Every Single Lie

by Rachel Vincent

  “But it was too hard.”

  “Yeah. I guess that’s as good an explanation as any.”

  “And it’s more than we’re ever going to get about the rest of this,” I say with a glance down at my funeral clothes.

  “With any luck, it’s almost over. The case is closed. That poor baby is about to get a proper burial. Maybe we can all move on.”

  She’s not just talking about Lullaby Doe. She’s talking about my father. Maybe we can all move on from Dad and from the ripple effect his decisions have had in our lives, even seven months after he died.

  “But don’t . . . ​Don’t you want to know?” Because I want to know. “Who she is, I mean? The mother?”

  My mom sighs. “Beck, there will always be a part of me that wants to know. Because regardless of how she got pregnant and what that had to do with my husband, we’ve failed her. She went through pregnancy and labor all alone, and she lost her child. And that’s not fair. It’s not right. But she obviously doesn’t want to open up to anyone about that. She probably especially doesn’t want to open up to anyone in this family. And I can’t say I blame her. So we’re going to let her move on. We’re going to hope she comes to the funeral to say goodbye, and that she feels comfortable visiting the grave, once the headstone comes in, if that’s something that will help her. Then we’re going to let her put it behind her, just like we’re going to put it behind us. Because that’s really our only option now.”

  “Okay.”

  “Beckett. I’m serious. You have to let this go.”

  “I know. I will.” But she clearly doesn’t believe me, and I can’t really blame her. “I’ll try. I promise.” And I guess that must be good enough, because she nods as she backs toward the door.

  “Keep an eye on Landry.”

  “I always do.”

  After the catastrophe that was Lullaby Doe’s candlelight vigil, Sophia agreed with me that the funeral should include only a graveside service, to minimize the number of opportunities for any more protests. So instead of filing into a church, like we did for my dad, even though he didn’t go to church, for Lullaby Doe’s funeral, Landry and I meet Sophia and the rest of the Key Club behind Dunley’s Funeral Home.

  The hearse is idling beneath the portico when we get there, and a line of cars has already formed behind it. I recognize several of the drivers as Key Club members, their cars full of other classmates dressed up in church clothes.

  Today everyone’s wearing dresses or slacks, including Jake, who usually wears jeans to church. He heads my way as I pull into the line.

  I roll down my window, letting a gust of cold air into the car. “I didn’t think your parents would let you come.”

  He leans in with a somber smile, his arms folded in my open window. “I didn’t ask them. Can I ride with you?”

  “Yeah. Get in.” He looks really good in slacks and a green button-down. Broad shoulders. Strong jawline. I know that’s not what I should be thinking about right now, but it’s true.

  Landry climbs into the back seat without a word, so Jake can sit up front with me. She’s been quiet all morning, and I’m afraid she’s going to freeze to death during the service, because she refused to wear her coat. It’s pink, and she insisted that wasn’t appropriate for a funeral, so she borrowed a long-sleeved black sweater from me to go over her black jeans. The sweater’s big on her, and as she settles into the back seat, she seems to be trying to shrink into it. To let it swallow her.

  I should have insisted she stay at home. But now that she knows about Dad’s connection to the baby—about our whole family’s connection—I can’t keep her out of this. I don’t think I can keep her out of anything anymore.

  Landry was the only one who didn’t know Dad was using. She’d just started sixth grade when he came home from Afghanistan with a shattered leg. He died at the end of her seventh-grade year. She’d just turned thirteen.

  All she really understood was that he’d gotten hurt and he was in a lot of pain, and the medication the doctors prescribed made him too tired to do much of anything except sit on the couch with her and watch cooking shows. I think he spent more time with Landry, back then, than with any of us. And in a way, I think she knew him best by the end.

  Yet somehow, she also knew the least about what was really going on. Because she was just a kid.

  But maybe that’s not true. Maybe none of us knew what was really going on. This funeral seems to be proof of that.

  While we wait, a police car pulls into the parking lot. Doug Chalmers gets out of it and talks to the driver of the hearse. He’s our police escort for the processional, and he’s telling the driver that he’s ready to go. I know, because he did the same thing at my dad’s funeral. Only this time, there’s no family car to follow the hearse.

  Well, I guess that’s not entirely true. My car is the family car, but no one knows that. And anyone who suspects it is right for the wrong reason; they still think I’m Lullaby Doe’s mother.

  Doug gets back into his car and turns on the flashing lights. He pulls slowly out of the parking lot, and the hearse follows him. Sophia’s car is behind the hearse, then Cameron Mitchell’s, with Cabrini in his passenger seat. Half a dozen more cars follow Cameron’s before I can pull forward, but Penn’s truck is not among them. He and Daniela are meeting us at the cemetery.

  I follow the processional out of the parking lot, and there are six or seven cars behind me. By the time we get to the cemetery, there are at least twenty. I don’t know when they joined us.

  The road in front of the cemetery is lined with even more cars, but a police officer waves us through the gate and directs us to pull all the way to Lullaby’s plot, where a tent has been set up with three rows of chairs beneath it. The coffin hasn’t even arrived, but the second and third rows of chairs are full.

  The first row has been roped off. It was Sophia’s idea that the empty chairs be reserved for Lullaby Doe’s family, even though no one came forward to claim her. What I didn’t realize, when I agreed to that, was that we were the family that never came forward to claim her.

  But we aren’t the only ones. That poor baby had a mother too.

  There are at least two hundred people gathered around the square of green material that covers the open grave and the small pile of dirt that came out of it. More cars are still pouring into the cemetery. More people are coming from every direction, stepping carefully around other headstones in long dark coats. The women walk on their toes to keep their heels from sinking into the grass. Most of them carry flowers or little teddy bears.

  I wish I’d thought of that.

  On the perimeter, several reporters have set up cameras and are filming the crowd. Taking photos of the arrangements of flowers, and the tent, and the hearse, and the people.

  Brother Bill stands in front of the tent, speaking quietly with the preacher from First Baptist, where Sophia and Jake go to church. Their pastor agreed to perform the service. He performed my father’s funeral too, but I can’t remember his name.

  I don’t remember much about that service, actually, beyond flashes of memory. The scent of the flowers. The buzz of a bee around my head. That fake green material that is supposed to look like grass but isn’t fooling anyone.

  I remember the flag. And the honor guard from my dad’s reserve battalion. And the six men in uniform who carried his coffin. Afterward, they folded the flag into a formal triangle and gave it to my mother. But I don’t know where she put it.

  As Jake, Landry, and I take a place on the left edge of the crowd, I can feel gazes on us. I can hear the whispers. I’m recognizable from my interview with Audrey Taylor, and anyone who took the Crimson Cryer’s link to my Twitter profile would have seen the pictures I’ve uploaded. Everyone knows who I am, and the locals recognize Jake as well.

  I can’t hear what they’re whispering, but I know. And the longer this goes on, the harder it is to pretend I don’t care what they’re saying. What they’re thinking.

 
White trash. Teen pregnancy. Addict. Crooked cop.

  It doesn’t matter. I know it doesn’t matter.

  Fact-Check Rating: False.

  It matters, no matter how badly I want it not to.

  Amira appears just as the hearse finally opens, and she gives me a small smile as she squeezes in on Jake’s other side.

  Cameron Mitchell and Matt Umbridge pull out the little white coffin Sophia and I picked out. It’s small enough that one person could have carried it. But there are two handles.

  Jake and I should be the ones carrying that casket. We should have volunteered.

  People sniffle as Cameron and Matt carry the small casket from the hearse toward the covered plot. Brother Bill shows them where to set it down, then they step back into the crowd with their girlfriends, who each carry small pink teddy bears.

  Penn catches my eye, approaching from the opposite direction with Daniela. He must have had to park way off. They blend into the crowd on the opposite end of the coffin, just as Brother Bill begins to speak, and the whispers fade into a formal, uncomfortable silence.

  “Thank you all so much for coming. I think it speaks volumes about this community that we’ve come out in such numbers to rally around one of our own. One whom none of us ever got to know. Or even to meet. But though we did not know Lullaby Doe in life, we all know her in death. We are all here to say goodbye, to usher her on from this world, though none of us could be there to welcome her when she came into it.”

  Sniffles echo all around me. Women clutch at teddy bears held close to their hearts. Even the men look red-eyed. And just as my mother said they would, the media is keeping a respectful distance. But the crowd of mourners continues to grow, people quietly crossing the cemetery to join the assembly as Brother Bill talks about the value of life and the responsibility of a community.

  When he’s finished, he steps back, and the pastor from First Baptist begins a formal funeral service.

  I don’t pay attention to much of what he says, but I recognize enough of it to know that it’s basically the same thing he said at my father’s funeral. The words are kind. They are somber but hopeful, and full of platitudes about how long Lullaby Doe’s afterlife will be, though her life here on earth was so very short.

  On my left, Landry sniffles. She wipes her eyes, then swipes her hand beneath her nose. On the other side of the casket, Daniela’s nose is red from the cold, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. No one is unaffected.

  Jake takes my right hand, and the look he gives me feels like a glimpse right into my soul. This wasn’t our baby. Lullaby Doe had nothing to do with us. Yet I feel connected to her in a way I can’t quite describe. I feel like I let her down, in a much more personal way than everyone else here feels.

  Because I found her? Because we’re family? Because everyone here thinks I’m responsible for her death? Whatever the reason, as the pastor finally bends his head to pray over the tiny casket, I find my own eyes damp with tears.

  After the prayer, the preacher introduces Cabrini Ellis, who steps forward to sing an a cappella version of “Brahms’s Lullaby.” Which turns out to be the “Lullaby and Goodnight” song that plays in just about every music box ever made.

  I don’t even know all the words, but it seems especially appropriate for a baby the internet has named Lullaby Doe.

  No, wait. The internet didn’t name her. Landry did. My sister named this baby, in the guise of the Crimson Cryer. How have I not realized that before?

  I turn to look at Landry, just as she bursts into hysterical sobs. I put my arm around her, and she looks up at me, tears streaming down her face. Agony shining in her eyes. And suddenly I realize that this is more than the vicarious grief the rest of us are feeling.

  My entire existence narrows into this one devastating moment of epiphany, and I see what’s been right there in front of me the whole time.

  Lullaby Doe was my brother’s niece. Because Landry is her mother.

  “Oh my god,” I whisper.

  Then my sister turns and runs away from the graveside service, her long dark hair flying out behind her.

  NINETEEN

  I race after Landry, and the freezing air stabs at my lungs like icicles shoved all the way through my body.

  How could I not have seen it? How could I not have known?

  Because she’s thirteen years old. That’s how. She’s just a kid. We were trying to hide all the bad things from her, and she was—­

  “Landry!” I call softly, trying to get her to stop without shouting over Cabrini’s voice as she sings the lullaby that sent my sister into hysterics. Maybe no one else knows why she ran. Maybe they think she’s just sad, like everyone else is. Or that she’s sad because her niece—my baby—is in that box.

  God, please don’t let anyone else have figured it out.

  “Landry,” I call again, and she finally stops. Not because I’ve asked her to, but because she’s out of breath. It’s difficult to cry and run at the same time.

  I stumble to a stop next to her and pull her into a hug, and all I can do is hold her while she sobs into my shoulder. I don’t know where my mom is. I didn’t see her at the grave, so she’s probably with Doug at the cemetery entrance, ready to help direct traffic when the ceremony is over. Even though she’s not a patrolman.

  Landry’s tears soak through my blouse. Her snot smears my shoulder. I stroke one hand down her hair, trying to calm her enough so that I can walk her back to the car.

  Footsteps pound behind me, and I twist us around to see Penn headed our way at a brisk walk. Jake is on his heels.

  “What happened?” Penn asks.

  I can’t believe he hasn’t figured it out, because suddenly it seems to make so much sense. The Cryer account. His baffling paternity test results. The baggy sweaters Landry’s been “borrowing” from me.

  “She’s the mother,” I whisper over her head as Jake jogs to a stop next to me.

  “Is she okay?” he asks, and I can tell with one look at him that he hasn’t figured it out either.

  “She’s fine,” I say, and Penn only stares at me, shock shining in his eyes while he tries to process what I’ve just said.

  He shakes his head slowly—denial? confusion?—and I can only blink at him.

  “I’m going to take her home. Can you give Jake a ride, please?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll ride with Cameron,” Jake says. “Call me later?”

  I nod, and he gives Landry one more sympathetic look, then he heads back to the service, where I can see people filing past the coffin now. Leaving flowers and teddy bears.

  Penn hovers behind Landry, like he’s not sure what to do for her. His hand rises, as if he’ll pat her shoulder, but then he lowers it again and gives me a helpless look. “I have to drop Daniela off,” he says at last. “Then I’ll meet you at home.”

  “Can you call Mom on the way?”

  “No!” Landry pulls away from me, aiming a terrified, teary look at us both. “You can’t tell her.”

  “Lan, we’re way past that. We have to tell her.” I take her by the shoulders while she wipes tears from her cheeks. “She thinks Dad cheated on her with a teenager. We have to tell her the truth.”

  “She’ll be so upset,” Landry sobs.

  “She’s already upset,” Penn says. “But it’s going to be fine,” he adds when I give him a look. “Just go home with Beckett, and we’ll figure this out there.”

  Landry gives him a teary nod. Then I lead her the long way around the cemetery, hoping that no one stops us to ask if she’s okay. Or if I’ll give them an interview. On the way, I pass two different reporters talking to my classmates, asking them why they decided to come to the funeral for a baby they never met. A baby no one’s even identified yet.

  “Because no one was there for her when she was alive,” Abby Winegarden says. “The world failed this poor baby. The least we can do is be here for her now.”

  Landry bursts into fresh tears as we pass, and I hurry
her toward my car.

  She sniffles all the way home, but we don’t talk. I have a million questions, but I don’t know where to start. I’m so mad at her. For so many reasons. But I also feel guilty. She’s just a kid. I don’t know how this happened, but it shouldn’t have gone unnoticed.

  Not by me.

  At home, I park in the driveway, and Landry follows me inside, where she curls up on the couch with her knees tucked to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. “Do you want some hot chocolate?” I ask, but she only shakes her head. So I make a pot of coffee.

  I’m starting to kind of like it, as long as my mug is half-full of milk and there’s enough sugar to settle into a thick syrup at the bottom.

  Penn makes it home first, but Mom’s right behind him. The way she races down the driveway and then bursts into the house makes me think she misses the days when she drove a patrol car, so she could turn on the blue lights and go as fast as she wanted.

  I’ve never seen the look that’s in her eyes as she shoves the front door closed and drops onto the couch next to Landry to pull her into a hug. It’s fear, but it’s also . . . ​guilt. It’s terror, and grief, and sympathy, and then finally, it’s just tears. It’s chest-heaving, hiccuping sobs, which Landry matches.

  Which I’m having a hard time resisting myself.

  But finally, when the tears have been exhausted, my mother lets her go and grabs a tissue to blot black streaks of makeup from her cheeks.

  “Coffee?” I ask as I cradle my own mug.

  “Please,” my mother says over Landry’s head. “Black.”

  So I pour a cup for my mother, which Penn takes to the living room while I reclaim my own mug. He sinks into the big chair to the left of the couch, and I perch on the arm next to him.

  “Landry.” My mother strokes one hand down the back of my sister’s head and over her long, dark hair, but Landry still has her face buried in Mom’s shoulder. “What happened, honey? I need you to sit up and take a deep breath. Then I need you to tell me what happened.”