Too Much Truth

Prudence Callison returned the wave Grandma Merritt gave from her chair on the wide, covered porch of the family’s old lakeside home. She stepped faster and took the steps two at a time, her thigh muscles threatening to surrender as she made her last lunge. Half her life ago, the high school soccer goalie and hurdler she once was could scale the six stairs in two bounds without even thinking about it.

No matter. Grandma’s wave and smile meant it was going to be a good morning. After the family meeting Prudence had walked out on, she needed something good and authentic, and there was nothing better than quality time with her grandma. The time when she couldn’t take smiles and waves for granted was getting close, but it wasn’t going to be today. Grandma Merritt was a young ninety-six with a strong mind that was going to stay that way for a long time.  

Prudence grabbed a breath as she landed on the porch, walked over and tenderly cupped her hands around the hand Grandma Merritt offered. Wisps of gray hair that had escaped her grandma’s scarf danced on her forehead. Her thick sweater and long black skirt didn’t hide her tiny frame. Prudence grabbed the arm of the other chair, moved it opposite Grandma Merritt and sat down, her back to the lake. As usual, on crisp fall days like this, the view behind her would be glorious. It certainly had Grandma Merritt’s attention, although with her big sunglasses, sometimes it was hard to tell where she was looking. Prudence listened to the leaves rustling in the trees and across the back lawn. Walking from the driveway out front, she’d glimpsed Seneca Lake, dancing and sparkling in the sun as the wind pushed tiny waves to the shore beyond the grass. It made her skin crawl.

“I always thought you’d grow out of it,” Grandma Merritt said, moving her face side-to-side, as if she were suddenly terrified that she’d lost her way on a long walk. Prudence reached forward and took her hand, trying to calm her. It was better than thinking about all the opinions and remedies the adults in her life had had about her crippling fear of water. Sometimes, her twin brother Jack would join in the fun and chase her with a full bucket while the grown-ups focused on more important matters, like cocktail hour and steaks on the barbecue. Today, Grandma Merritt’s comment felt different. Almost like an apology.

“Grandma?” Prudence was curious if the way she always faced away from the lake had resurrected some of those old memories. She leaned forward, the wicker crackling under her weight. Sweat beaded on her wrists and cooled as she brushed her hair out of her face. It was blowing at the precise angle to constantly sweep her mid-length brown hair in her face. Too short to tie into anything more than what looked like a tiny haystack growing from her head, she decided that was better than moving her seat or constantly swiping her hair out of her face. Besides, no one but Grandma Merritt and Nathan, the family’s long-time House Manager who now cared for Grandma Merritt, would see it. Both had changed plenty of her diapers, so they’d already seen her at much worse than an awkward hair style. She found a tie in the depths of her purse and made a tight, mini-ponytail, twisting the elastic and pulling her hair through a second then third time. A fingertip found the tiny scar above her right ear. A chill raced down her spine, as eerie as a trail of warm water (or all of that blood) running from soft ducky sponges - yellow for soaping and orange for rinsing - sliding across her skin along with her nanny’s smooth hands.

Prudence stiffened in her chair. Playing statue was the only way to survive bath time, as the water from the spigot pooled around the open drain, and that could be enough to take her under if her nanny let go. A cramp burned in her right arch as she pressed her feet to the floor and tried to conceal her fear. She didn’t want to worry Grandma Merritt.  

Nathan came through the door with a small, round tray holding three mugs and placed it on the glass-topped wicker coffee table. A tea bag tag flickered in the breeze as it hung over the side of the red mug. The other mugs, one black and one white, were filled with coffee. She was glad he’d be joining them.

She marveled at how, at sixty-five, Nathan looked closer to fifty. His smooth skin was taut over his face and neck, and spotless around his hands. His short hair was silver when Prudence was in grade school, so it seemed he never aged. Only his trusty cardigan, droopy and gray, and his black, Velcro-fastened orthopedic shoes betrayed his senior status. He manipulated the tea bag around a spoon to drain the last drops then handed the red mug to grandma, taking great care to ensure she had a good hold of it. “Cooled for ninety seconds, just the way you like it,” he said, straightening as if he had a kink in his back to work out.

“Dear Prudence,” he said, offering an open palm to the remaining mugs. “Silly Walks, or ‘Help, Help, I’m Being Repressed.’”

Good ol’ Nathan. He’d raised her on the classics. The Beatles. Monty Python. The Twilight Zone. Scooby-Doo. He’d taken his responsibility seriously.  Her mother had died when she was three and Grandma Merritt had her hands full living her own life as the Callison matriarch, overseeing both her family and her brother Wilson’s.  

Prudence looked away and shrugged. Today wasn’t a good day for having fun with power’s dark side. He must have read her mind, handed her the white Silly Walks mug, picked up the other and turned to leave.   

“Please. Stay for a while,” Prudence said.

“Join us,” Grandma Merritt said, then turned to Prudence. “What were we talking about?”

“Just getting started,” Prudence said, hoping she’d forgotten her comment about growing out of it. Prudence made room for Nathan to cross in front of her to the wicker couch. It creaked louder than her chair as he sat. “Did you tell her?” he asked, looking at Prudence.

Prudence shook her head. Talk of family business would ruin their time together. There was time later to deal with the biggest disappointment and betrayal of her life.

“Prudence was named CEO of the Callison Company,” Nathan said, leaning toward Grandma Merritt and speaking slowly, as if English was her second language. He sounded like an unnecessarily too-proud mother. That was a guess, but she’d heard that same, saccharine lilt from her childhood friends’ mothers enough to be repulsed when it came from someone she loved.  

Grandma removed her sunglasses and bore her eyes into Prudence’s. “Good. They listened to me. They remembered.” She took her time sipping her tea and lowered the mug to her lap, caressing it with both hands. It looked like her bad wrist was bothering her. Anytime Prudence or Jack asked about it, or her occasional limp, she’d say she’d hurt herself falling off of her dinosaur. “First-born,” she continued, her face twisting with those words into a sneer she held for a few seconds as she stared past Prudence toward the lake. Prudence hadn’t seen that look often. As a child, she remembered seeing it on Grandma’s face as her brother Wilson praised Ronald Reagan. “Such … bullshit!”

“Grandma?” Prudence said, certain she’d heard her grandmother correctly but, had she? Nathan shot Prudence a calming look and motioned with his hand as if to say, ‘it’s fine.’

“I was first-born,” Grandma Merritt said, aimlessly pointing a bony finger attached to a skinny hand with skin that was pinkish-white. Nathan leaned in to rescue her mug from her lap before it could fall to the floor. “In nineteen twenty-four. The men didn’t talk about it. Not my brother, not my mother. Damn them and their company charter.” She stared past Prudence, eyes widening as if the least likely possible thing was approaching. Based on her grandma’s expression, it could have easily been a UFO or a warship, with guns and numbers aside the bow, closing fast. She didn’t want to turn around. No need to add to the chaos and fury ransacking her heart and soul. “You see this?” She raised her other wrist and grimaced, as if she were trying to bend something that wouldn’t. “What I got for speaking up.”  

“I don’t understand,” Prudence said. “It should have gone to you. I know how the charter reads. It’s very clear. It reads first-born, not first-born son.”

“You don’t think I know that?”

Prudence stared at her coffee mug on the table, not even daring to steal a glance at Nathan to see how he was handling this. She didn’t have to wait long for Grandma Merritt to continue.

“Good. Guess you’re old enough to know. Now that they’ve made it right by putting you in charge.”

They hadn’t put her in charge. Not the way they should have. Making her CEO was no better than throwing her an insulting bone. She wanted to correct Grandma Merritt, but distracting or upsetting her seemed worse.

“I was twenty-one when my father pushed me down the stairs when I told him what the charter said.” She rubbed her bad wrist. “Never healed right. Ankle, too. He told me to stop reading what I shouldn’t. No Callison daughter was ever getting the company.” She sighed and sagged into her chair. “Remember it all like it was yesterday. The pain in my body, the words in my ears … my broken heart when I saw Wilson and my mother watching it all from the dining room.”  

“I’m so sorry, Grandma,” Prudence said, leaning forward and ready to give her a hug. She stopped and sat back as Grandma Merritt closed herself off and turned in her chair.

“The war was over. They said it was time for the men.” Her fists quivered on her thighs, like she was trying to shake the pain of the memories out of her body through her hands. “That was a lie. It was always time for the men.”

“They never gave you a chance,” Prudence said.

“In nineteen-forty-five?” Grandma was on her game. That first smile and wave, that seemed hours ago, was just the beginning. “Born too soon. Not like you.”

“I’m sorry?”

Grandma wasn’t slowing down. “Do you know why Wilson had that terrible limp?”

Prudence worried Grandma Merritt might pop one of several bulging blood vessels on her forehead and neck. She looked at Nathan. He was spellbound, learning something new after all those years. “I heard it was a hunting accident. He crawled and hobbled back to camp and radioed for help.”

“Ha, ha, ha.” Grandma’s cackle was amusing, heartening and scary. Her wide smile revealed her extensive dental work and gave over nine decades of laugh lines a real workout. “Do you think they’ll arrest me if I confess?”

“To what?” Nathan and Prudence asked, at the same time.

“I shot him. With his own shotgun. Not as close as you to me,” she said, moving a finger back and forth between herself and Prudence. “But not much farther away, mind you. Right out there, where the grass meets the sand.”

“Why? What did he do?”

“He left you in the water. Cared more about his next drink. You were two. You think you were a fast runner in high school? Not as fast as I went from porch to water, bad ankle and all. You were screaming and flailing about. Nothing but splashing and choking and gasping.”

“Holy shit,” Prudence said, her words nothing but breath on the lake’s breeze. She tried to process what she’d heard, but too much truth was fogging her mind. “You saved me.”

“Just like that time you snuck the poultry shears from my kitchen and tried to cut your hair. Blood everywhere.”

Prudence’s finger shot up to the scar above her ear. “I thought if my hair was short, the nanny wouldn’t pour water on my head to wash it,” Prudence said, her finger tracing along the scar and not caring that Grandma and Nathan were watching. Tears welled. She faced the breeze, stared into the treetops and let the wind dry them.

“Prudence. I’m sorry. I thought I knew everything,” Nathan said.

“Don’t worry. We all do, and we’re always wrong.” Almost drowning explained everything. “You never told anyone about me in the water. Or about anything,” Prudence said, more as confirmation than a question.

Grandma Merritt shook her head. “I kept hoping it would pass. As for me, I ended up with a nice family and no business headaches. My first-born, your father, took over from Wilson. Times have changed and, now it’s your turn.”

Prudence shot a look at Nathan, eyes wide and screaming, ‘WTF?’ if eyes could scream. She steepled her fingers to her face. Grandma was acting like Prudence was the first-born. She wasn’t. One night, when Prudence was close to eight, she’d asked her father how many minutes apart she and Jack were born. His uncle Wilson was with him. They told her she was second and that was all that mattered, with an epic mixture of swearing and a tongue-lashing that, even now, had her breaking out in the kind of sweat that now cooled on her forehead and wrists in the lake breeze.

 Since she and Jack were thirteen, he’d repeatedly promised he’d never take the company. Something about hell being better than living as a capitalist slave. He’d last made the promise a month ago, telling her not to worry. When their father turned sixty-five, he’d make sure the company went to her.

Prudence had no reason to doubt him. After high school, she got the appropriate degrees from the right universities and joined the company after law school. In the past five years, under her direction as COO, the company had grown into one of the biggest packaging companies in the north east United States.

“Prudence? Didn’t you hear me? Wilson kept his word and passed it down. It took a shotgun, but they didn’t cheat you. You’re CEO.” Grandma Merritt was rambling. She seemed so proud.

Prudence sighed; the heavy kind that could never be mistaken for anything good.

“What’s the matter, dear Prudence?”

 “Grandma, Jack is the new owner. Not me. The company went to Jack today. He came back yesterday, from who-knows-where, and now it’s his. They made me CEO as a consolation prize. I’m not taking it.”

“Well, that’s not right.” She folded her arms and frowned in protest. Their conversation had been like a like a shot of adrenaline, and she wasn’t slowing down.

“I’m sorry you disagree with me,” Prudence said. “I was holding out hope Jack would do the right thing. Even as the first-born, he should’ve stayed gone or gotten involved after college, like I did.”

Grandma Merritt gripped the armrests and moved to stand. Her body quivered. She lacked the strength to quickly get her out of the chair. Before Prudence could move, Nathan was at her side, helping Grandma Merritt to her feet. After a few tentative, choppy steps, she was at Prudence’s side. She slapped Prudence’s shoulder. “Get up and turn around young lady. You should be getting the company.”  

Prudence did as she was told, gripping Grandma Merritt’s right arm as Nathan steadied her from the left. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and looked at the lake. It wasn’t going to rise and sweep her away. Not if she stayed on the porch. “You’d know better than anyone what’s fair or not. They don’t care.”

“I care,” Grandma Merritt said, elbowing Prudence and looking into her eyes. “You’re telling me Jack got the company? As the first-born?” Her eyes blazed like Prudence had never seen before. Worse than when she and Jack were kids and had let a stray and very muddy puppy they’d found into her house. Something powerful was brewing behind those eyes.

“Grandma?”

Grandma Merritt’s eyes turned to sharp slits, closing in time with her tightening lips. She looked angry enough to spank the world. Her mouth trembled as she faced the little beach beyond the grass. Whatever she was re-living had her terrified.

A breath caught in Prudence’s throat. Nathan’s face was frozen, eyes wide.

“Poor thing. You couldn’t swim,” Grandma Merritt said.

“It’s okay,” Prudence said, squeezing Grandma Merritt’s shoulder, getting nothing but sweater and bone.

“You couldn’t because … times were changing. Wilson was holding you down. No stairs for you.”

Prudence’s face tingled. A high-pitched siren blared in her head.  

“You were a fighter,” Grandma Merritt said.

Was that a compliment? Dizzy and weightless, Prudence grabbed the porch rail to keep from falling over it.

“I failed you, Prudence. Forgive me. I shouldn’t have kept it quiet.”

“Grandma?” It was the only word she could find.

“You were the first-born. I knew it. He knew it. I saw what was happening, and I shot him. Should’ve aimed higher. And they still didn’t do the right thing.”

“What are you saying? How do you know?”

“If you weren’t the first-born, why was my brother trying to drown you?”