The Kindest Lie(79)

Mama glanced at Ruth. “You’ve been mighty busy since you’ve been home, staying out till all times of the night. Hope you’re not still meddling about that boy.”

Ruth considered stalling or lying outright. She still wanted to find out if or how that lawyer factored into everything, and she needed more time. But she couldn’t hold back any longer. “It’s not meddling when it’s my son. I’ve found him. I know that Corey Cunningham is mine.” A heavy weight lifted from her when she said that. She took a deep breath and waited, watching their faces closely.

Mama and Eli stared back at her, motionless. Mama spoke first, in a quiet voice. Too quiet. “What was that you just said?”

“I said—”

“I heard what you said. I want to know what in God’s name got into you.” Mama stood and hovered over Ruth, who got to her feet, too. Then her grandmother bent over and her hand came down like a brick and smacked the coffee table. Mama’s body shook. “I told you to leave it alone. You never listen. As much as your grandfather and I have done for you. All we sacrificed and you just throw it away like trash. Is that what you think of us? Of yourself?”

The wall clock chimed, the pendulum swinging back and forth. The knot in Ruth’s belly tightened.

Mama turned to face Eli, who was still stretched out on the sofa. With accusation in her voice, she said, “Was it you? Did you tell her about Corey?”

Ruth covered her mouth with both hands, hearing Mama finally admit the truth. Eli stared at the ceiling, shaking his head. “I didn’t say a word, but she was gon’ keep pushing until she found out that boy’s name.”

“I don’t care how much pushing she did. We had an agreement,” Mama said. “And besides, you know how Ganton is. Word will get around that we’re making trouble for the Cunninghams, and you know Harold Cunningham is a big deal downtown at the bank. And you’ve been in jail twice now. What good is that going to do you when you’re trying to get somebody around here to hire you? Huh?”

Ruth turned to her brother. “I know what you did to protect Corey. You went to jail for it. Thank you.” Eli acknowledged her gratitude with his eyes but said nothing.

She had known this moment would come, an inevitable reckoning when she would need to stand up to her grandmother. Even if it meant lighting a match to her rage, or worse, becoming the source of her greatest disappointment.

“I’ve lied to everyone all these years, even my own husband. What’s worse is I’ve lied to myself. No more. I’m not a child. I let you manipulate everything because you said you were doing it for my own good. Now I get to decide. Me and no one else.”

Her words landed hard, crashing onto the living room floor.

“That boy has a mama and a daddy. He has no idea he’s adopted. Have you thought about that? If you care anything about him, you won’t turn his life upside down.” Mama fixed her granddaughter with a stare, long and steady.

Something Ruth couldn’t name sat heavy on her chest. The truth was she hadn’t thought that far ahead, beyond knowing her son’s identity and making sure he was all right. Now that she had his name and had seen him, what would she do about it?

“All I know is I’m tired of the secrets in this house. I’m tired of keeping quiet about everything. There’s a lot of messed-up stuff in our family and we just pretend it’s not there,” Ruth said.

“Child, if you don’t quit talking in circles . . . You got something to say, spit it out.” Mama sat on the couch again, folding her arms over her chest.

Ruth glanced at her brother and then said, “I want to talk about Butch Boyd.” Eli seemed fidgety all of a sudden, like he was ready to spring from the couch and walk out of the room.

“Butch said something about Papa cutting corners at the plant. He made it sound like he’d broken the law. You two told me not to believe it, but you never looked me in the eye and said there was no way Papa could do something like that.”

A part of Ruth felt sorry for Mama, watching her recoil as if she’d been slapped in the face.

“People always talk shit on the line, especially Boyd,” Eli said. “Papa never did nothing wrong.”

Mama held up one hand to quiet Eli, and it seemed like she was trying to swallow around something hard in her throat. Looking straight ahead, she took a couple of long breaths and then spoke as if she were narrating a movie in her mind. “The first time they asked Hezekiah, he said no. Came home and told me the line supervisor wanted him to pass a lot of parts through real fast. They needed him to keep things running.”

Ruth couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Mama, I’m sure they had quality control engineers come by and check to make sure everything met standards. If cars went out with bad parts in them, that’s dangerous.”

“It’s those engineers who sign off on stuff when they know it ain’t right,” Eli jumped in. “That was way above Papa’s pay grade. So, it wasn’t his fault.”

Mama worried the seam of the sofa’s slipcover. The woman always so sure-footed, certain of everything, bold in every proclamation she made, searched for words.

“Your grandfather was no saint,” Mama began, finally looking at Ruth and Eli. “He did cut corners like they say.”

Leaning forward on the couch with her elbows on her knees, Mama put her face in her hands. “We almost lost this house when they went up on the rent. When he first got sick, he could still work, but he was on a lot of prescription drugs. You remember. We used every penny he made for medicine. Those supervisors out there knew about it and they took advantage.”