Lies She Told(76)

She stands and reaches for me. I step back from her, leaving her hands hovering in the air. “You based that on your life, Liza! On suppressed memories.”

I take another step back. “No. I made it up. I make things up. That’s what I do. I make up—”

“That story was real.” Chris’s voice has lost its practiced calm. “The doctors said that the trauma of what your father did and then guilt over your mom’s actions made you disassociate from the experiences.” Her hands fall to her thighs. “You probably remember bits and pieces, but you’ve convinced yourself that they’re dreams or things you’ve seen on the television or . . . your fiction.”

Christine walks forward and grasps my hand. The pressure of her fingers pleads with me to be strong, to remember.

“Your mom and I didn’t know, at first. When you wouldn’t talk about what happened, we thought it was too painful to discuss. Then when you started to demand that everyone call you Liza rather than Bitsy or Beth, we thought it was because your dad had used those nicknames and you didn’t want to be reminded . . .”

She trails off, tears tumbling down her cheeks. I can’t look at her. She can’t be telling me the truth. I don’t remember my father touching me.

But why would she lie?

I slip my hand from her palm and turn toward the water. The morning mist has burnt off. Sunlight dances across the ocean. It’s surreal that the day is bright and beautiful. I’ve stumbled onto the wrong movie set.

Chris sniffs loudly. “It wasn’t until high school, when you didn’t get your period and went to see the gynecologist, that we realized you didn’t remember. The doctor told you that you couldn’t have kids from scarring related to the abuse, and your mom had to explain. You tried to overdose on aspirin. If you hadn’t already had such bad headaches and the bottle had been fuller . . .”

I close my eyes and see the pills in my palm, two dozen perfect little circles, promising to make the pain go away. If I’d been shorter. Smaller. My legs give out. I fall to my knees on the sand and then drop back onto my butt. Hot grains scald my thighs. The pain reminds me that I am here. I am here and I am real even though I have invented my entire history.

Chris sits beside me and drapes an arm over my shoulders. She pulls me to her side, offering her chest to cry on. Shame burns my cheeks. Chris loves me enough that I thought she might kill for me. How could I fail to trust my best friend?

“The suicide attempt made you forget the abuse again. Your mom told you that the hospital stay was for depression.” Chris sniffs. “My mom said that the doctors told your mom to tell you the truth. There’s medication to help you reintegrate your memories. But your mom thought it better for you not to know. She said that the only reason you had been able to finish high school, get into a good college, and have a seminormal life was because you didn’t remember. She was afraid that if everything came back up, you wouldn’t want to keep on going.”

Puzzle pieces fit together. Suddenly, I understand why I fear my childhood home when it gets dark. That would have been when he’d have come for me, in the between hours after school ended and before my mom returned from work.

Chris wipes her face on the shoulder of her pajama shirt. “I was so worried that the doctors would reveal the abuse when you first went for fertility treatments. But I guess the scarring mimics severe endometriosis, and with the gynecologists not knowing your history, they must have assumed. And then I really did hope that one of these treatments would work, that the drugs would dissolve the scar tissue and it wouldn’t matter why it existed in the first place. I mean, medicine makes new things possible all the time.” Tears carve tracks into her cheeks. “I really wanted you to be able to have a baby and never again have to face what had happened.”

Seeing Chris in pain for me over something I don’t even feel is real is too much. I focus on the water in front of me. It undulates like a curtain in the wind, pulling back, billowing forward. A breathing metaphor. The past is always hiding behind the present, threatening to peek out and drag everything down.

Chris hugs me to her side. “I’m so sorry. I should have told you before. Your mom and I were wrong to keep this from you. You are strong and you are going to survive this. In a year’s time, David won’t matter. None of this will matter. You are going to be okay.”

I know Chris wants to believe this, but I can’t agree with her. Instead, I grab fistfuls of sand and open my fingers just enough to allow a stream of grains to slip through. Over and over I do this, watching the seconds pass. I tried to end my life and I don’t remember it. My father sexually abused me for years and I don’t remember it. My mother killed him and I don’t remember it. What kind of person forgets the most formative events of her life?

Not a strong one. Maybe a murderer.

“I think I did something horrible and suppressed it,” I whisper. “I need to get something.”

I grab my purse and head back toward the house, as if in a dream. Chris calls after me, begging me to explain where I am going, what I intend to do. But I can’t answer her. I’m not sure myself. I only know that I must find my Ruger. For the first time since discovering it missing, I have a sense of where it might be.

When I hit the deck, I turn left toward the side yard. Chris steps sound behind me. She’s following, close enough to stop me from doing anything crazy while allowing some space. I approach the line of weigela. Clusters of flowers sprout from the plants like red-dyed dreadlocks. The bushes have sprawled over the years so that the side yard doesn’t have a garden bed as much as an unkempt hedge.