Hair of Secrets

Coral had never minded bending the truth to suit herself, but she hated liars. She knew it was a little hypocritical to live by that, but a white lie never hurt anyone. Her parents didn’t need to know she’d spent the night at Tommy’s house, they thought she was at Tina’s. Her history teacher didn’t need to know she was vaping in the bathrooms, he thought she was helping a younger kid to the sick bay. Her younger brother Aidan didn’t need to know she was the one who accidentally broke his Lego set, he thought the dog had knocked it off the table. She didn’t see the harm in tweaking the truth, it saved her a whole lot of grief, and them as well.

One evening at dinner, the family of four were sitting in their designated seats reciting how their days had each been. “How was your day pigeon?” Dad asked Mum.

“It was good, I’m going to have to go to Shane’s in the morning though, to pick up some stylist papers for a client that can’t make up their mind,” Mum sighed at the end. Coral kept eating her boiled potato and didn’t interject with a sarcastic comment like she usually did. Her parents had met at the zoo in the aviary, she was taking a photo of some flamingos and Dad was walking by in uniform to tend to the ostriches. For him it was apparently love at first sight, so he offered to give her a private tour and the rest is history. Dad had rarely called Mum by her real name Nicole, it was often an exotic bird, but lately, the birds had degraded to pigeon, seagull, and duck. And this bothered Coral, an uncomfortable tingle snaked down her spine.

“Are you guys having a fight or something?” Coral decided to butt in. With food mid-way to their mouths, they both paused to look at in her in disbelief.

“What?” Mum replied, scrunching her eyebrows together in confusion. Coral rolled her eyes and continued her spiel.

“Just that Dad’s been calling you a pigeon instead of a blue jay or lorikeet,” she finished, folding her arms accusingly, “That’s basically the rat of the sky.”

“Coral!” Dad snapped.

“What? It’s true though,” Coral retorted. Mum kept eye contact with her glass of water as she took a sip and Dad exhaled loudly as he tried to find some words.

“A pigeon is a perfectly fine bird,” he finally said.

“Right,” Coral replied blankly, not believing him.

“Your Dad and I are fine Coral,” Mum said, though there was something about her inflection towards the word ‘fine’ that didn’t satisfy Coral, but she didn’t push it any further, looking across the table, Aidan was now picking awkwardly at his food.

The weekend went by too quickly as it always did. Coral did her homework, went to play tennis Saturday afternoon, watched a few episodes of whatever show she was bingeing and enjoyed sleeping in. Being a good liar herself she’d always felt like she had some sixth sense when someone else was bending the truth and she knew that was the case with her parents. But she didn’t know what it was, she didn’t think they were having a fight, but something was definitely afoot. Ever since she knew how to boil the kettle, she’d made her parents coffee and tea in bed on Sunday mornings, they’d typically be reading or scrolling through the daily news articles and always be snuggled together in some form. A gentle touch of shoulders, toes lightly pushing together or Dad’s arm around Mum but none of that today.

Mondays typically consisted of doing the school run, going to class, Aidan had soccer training so Mum would pick him up and Coral would walk home after school as both parents would still be at work. To balance the moral scale in her head Coral would do the homely chores in the afternoons. Take out the bins for Tuesday, empty the dishwasher, peg out the washing and collect the mail. When you collect the mail it’s a habit to glance through all of it and see what letters everyone’s got. Today there was an electricity bill, Mum’s subscription to a lifestyle magazine, a postcard for Aidan and a letter from Gordon and Sons Lawyers. Coral held it back and paused, shifting her eyes to the person it was addressed to, her Dad. She blinked a few times, hoping her eyes were playing tricks but they weren’t. It was a letter for her Dad from a lawyer, vacantly she shuffled back inside and sat at the dining table, debating whether she should open it.

Taping her right foot irrepressibly, gripping the envelope so fiercely that it would leave indents from her fingers, her moral compass was spinning. It didn’t know which was north or south or anywhere in between. A full three-sixty, that kept repeating. “I can’t,” she whispered to herself, then tore the envelope open. “I can’t,” she whispered again a little faster, taking the folded paper out. “I really can’t,” she whispered for the last time before unfolding its contents. A few seconds passed and she darted to the lounge room. The bookcase was lined with all the family photo albums on the bottom shelf. Coral took the first one out, her baby photos and began flipping through the pages. Then took another one out, her as a toddler, her eyes abruptly became flooded. “No, no, no, no, no, no,” she kept repeating as she took album after album out and flipped through the photos.

Coral didn’t touch her chicken satay, her stomach was knotting itself, and she couldn’t stop herself from staring at Mum. “You’ve barely touched your dinner, you not feeling well?” She asked a few minutes into dinner.

“I don’t have that big of an appetite, sorry,” Coral replied emptily.

“Hmm, did you eat anything when you got home?” She asked.

“Nope, like I said I don’t have an appetite.”

“Maybe an early night then,” Mum suggested, smiling lightly. Dad finished first and took his plate up to the sink and on his trip back to the table, he noticed the opened letter sitting on the bench near his splatter of objects with no home. Coral noticed him glance up at her, he was holding the letter, and his hands were beginning to shake. Mum and Aidan continued eating their dinner unaware of the explosive information on that piece of paper. The tears began to bloat Coral’s eyes again, she gave him a subtle nod and looked at Mum perturbed. Dad put the piece of paper face down back on the bench and walked over to Coral giving her a hug. “What’s going on?” Mum asked. Neither felt like replying, they just continued embracing each other, swallowing their tears. She finally knew, there was a reason why she was so good at bending the truth. She hadn’t inherited being a good liar from her Dad, and the peculiar mutation of her hair colour she’d always wondered about had an explanation.