rising with my anger. “You go ahead and do all the research you want. The fact remains that if you report this, it’ll boil down to what it always has—Halla’s word against her father’s. Before she ran away, she went to school counselors. She even went to her pastor, and the only thing that happened was that they told her father, and he locked her up. And you know what? I can’t trust someone who doesn’t believe me. It’s as simple as that. I think it’s better for all of us if you don’t come here anymore.” I slammed the door hard.

  For a moment, I felt a sharp satisfaction at the sound of the door and the hurt on his face. But every step away from him felt like an ever-widening chasm we could never cross. Why did he have to be so stubborn? Why did he have to interfere?

  Because if I had to choose between them, there was really no choice. I was all Halla and the other girls had. Not that Jameson would care. He probably had women lined up to take my place—if I’d even meant anything real to him in such a short time.

  I sprinted up the stairs, almost running into my second-floor neighbor, who let out something that might have been a chuckle or maybe a cough. I didn’t wait around to decide which. On the fourth floor landing, I glanced out to see Jameson standing by his car, looking up at me. His earnest expression reminded me of our kisses on the mountain.

  I shouldn’t have told you, I thought. I didn’t even tell my sister most of what happened to the girls, and she was on my side. My heart was usually right, but this time, I’d endangered Halla—and all the girls.

  “Lily!” Elsie exclaimed as I walked into the apartment. The others crowded around me, asking questions: “Where’s Mario?” “How’d the date go?” “Did he kiss you again?”

  I held up a hand. “Okay, guys, I know you like Jameson, but I’m not sure I like him enough, you know? Just because he’s hot, doesn’t mean I’m going to fall in love with him or something.”

  “Oh, beans!” Ruth said.

  Zoey shrugged. “Love’s overrated anyway.”

  To distract them from more questions, I hurried to say, “Did you watch all of the videos?”

  “We still have Back to the Future left,” Ruth said. “We saved it in case . . . never mind.”

  Great. Just great. I grabbed the video from the stack on the television. “Put some more popcorn in, Halla,” I said. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  The girls fell asleep long before the movie ended, and Saffron came home before one, as she promised. Double-checking the locks, I left the girls sleeping together like a bunch of newborn kittens and climbed up on the roof, where I sat looking at a muted version of the stars Jameson and I had seen from the mountain. A single tear rolled down my cheek as I thought about the blanket of magic. I wiped it away.

  I had to make sure Jameson didn’t interfere further. I’d have to keep him away. I’d lie outright, if necessary. If I didn’t let him into my life, he couldn’t do something I’d forever regret.

  A small hand slipped into mine, startling me. “Oh, hi,” I murmured to Elsie, who snuggled her head against my shoulder.

  “You’re sad,” she said.

  “A little.”

  “Because of him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Men suck.”

  Her serious tone made me smile, until I realized she wasn’t kidding. “Not Payden,” I said. “Not every man.”

  She sighed. “Well, Payden’s not really a man yet, is he?”

  She had a point. We sat there for a few minutes, staring at the muted sky.

  “Lily?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I wish you were my mother.”

  Her mother. Should I ask what she was like? No, not tonight. It was too soon—at least according to my gut, which, given the fiasco with Jameson, might not be working anymore.

  I pulled her tighter. “I wish that too.”

  9

  On Monday evening, I left Teen Remake feeling depressed after a foster parent class on the effects of abuse and neglect on children. The concepts weren’t new to me. Zoey had cut her arm again over the weekend to relieve stress after her chat with Bea at school on Friday, Bianca had issues talking to adults, Halla would barely eat, and Ruth still dressed like a boy. Saffron’s flippancy about her dates worried me as well.

  So I’d seen firsthand the effects of child abuse, but it wasn’t anywhere near as severe as the stories I’d heard in class tonight. Some of those were horrific and left a distaste in my mouth and the urge to climb a tall building and scream my lungs out at the injustice.

  Thankfully, my girls were comparatively well adjusted—and I was honest enough to admit it was probably due more to their own resilience and mutual support than to my nurturing.

  I’d sat through another class about loss and grief the Saturday before, the day after my disastrous date with Jameson, and I’d viewed two presentations online about discipline and sexual abuse. The discipline problems had surprised me because the girls and I had been too busy surviving to worry about making or breaking many rules. I enforced only the bare essentials, instinctively doing the right thing about curfews and dealing with stealing.

  The sexual abuse class had shown me nothing new, but it was a sober reminder. Since Ruth came to live with me, and then Zoey, I’d researched the topic so much that I felt I could teach a class on it myself. Still, after I’d watched the video on Sunday, I’d had the urge to wash my entire body and scrub out my eyeballs, and maybe go to church and confess to a priest for having even taken the class. It was unspeakably terrible what children endured at the hands of those who were supposed to protect them.

  At least I’d made significant headway on the thirty hours I needed to finish my foster parent training, and that was my current goal: get that finished so I could become official.

  I hadn’t expected to see Jameson at either of the two classes held at Teen Remake, but I looked for him anyway, wishing things had gone differently between us. Was there any possibility he could be right about Halla? On Friday I’d been certain she hadn’t lied to me, but the class tonight had shown me that desperate children were capable of far worse than lying if that meant protecting themselves from further pain. But if she wasn’t in pain to begin with, if she’d lied about it, what would she be lying for?

  I had to stop this. If I couldn’t trust my own judgment, how could I help the girls?

  “Lily, wait!”

  I turned to see Bea Lundberg coming from the building. She had introduced the speakers tonight, so I’d seen her here, but now I tensed, wondering if Jameson had told her about Halla. “Hi, Bea.”

  “I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been busy this weekend.” She flashed me a smile. “Zoey and Bianca’s uncle is everything you said he is. I definitely know his kind.”

  Hope spilled through the barrier I’d made around my heart. “He signed them over?”

  “He could hardly sign fast enough when he realized that if he didn’t, there would be an inquiry, and he’d have to pay child support. I had the papers completed at my DCS office today with our attorney, and I have a temporary foster care assignment for you that will be in place until after our home visit and your training completion. We’ll need you to sign a few things.”

  “That’s great. Thank you so much!”

  “Will tomorrow morning be a good time to visit?”

  “Yeah. The girls won’t be home, though, if that’s important. And I work in the afternoon.”

  “That
’s okay. The caseworker assigned to you will have to meet the girls at some point, but my talk with them is enough for now. You will be receiving a stipend for both girls, but checks are always post-paid for each month. So the money will start accruing today, and you’ll get a check around the first of July for these last few days of May and all of June.”

  At an average of twenty dollars a day, I’d be able to make the rent for July and pay for food without dipping into my savings or asking Tessa for help. I could actually buy Zoey that new pair of jeans she desperately needed, and get Bianca an appointment for an eye exam. Maybe someday we could buy a bedframe. “Thank you,” I said, barely able to speak past the lump of emotion that had somehow lodged itself in my throat.

  Bea smiled. “I’m glad to help. Now why don’t you verify your address for me? Unless you’re still at the same place that’s on the court documents.”

  I shook my head. “No, we moved.”

  “Glad I asked. Caseworkers hate it when I send them to the wrong place.”

  “Okay.” I wrote it down for her, realizing that meant they could show up anytime now. I needed to make sure the girls knew, and that we had a plan to hide the truth about how many lived there. Zoey and Bianca shared the double mattress, which wasn’t approved, and having four girls in such a tiny room was never permitted. We’d have to do some juggling, and keep all but one of our fold-out mattress chairs folded when we weren’t using them. Maybe I’d even move Elsie’s to the living room. She seemed to be falling asleep on my couch more often than not these days anyway.

  Tomorrow Ruth and Halla were supposed to be doing errands for their ladies, but we hadn’t decided what we were going to do about Halla yet. The disguise would probably be enough, unless one of their clients had seen the Facebook posts.

  Bea turned to leave, but I stopped her. “Hey Bea, this might be a weird question, but how do you get your hair to look like that? I know this girl, and she’s been trying to get her hair to look . . . well, anything other than a frizzy mess. Braids only go so far.”

  “Oh, I hear you there. Let me tell you, the first few times aren’t easy, but if you have the right products, it’s not too difficult to keep up once you figure it out.” She launched into a long explanation, which had me jotting notes on my phone. I wished I could just bring Ruth to her, but I had to talk to Ruth’s mother first. I wasn’t sending her back to be abused.

  Maybe it was Bea’s success with Zoey and Bianca’s uncle, or her easy sharing of her hair tips, but instead of going home, I drove the twenty minutes to Glendale where Ruth’s mother lived in a tiny run-down house in a neighborhood that looked sapped of life. The front light was on, and one inside as well, so I went up the walk, my can of pepper spray in my jacket pocket, and knocked on the door.

  No one answered. I was about to leave when a crash inside alerted me to someone coming. I turned back around as a woman opened the door. Her black hair was cut to less than an inch, and her brown eyes dominated her small, narrow face. Ruth’s eyes, but that was all Ruth had gotten from this woman. Ruth’s mother was two shades lighter and at least a foot shorter, and while she was pretty, she had none of Ruth’s beauty. The bags under her eyes and the small bruises on her upper arm, in the shape of a man’s hand, screamed abuse of some sort.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, her lip quirking a bit and showing a dark spot on her right canine tooth, near the gum.

  “I’m sorry to bother you this late,” I said. “Are you Wanda? I’m a friend of Ruth’s.”

  “Ruthie?” Her eyes narrowed. “She ain’t in trouble, is she? Because I ain’t responsible. She’s fourteen and does what she wants.”

  “No, nothing like that . . . it’s just”—I took a deep breath before plunging on—“I’d like to talk to you about getting her into school. She’s really bright, and I’ve been working with her this past year. I think she could get in and catch up without too much trouble, but she’s going into high school, and after that, it’s a lot harder. Do you have a moment to talk about it?”

  “Yeah. You come on in.”

  She opened the door wider, and I entered a room that was almost as small as our living room. Stacks of clothes cluttered the stained carpet, and she gathered up several used plates and cups so I could sit on the couch, which looked like real leather and was nice compared to the rest of the room. Or maybe it only seemed so in the dim light.

  “So how could you help her?” Wanda asked, sitting next to me.

  I tried not to stare at a dark, unidentifiable smear on the wall. “I’d like to become a foster parent to Ruth.” No use sugarcoating it. “That way I can get her clothing and medical care.”

  Wanda had gone stiff the moment I mentioned foster care. “Is this about what happened last year? I told the social worker I don’t know what went on. I wasn’t home. But she throws herself at my boyfriends, just like I said. It ain’t really their fault.”

  “What?” The idea of shy Ruth throwing herself at a man was absurd. Was that why the caseworker had sent her back?

  “I told her she could come or go as she wants,” Wanda added. “I’m fine with that, but I heard they make you pay for foster care.”

  “I don’t think so, not if you can’t afford it.”

  “Yeah, they’ll make me pay, or take her away.”

  “Well, would it be so bad if they were responsible for her? She only has a few years left in school.”

  Wanda’s hand went to her chest. “Give up my baby? What kind of mother do you think I am? I don’t want to give her up. I need my baby. And she don’t have to worry. I have a new boyfriend now, not that white trash I was with before.” Her eyes fell from mine to scan the messy room. “I’m sure he’ll be fine with her here, especially if she helps clean up.”

  The sinking feeling in my chest grew. Clearly, Wanda wasn’t willing to sign Ruth over to the state, allow foster care, or admit there was a problem. “What if Ruth doesn’t want to come home? Would you consider a temporary guardianship situation—just for school?”

  She snorted. “She’s a child. She’s got to do what I say, and I want her home. I’ve been meaning to track her down, soon as I had the time. When she gets back here, she can go to school.”

  Her daughter had been gone for over six months and only now she wanted to find her? Wanda was a study in contradiction: one minute she was saying Ruth did her own thing, and in the very next breath, Ruth was a child who should obey her mother.

  “Is he home? Your boyfriend, I mean.” I didn’t really want to meet him, but foster parent training had drilled into me the importance of reuniting families when possible. Maybe this new man was good for Wanda and Ruth. Maybe Wanda was sincere in wanting her daughter.

  She shoved off the couch, leaning heavily on her arm to do so. “Sure. I’ll go get him. Then you can tell Ruth to come on home.”

  She returned with a short, wiry black man, with a bald head and a trim beard. “She’s here about Ruth,” she said by way of introduction.

  He laughed and reached out a hand, which I let him take. “I can’t wait to meet Ruth.” He winked at me, and for an instant, I could see the charm that might have attracted Wanda. “From the pictures I see she’s a beauty, just like her momma. I’m fine with her coming back, if that’s what you’re here to ask—you’re one of them social workers, right?” He stood with his hands inside his pockets, jingling some keys or change. “Course she’ll have to help out ’round here. We get food stamps for her, but everyone has to pull their weight.”

  “Food stamps,” I repeated. At least that tidbit of information shed more light on Wanda’s unwillingness to let Ruth go to a foster home.

  “Baby, she don’t need to hear about that,” Wanda cooed, wrapping an arm around his waist and staring at him pointedly.

  He leaned over to kiss her lips. “I just meant that I got me some ideas on how Ruth can help out. She’s a fine-looking girl, and I got a friend that has a bar—not that she’d serve alcohol, of course—but there’s always dis
hes to wash.” He didn’t meet my eyes as he spoke; in fact, they wandered everywhere but to my face.

  He’s lying, I thought. But about what part? “A bar, huh? Sounds interesting. What’s your name, by the way?”

  A fleeting discomfort marred his face. “Tyron Fisher.”

  I took out my phone and wrote it down. “Okay, we’ll be in touch.”

  “Wait!” Wanda’s fingers dug into my shoulder as I headed for the door. “I’m still getting the food stamps for her, right? You ain’t taking them away?”

  Tears for Ruth stung my eyes. “I’m just here to see if I can get Ruth enrolled in school. I don’t have anything to do with food stamps.”

  “Oh. All right. Then tell her we’re waiting for her. She’ll have to sleep on the couch, though. We got borders staying in her old room.”

  “Couple of my friends,” Tyrone added.

  Great. The guy with the bar, no doubt.

  I hurried back to my car, reaching it before the tears fell. Not one question about how Ruth was doing, or if she was happy. I wasn’t sending her back here. No, I had all summer to figure out what to do before Ruth was supposed to start high school, but I wasn’t giving her back to this woman and her creepy boyfriend.

  I drove down the street with my lights off for a good block, in case they snuck out of the house to write down my license plates. If they actually went searching for Ruth, they wouldn’t be able to connect her to me.

  Back at the apartment, I checked my face in the car mirror, to make sure there was no trace of tears. I wasn’t falling apart—or at least not where the girls could see. There had to be a way. Bea had gone to battle for me with Zoey and Bianca’s uncle. Could she do the same for Ruth? I clung to the hope that she would, or that I could find a larger place and have more official foster children to help pay for Ruth’s needs.

  A knock on my window startled me, and my head jerked toward it, expecting the girls, or even my second-floor neighbor, which had me wishing I’d locked the door. Instead, it was Jameson. Warmth rushed through me at the sight of him, followed by an equal amount of coldness, all of which I was sure was reflected in my face.