Truth Be Told Read online

  “Yeah. And the murder at its center—the one being ‘reconsidered’—is my father’s.”

  Caleb frowned down at the frame still in his hands, at my father’s jovial face staring up at him. “That can’t be. Someone would’ve told me if it was about your family.”

  “My last name isn’t really Borden,” I admitted. “I mean, it is now. I went to the San Francisco County Court and filled out the appropriate paperwork and everything. But I was born a Buhrman. As in Chuck Buhrman.”

  “Fuck, Jo,” he said, flinging the frame onto the bed. He ran his hands through his hair, hurt glistening in his eyes. “You never even told me your real name?”

  “I’m not that person anymore,” I insisted, gesturing to the teenager in the picture. “Caleb, you have to believe me. Please—”

  “Stop it,” he said, standing up and backing away. “I don’t know you at all. You’ve lied to me about everything. Everything.”

  “I love you,” I said, my voice strangled. “That’s not a lie.”

  “Don’t,” he said, his words loaded with disgust. “That’s not fair. You can’t expect me to just shrug and be okay with this.”

  “Please—” I started, but Caleb turned on his heel and stalked out of the bedroom. The door slammed, and everything inside me shattered.

  From Twitter, posted September 24, 2015

  chapter 12

  The morning we buried what was left of my mother, the sky was clear and the air was crisp. It was the kind of early autumn day that made you feel good to be alive, if you were the type of person who believed the weather could reinforce your soul, or if you were doing something other than attending a funeral.

  I made my way across the cemetery lawn, the ground unsteady beneath my feet. Grief tilted my vision, and the sight of the tent erected over the open grave, the chairs neatly lined up beside the earth’s gaping maw, stopped me in my tracks. How could we commit my mother’s ashes to the earth and then walk away? How could we have buried my father and left him here? I bit my lip to keep from crying out, and blood filled my mouth.

  Sophie, Peter’s youngest daughter, patted my arm gently. “Are you okay, Josie? Do you need a minute?”

  A large, warm hand landed on the small of my back, and Caleb said, “I’ve got her.”

  Sagging with relief, I turned gratefully into his embrace, resting my forehead against his sternum.

  “You came,” I said against the smooth fabric of his dark suit.

  Caleb kissed my head tenderly. “Of course I came.”

  The burial was harder than I had anticipated. Watching the remains of my mother and all our lost chances being lowered into the ground was gut-wrenching, but in the end it was Aunt A who nearly undid me. Aunt A, the bravest, most resilient woman I knew, was weeping openly, a spluttering sob occasionally tearing through the quiet, making the rest of us look away. She clutched Ellen with one hand and clawed helplessly at her own chest with the other. I wanted to comfort her, but I did not, part of me fearing that her complete and total grief was contagious.

  If things had been different, my twin sister and I might have supported each other during this difficult time. We might have comforted each other with childhood memories and heartwarming anecdotes about our mother. We alone would understand our shared grief, and we could have found solace in each other. We would have known that, no matter how much worse things got, we would always have each other.

  But as Reverend Glover spoke in uneasy generalities about my pagan mother’s prospects for the afterlife, Lanie and I sat on opposite ends of the small row of chairs. She looked pale and exhausted, her under-eyes hollow and bruised. As she shook, her daughter, who looked so much like a miniature version of my sister that I startled, wrapped her arms around Lanie’s waist, steadying her. Lanie clasped her daughter against her, closed eyes leaking tears, mouth moving in a silent whisper I could not decipher.

  I wondered if Lanie remembered the last thing she had said to our mother, the violence she had inflicted on her. I wondered if that was on her mind as she stared down into the grave, wondered if Lanie worried that she had been the one to drive our mother away.

  • • •

  The night before our mother left us was a warm Saturday in early June. Lanie and I had just finished our sophomore years, and Warren Cave had been sentenced to life in prison a month earlier. We had expected the conclusion of the trial would lift our mother’s spirits, but she only retreated further into herself. The trial had given her a reason to get out of bed each day, to shower and put on clothes; without that motivation, she had stopped bathing regularly and rarely left her bedroom. We saw her only on her occasional trips to the kitchen, where she would pour scant bowls of cereal that she would then ferry back upstairs to consume behind closed doors. If we pressed our ears to her bedroom door, she could alternately be heard pacing and muttering to herself or tapping away on an old laptop. After her nightly bowl of Kix, she would swallow a tranquilizer large enough to put down a horse and sleep for twelve hours. It was barely a life, but we told ourselves it couldn’t last forever. We thought that if we just gave her time she would come back to us.

  Adam and I made plans to meet our friends at the movies to see some psychological thriller everyone was excited about. The theater was starting to darken as Adam and I made our way inside, looking around for our friends. Just as I caught sight of Ellen’s shiny blond hair, a familiar voice echoed from the front of the theater.

  “Gimme the gummy worms, asshole.”

  I exchanged a worried glance with Adam. “That sounds like Lanie.”

  “At the movies? Shouldn’t she be out vandalizing property or getting high?”

  Lanie’s voice reverberated again in the cavernous theater, an octave higher than usual. “I said, I want the motherfucking gummy worms.”

  “Sounds like she might already be high.” I frowned. “Save me a seat. I’m going to go down and check on her.”

  “Josie, don’t. She’s just going to upset you. You aren’t Lanie’s keeper.”

  “Aren’t I?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “It’s a twin thing. Don’t worry; this will only take a minute. It’s not like I’m going to stay down there and get caught up in her gummy worm dispute.”

  Adam registered his disapproval with a shake of his head, but slid into the row with our friends. My palms began to sweat as I hurried toward the front of the theater. Confrontations with Lanie were still a new and uncomfortable experience for me, and I dreaded arguing with her in front of an audience. The stench of liquor and weed reached me while I was still yards away, and my stomach tightened. By the time I reached my sister, slouching in the front row with Ryder and four scruffy guys I didn’t recognize, I felt ill.

  “What the fuck?” Lanie objected when she saw me. “Why are you following me?”

  “Whoa, that chick looks just like you.”

  “Except,” Ryder interjected, cackling like a hyena, “Lanie isn’t a stuck-up bitch.”

  Ignoring Ryder, I addressed my sister. “Are you aware that everyone in this theater can hear you?”

  She smirked and exchanged a high five with the guy on her left.

  “What are you even doing here anyway?” I asked.

  “Watching a movie, sis. It’s a free fucking country.”

  “Now get lost, bitch,” one of the boys growled, giving me the middle finger with both hands. “You’re blocking our view.”

  “Are you going to let him talk to me like that?” I demanded of my sister.

  “You heard him,” Lanie said, stretching a gummy worm between her teeth and fingers. “Get lost.”

  At that point, it was still surprising to me how much of a stranger my sister had become, and for a moment, I could do nothing other than gape at her.

  “Get lost, Josie,” she repeated.

  “Fine.” I sighed. “Just keep your voice down, all right? You’re embarrassing me.”

  Lanie’s high-pitched laughter trailed me all the way back to my seat.
>
  “I understand the vulgar screeching up front can be attributed to my least favorite cousin,” Ellen said as I lowered myself into the seat between her and Adam.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I muttered. I was grateful when the movie started and I could hide in the darkness and forget my own problems by focusing on those on the screen.

  The movie was just as I feared it would be: tense and violent, and I had to watch a portion of it through my fingers. There was a particularly bloody skirmish near the end of the movie in which the villain attempted to kill his wife, but she wrestled the gun away from him and shot him instead, taking off a chunk of his head. The theater let out a collective gasp, and one single, piercing shriek arose.

  Lanie.

  By the time the second shriek pierced the air, I had already leapt to my feet. I vaulted over Adam and raced to the front of the theater.

  Lanie had settled into a low, constant wail, and her supposed friends were staring at her as though she were a deranged stranger. Her arms felt surprisingly frail in my hands as I tugged on them, ordering her to stand up.

  “Come on, Lanie. Let’s get you out of here.”

  Hooking an arm under my sister’s armpit, I was able to get enough leverage to drag her to her feet just as a flashlight shone in the back of the theater. While the beam bobbed down one aisle toward the front, I hurried up another aisle with my whimpering sister.

  Adam was waiting for us just outside the theater. I tried to pass Lanie to him, but she slipped through his arms like a wet noodle and crumpled onto the carpet.

  “What’s the matter with her?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, kneeling down to remove popcorn from her hair and examine her for obvious signs of trauma. “I think she’s just freaking out because . . . you know. Guns. I want to get her home. Can I borrow your car?”

  “Yeah, but Josie, do you think that you can handle her on your own? Should I come with you?”

  “I don’t want to get you involved in this.”

  “It’s a little late for that,” he grunted, lifting Lanie into a standing position.

  “The keys, Adam, please. I’d like to get her out of here without getting arrested.”

  “Getting arrested might be good for her,” he said, pulling the keys from his pocket.

  “Don’t start,” I warned him.

  In the parking lot, I propped my sister against the side of Adam’s car while I unlocked it. With an elastic groan, she slid down the car’s side and collapsed onto the filthy concrete, her hair landing in a damp oil stain.

  “Goddammit, Lanie, get up.”

  The sound she made in response was small and pitiful, and my frustration slipped into fear. Under the too-bright lights of the parking lot, her face was ashen and waxy, her mouth a twisted red slash. Was this what an overdose looked like?

  “Hey,” I said, crouching down beside her. “Do I need to call 911?”

  Her eyelids fluttered and she shook her head.

  “Come on, then. Let’s go home.”

  She twitched. “No.”

  “Yes,” I countered, dragging her to her feet. “We’re going home. Now.”

  She slumped, deadweight in my arms, and I staggered to catch her, hitting one of my knees painfully against the ground in the process. In a sudden burst of anger, I slapped my sister across the face. It was the first time since we’d been out of diapers that I had hit her, and her eyes snapped open like a doll’s.

  “Stop it!” I screamed. “Just stop it! This needs to end. Now.”

  She nodded, her head bobbing like a marionette’s. “You’re right.”

  Taken aback at the sudden change in temperament, I hesitated. “Really?”

  Lanie nodded and let herself into the passenger seat of Adam’s car. She spent the ride home staring straight ahead with wide, unblinking eyes. She kept muttering something to herself under her breath, something that sounded like “hurt the girl,” but every time I asked her what she was saying, she would clam up.

  When I pulled up to the curb in front of Aunt A’s house, Lanie didn’t even wait for me to kill the engine before she bolted from the car. Cursing her, I yanked the keys from the ignition and went after her. She tore through the foyer, almost tripping on the Oriental rug, and bounded up the steps, taking them two at a time, scrambling up the last few on her hands and knees when she lost her footing.

  Aunt A emerged from the kitchen, wiping soapy hands on her apron, looking alarmed. “What’s going on?”

  Halfway up the stairs, I paused, but before I could say anything a muffled scream sounded from my mother’s bedroom. The blood drained from Aunt A’s face and she barreled up the stairs, reaching the door at the same time as me.

  I flipped on the light, and we both gasped.

  Lanie knelt on the bed, her dirty jeans smudging traces of parking lot grit on the pale yellow comforter as she straddled our mother, holding a pillow down over her face. I watched in horror as our mother, who had already taken her post-dinner tranquilizer, flailed her pale arms uselessly while Lanie, face twisted into a grotesque snarl and muttering unintelligibly, smothered her.

  “Lanie!” I screamed. “Stop!”

  Aunt A wasted no energy on words. Running to her sister’s aid, she grabbed Lanie by the shoulders and flung her across the room with what had to be adrenaline-driven superhuman strength. Lanie hit the floor like a rag doll, arms and legs splayed, but she barely blinked before scrambling to her feet and rushing back to the bed.

  Instinctively, I hurled myself into her path. “Stop!”

  She skidded to a halt in front of me, her face just inches from mine. I shrank from her in fear. In the darkness of the movie theater and the parking lot, she had looked relatively normal. A little unwell, perhaps, but not markedly different from usual. But under the 75-watt lighting of our mother’s bedroom, I saw just how unhinged she really looked: bloodshot eyes bulging, teeth bared, debris-filled hair wild, pupils totally blown. I was half afraid she would take a bite out of my cheek, but I grabbed her arms anyway, her skin hot and damp beneath my touch.

  “Stop,” I begged. “What are you doing?”

  She said something under her breath, but her voice was rough, as if her throat was scratched, and her cadence sounded off. I couldn’t tell what she said, but it sounded like the same phrase she had been repeating in the car.

  “What did you say?”

  “First the pearls,” she said—or I thought she said. Her voice still sounded distorted, and the phrase made no sense.

  “What? What does that even mean?”

  Lanie began to laugh, a high-pitched, manic giggle that was so deeply unsettling I released her. She hesitated only a second before launching herself back onto the bed, slamming the pillow over our mother’s face once more.

  “This is your fault!” she screamed down at the pillow, veins popping and saliva flying.

  “Stop!” Aunt A shouted, grabbing at Lanie to pull her off. This time, Lanie was ready for the attack and lashed out, her jagged nails catching Aunt A in the face, sending a bloody rivulet streaming down her cheek. Aunt A gasped and staggered back, touching her wound.

  “What are you doing?” I shouted, shoving Lanie as hard as I could. I didn’t succeed in throwing her off our mother, but I did knock her off balance, and Aunt A seized the opportunity to grab Lanie’s leg and drag her off the bed and onto the floor.

  I rushed to remove the pillow from my mother’s face and help her sit up. Mom was wearing just her nightgown, and I was shocked to see how thin her shoulders and chest had become, how translucent her skin looked.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  She looked at me without speaking and then turned her gaze to the floor, where Aunt A was using both arms and both legs to pin Lanie down. My stomach dropped as I looked from the ghost-like shell of my mother to my wild, thrashing sister. What had happened to these two women who I loved so much?

  “Lanie, stop it,” Aunt A ordered while my sister gnashed
her teeth and twisted beneath her. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Stop it,” she repeated, her words thin and high. “Somebody’s got to stop it. She said,” she said, jerking her head as if to indicate me. Before I could respond, she jerked her head in the other way, possibly indicating our mother. “And she said.”

  “What?” Aunt A asked, her face wrinkling in confusion. “Who said what?”

  “The pearls,” she muttered, then snapped her head in my direction, her eyes suddenly wide. “This is your fault.”

  “Josie, what’s she talking about?” Aunt A asked. “What’s going on?”

  “Stop it,” Lanie snapped.

  “I don’t know,” I said desperately, on the verge of frustrated tears. “I found her like this. Well, not quite like this, but . . . We were at the movies. Not together, but both of us at the same movie. And she just flipped out.”

  “What pearls?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Aunt A nodded grimly and stared down at Lanie. “Lanie, I need you to tell me the truth. Are you on drugs?”

  Lanie spit in her face.

  “That’s it,” Aunt A growled. “Josie, call the police.”

  I looked at my flailing sister, her face twisted in an almost unrecognizable mask of madness. Aunt A was right. Adam was right. Lanie was out of control, and we should turn her over to the police. But she was my sister. My twin sister. How could I call the police on my twin sister?

  “Josie,” Aunt A barked. “Now.”

  “Call them!” Lanie taunted. “Do it! Call them, for God’s sake! What are you, some sort of fucking chicken?”

  I snapped.

  I fell on my sister, screaming insults and scratching at her face, grabbing fistfuls of her ink-black hair. Aunt A separated us quickly, grabbing my shoulders and roughly pulling me off her. Brushing herself off, Lanie sat up on her knees.

  Aunt A hurried to the bed, readying herself for Lanie’s next move. But Lanie drew a rattling breath and looked from Aunt A to me to Mom. “This is your fault,” she spit, then stood and walked away.