Lies He Told Me

Chapter 4 Episode 4

The kind of love that, even after nights at a convenience store, days at a dollar store, made her findtime to pore over my homework with me and not get frustrated when my brain balked at math. Thekind of love that, when I cried about a dress I saw in a magazine that I could never afford, had herspend secret months and months in the slow times at work sewing that very dress for me—so that forprom, even though I had no friends and no valid reason to be there, I had the most gorgeous dress.

“How old are you now?” my mom’s chanting now, giggling like a girl, clapping her hands.

I join along. “How old are you now?”

But then Damon yells, “Can you keep it the f**k down in there?!” and the spell is broken, and Iremember everything I’ve been trying to forget.

Mom smiles valiantly, though neither of us buys it. “I think his team is losing,” she whispersconspiratorially. She wiggles her eyebrows then gestures to the cake. “Well, what are you waitingfor? Make a wish!”

I stare at the flickering candles. All the noise—pickups screeching past outside, babies wailing,someone yelling at someone else, Damon cursing at the screen—all of it fades away.

Leaving only the question: what do I really want?

The answer comes, immediate and impossible: I want a new life. And because I’ve had enoughbirthdays and unanswered wishes to know that wishes don’t come true, because it doesn’t matteranyway, I wish it. I close my eyes and think those words as hard as I can.

I wish for a new life.

Then I blow out all the candles.

“All of them—that’s good luck!” I open my eyes to see Mom winking at me. “Means your wish is onits way now.”

“I’m sure it is, Mom.”

She takes my hand and squeezes it. “You hungry? I know sometimes you like to eat at work—and hey,aren’t you home early?”

“They let me off early.” It isn’t exactly a lie. I’ll tell Mom later. I just don’t want to see my own fearand disappointment and frustration reflected in her eyes right now.

Anyway, she’s already moving over to the cake, still smiling away. “Just my luck. That cake smell hasbeen tormenting me. Here, let me grab the big cake knife so you can do the honors.”

I cut us both generous slices. What the hell, I got fired, it’s my freaking birthday, life is short—pickyour excuse. Then we dig in.

The cake is as good as I remember. Pure chocolatey gloriousness, with thick enough icing to put me ina chocolate coma if I eat as much of it as I want to.

Mom makes a happy noise as she puts her fork down. “We’re really lucky.” She nods as she looks atme.

“I guess,” I say. I mean, depending on your definition of ‘lucky,’ a harpooned hippo in Africa is lucky,but I’m not going to say that. Mom really tried here, and she’s got enough on her plate without mebeing a sarcastic b***h.

“We’ve come a long way,” she continues.

I try not to peer at Mom’s face too closely, to see if she really means it.

“I mean, think,” she insists, “Safe and happy here, both of us with jobs …”

I bob my head, keep my lips clamped shut. Because, even with those facts (one of them no longertrue), there’s the whole everything else that stabs a big fat hole in the bubble of her ‘we’re lucky’theory.

How we’re a flat tire away from dead broke.

How we’re living with a fat, drunken leech whose only redeeming quality is that he doesn’t beat us.

How this apartment complex is the cheapest in the city, populated by welfare mommas who churn outbabies like it’s a business, incompetent drug dealers and pimps, pedophiles, criminals, and the oddperson who seems nice for like a month but inevitably turns out to be some kind of human-trafficking,alcoholic scumbag.

“Joy?” Mom’s looking at me with concern.

It’s because I’m supposed to tear up, agree with her, hug her. Normally, maybe I’d be able to mustersome of that up for her. Not after the day I’ve had today, though.

My smile cracks as my gaze goes to the cake, to Mom. She really tried.

“And your present,” Mom’s saying, “Tomorrow, we’re going shopping! I’m taking you to Guess, andany dress you want—and yes, Joy, I mean any—it’s yours.”

God, she’s trying so hard. I love her for it.

But Guess isn’t cheap, we can’t afford it, and where would I even wear it anyway?

“Thanks, Mom.” I get up, can feel it bubbling in me. “I’m a bit tired though, so I think I’ll go take anap.”

“You sure?” Mom eyes me suspiciously. “We could maybe watch a mov …” She trails off, glancing atthe TV, having clearly forgotten about Damon.

Yeah, there won’t be any movies, let alone TV, tonight. That’s DD’s domain for the rest of the eveningand beyond.

Mom hugs me again. “All right, I’ll be in my room reading, but if you even think of having more cake,you come and get me. You know I’d pass up Kate Morton for some chocolate any day.”

“Of course. Love you, Mom.” I kiss her on the cheek.

I keep my breathing steady until I get to my room.

There, once the door closes behind me, my vision blurs. I pull off my socks, then find the rest of theway to my bed. I half-fall, half-throw myself on it, my side smarting with the impact. I forgot for ablissful second that my mattress is basically cleverly disguised bricks.

The tears are cold on my cheeks. My tongue finds a missed chocolate crumb in my mouth.

I wince. The screaming baby is even louder in here.

I lean over so that my hand brushes the floor, then underneath, clamps down on the familiar jar. I takethe money out, dump it on my bed, and count it.

This will be all I get. There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Johnny will pay me for the pastweek of work.

As I count the bills and organize the loose change into piles, I can feel something growing in me, likeit has ever since I got this job and started putting away every extra cent I could. The grand total is …$567.35.

I hadn’t even realized that the feeling was my heart rising… until it falls.

It’s not enough. Far from it.

My escape plan—save enough to get us out of this shithole apartment, away from Damon—is kaput.

I’ve already been contributing half of what I make to help Mom afford the bills for her, me, andDamon. Now, my contribution will have to come from my meager savings.

I fall back onto my pillow, staring at the ceiling and my paintings.

Ever since I was little and Mom picked me up a paint-by-the-numbers kit from the dollar store, I fellin love with art. Not just with painting pretty purple princesses and unicorns, but with sticking us inthe scene too. Making the whole dang painting about us.

“Hey, Mom, here’s us in our fairy castle.”

“Hey, Mom, here’s us with a feast that will last us a year.”

“Hey, Mom, here’s the prince that will come sweep us away on his flying horse.”

And even after that prince and castle never showed, I couldn’t stop painting out all the ways I wishedour life could be.

On the ceiling in bright, broad brushstrokes is everything I can never have, will never have. Thebeautiful, white-gabled house painted with watercolors on the chunk of Bristol board the art teacherlet me have last May. It’s the one I can’t stop imagining me and Mom in. The two hands clasped withthe light shining and everything glowing are ours, the two of us finally free.

When I paint, everything else blurs away. Time flows on its own rhythm.

I turn my face away. Best thing for me to do is get used to this life. Shuffle around like all the othergiven-up people I hate who expect no better than the shitty hand they’ve been dealt by the world.

Hoping for anything more just hurts too much.

I only realize I’ve fallen asleep when I wake up.

“What the f**k are you rambling about? Can’t you let a man watch his hockey in peace, for Christ’ssake? Don’t I do enough?”

An indistinct reply filters in. Probably Mom pointing out that he doesn’t work, has been sponging offus for years.

“What the f**k do you care? Do you want me here or not, you stupid b***h?”

My fists ball and my whole body jabs upright. You do not talk to my mom like that.

More yelling, though I hardly hear it as I storm there. Maybe money can’t fix this. But I can.

“Actually, we don’t want you here,” I snap, coming to a stop around the corner.

Damon shuts his stupid mouth, eyeing me.

He might’ve been handsome once upon a time, but that was a thousand beers and ten thousandcigarettes ago. Now, he’s a nightmare. Caved-in eyes, jutting beer belly, yellowed gravestones forteeth.