The Lies Between Us

Laura’s mother was a drug addict. It started with alcohol, when she and her twin brother were very young, and progressed quickly. Even as a child Laura can remember thinking there was something different, something very wrong, with her mother. She wasn’t happy, though Laura couldn’t say why. She had a loving husband, two children (finally, after years of fertility treatments, Laura learned much later), a decent house. She probably didn’t feel quite fulfilled in her career, having dropped out of medical school after less than a year and taking the first job she could find as a receptionist at a doctor’s office, but that was really on her. She could have worked harder, she could have been stronger, she could have turned to exercise or a hobby instead of vodka. She got addicted to pills because of how accessible they were, in her place of work, and she went downhill fast. Laura’s father couldn’t save his wife, though he tried again and again. He finally left when Laura and her brother were fourteen, and Laura’s mother crashed her car into a median on the highway a year later, only a week after their fifteenth birthday. Laura can’t even remember feeling all that sad. She knows that makes her sound awful, but she can only remember feeling exposed and embarrassed now that everyone knew what her mother was when she was alive, and the nature of her death.

Luke, Laura’s brother, was inconsolable after the overdose and violent death of their mom. They were close in the way that siblings who share a fucked up childhood are; more a sense of obligation and a silent agreement never to discuss the details. They also had a little of the twin telepathy, though Laura never could understand her brother’s bond with their mom. She was constantly angry at her, ashamed to be seen with her in public, while he was constantly standing up for her and making excuses.

As a daddy's girl, Laura was always able to relate to him more and she wanted to help share the burden. She suspected that he felt he had let his wife down somehow, though of course he would never have been able to save her from herself.

Laura was heartbroken when he left without even saying goodbye or letting Laura and her brother know where he went, but she still found herself justifying his actions.  It was as if he needed a clean break from his old life, and his children reminded him too much of her. Laura had tried to enlist her brother’s help to find their father, but he wasn’t interested. 

A decade later, Laura has moved on and she is proud of her accomplishments since then. She made it through college on her own, cobbling together odd jobs and scholarships to pay her tuition, and earned a full ride to a local law school. She passed the bar and was hired on at the firm where she was a summer associate for the past two years, and she has her own office with a view of downtown as well as a secretary - sure, she has to share Debbie with three other attorneys, but still. Onwards and upwards.

She is multitasking at the moment, eating a salad while typing an email, when her phone rings and she hears Debbie pick it up. Her intercom buzzes and Debbie tells Laura that Luke is on the phone. She frowns, trying to remember the last time her twin brother called her, then stiffens. 

“Debbie, what’s the date today?” Laura asks, trying to sound as casual as possible. There is a pause.

“It’s May 13th,” Debbie says finally, and Laura’s heart sinks. 

“Put him through,” Laura says, taking a deep breath before picking up the phone.

“Hello, Luke.” 

“Laura, hi. I’m just calling to - well, you know. It’s the anniversary.”

“Right.” Laura sighs, and Luke can picture her sitting at her fancy mahogany desk in her corner office, pinching the bridge of her nose in annoyance. He knows she doesn’t like to be reminded of their mother’s death, of their mother at all, but it’s only because she doesn’t know the whole story.

Luke and Laura are only twelve minutes apart, but their childhoods were drastically different. Laura lived with the painful memories of a mother addicted to prescription drugs and a father so broken by her choices that he had to put as much distance between him and his family as possible. Well, his first family, Luke thinks bitterly. And that is the first thing Laura doesn’t know: their father didn’t leave because their mother’s addiction was too painful for him to deal with. He left because he had a second family in Arizona. If anything it was the other way around; their mother’s addiction was caused by the knowledge that her husband had a perky young girlfriend and two little blond girls in the city he traveled to every few months for work. 

“So, how have you been?” Luke tries to strike a causal tone, but he knows his twin sister can see right through that even though she can’t see him at all. They have always been able to read each other’s thoughts, except for the ones that really mattered. 

“Cut the crap, Luke. This isn’t a social call.”

Luke clears his throat. “Okay fine. Do you want to come with me to the cemetery?”

“Absolutely not.”

Every year he calls to ask her this, and every year she declines. When he woke up this morning with a feeling of dread and despair, he almost skipped it. Then he remembered not only what day it was, but what year.

“It’s been ten years, Laura. I think it’s time.”

“Hard pass.”

Luke sighs, pinching the bridge of his own nose. “Fine, I’ll go alone. But I need you to meet me somewhere first. I’ll text you the address. It’s important.” 

Something in his voice must have made Laura hesitate before telling him to fuck off, as she normally would, to laugh in his face and hang up and go about her busy day.

“What’s this about?” she asked quietly, almost as if she worried her secretary would be hovering in the doorway, straining to overhear.

“It’s about - well, it’s about mom. She - she left something for us. Both of us. Please, just trust me for once.”

He had tried, back then, to tell her the truth about their parents. But she either wouldn’t listen or refused to believe what he was saying. She had her own version of events solidified in her memory now, and he knew she would need proof to change her stubborn mind.

A few hours later, Luke is sitting in the lobby of McCarran and Schultz, a law firm specializing in wills and trusts, nervously checking his watch every few minutes. One minute before their appointment with the attorney, a Mr. Simon McCarran, Laura finally strolls in. She is dressed in an expensive-looking navy suit and nude heels, a matching nude purse hanging from the crook of her elbow. She appears to be every bit the high-powered attorney and Luke knows how important it is to her that she be perceived that way. But when he looks closely he sees that there are dark circles under her eyes, and her nails are bitten down and jagged. He tries to smile at her, but she just crosses her arms tightly over her chest and raises her eyebrows at him.

The woman at the reception desk calls to them that Mr. McCarran is ready, and ushers them into a small, stuffy conference room. She brings them both cups of water and leaves them alone with Simon McCarran, who is a tall, lanky gentleman with a head full of stark white hair. They shake hands and make introductions, then settle into comfortable leather chairs, Luke and Laura on one side of the table facing the attorney. 

“Well, thank you for coming in. As you may know, your mother left a substantial trust for you both, to be paid out when you turned twenty-five. There was also a note with it, and I understand Luke has seen a precursor to this note already.”

He is being delicate, referring to this simply as a note. It is a suicide note, as Luke knows, but Laura does not. He sees the confusion and interest on her face now, and wonders if it’s because of the note or the trust. Probably both. He turns to her.

“I tried telling you so many times, Laura. Mom was an addict, it’s true, but that’s not what killed her. She didn’t overdose when she got in that wreck. She did it on purpose; she killed herself.” 

Laura’s face now registers disbelief. Luke nods at Mr. McCarran, who hands Laura the original note Luke had found in his dresser drawer just after his mother’s death. It explains how she can’t deal with her husband’s betrayal, and her addiction, and how she is so sorry she couldn’t be a better mother. She gives instructions to Luke to take care of his sister, to keep in touch with her, and to try to remember the good times they had. She had tried her best, the note says, and she hopes he and his sister can forgive her. At the end, she references a trust she has set up for both of her children, which they will have access to when they turn twenty-five. That’s it though; no information about how much is in it, so Luke doesn’t know what to expect. Mr. McCarran has also said that this note is a precursor, which means there is another note in his possession now. Luke is waiting impatiently for Laura to finish the suicide letter, her face going through so many emotions at once it’s hard for him to keep up. 

Finally she places the note gently on the table in front of her, sits back, and balls her hands into fists as she squeezes her eyes shut. Luke knows she is willing herself not to cry, not in front of this man she just met and the brother who is practically a stranger to her as well. Luke feels embarrassed, as if he has caught a glimpse of her naked, and turns away quickly. Mr. McCarran also looks deeply uncomfortable, maybe not realizing that Laura had no idea how her mother died. 

Once Laura has regained control of herself, she folds her hands in her lap and glares at the attorney. “Well?” she says, in her best lawyer voice. He gives her a blank look and she rolls her eyes. “The trust?”

“Oh yes, of course.” Mr. McCarran clears his throat and taps a file in front of him, back in his comfort zone. “The money in this trust is to be split evenly in two, but before I hand over those accounts I need to read you something.” He pulls out a pair of reading glasses and a piece of paper, and Luke sits up straighter. 

“To my beautiful children, from your loving (and flawed) mother,

I am not sure if I have said this out loud to you, but I know that I have not been a good mother. I’ve let you down time and time again, and I started to write out an explanation for it, but realized it was just a list of excuses. I’m done with that now, and it’s time for me to face the truth: I am worth more to you dead than alive. I do mean that literally. I have come into some money recently, an inheritance from a very generous great-uncle who had no other living relatives he was still speaking to. I know that if I had the money in my possession, I would spend it on pills or other addictions you don’t even know about (and I hope you never will). So I split the money evenly in two and put it in trusts that you will have access to when you turn twenty-five. 

It’s odd to think about you being that age while you’re reading this, since you’re still teenagers as I’m writing it. I hope that you have been able to cope with the pain of your childhood, and that your mother’s death hasn’t kept you from living your life. 

Luke: I hope you have been able to keep my secret, to protect your sister. You have always been good at that; better than me. I hope you haven’t given up on her, and that you have remained close. I’m sorry I leaned on you so much when you were only a child, and asked so much of you. That wasn’t fair or right, and I hate myself for it. But please know that I am so very proud of you, my son, and I only wish I would be able to see all the wonderful things you do with your life. Don’t waste a single second of it.

Laura: my darling girl, I am more sorry than you could possibly know. I wanted you to know the truth, but selfishly I wanted you to think I overdosed so you would be angry with me. I thought it would make dealing with my death easier for you. I know Luke knows the truth about your father, but I didn’t want you to find out, at least not at such a tender age. Please don’t be angry with him when you find out; he is likely long gone and hasn’t made contact, so it won’t feel as much like you’re losing something. Please consider forgiving me, but even if you can’t, please forgive Luke. He was only carrying out my last wishes, and he did it out of love. 

Please don’t think that I am trying to buy your love, or bribe you into having fonder memories of me. I know what I am, I know what I have done, and I know what I am capable of. For those reasons, I cannot stay. Goodbye, my previous children. Despite what you might think, I have always loved you desperately.”

The lawyer looks up, and folds the paper carefully. Slipping off his glasses, he takes two envelopes out of a drawer and slides them across the desk. They look at each other, silently agreeing to open them at the same time. Luke’s eyes bulge as he reads the amount, taking in the number of zeros. Laura lets out a small gasp. 

Outside the office of McCarran and Schultz, Luke asks Laura if she wants to grab a coffee before heading back to work. Laura shakes her head, staring off into the distance. She’s only left work about an hour ago, but it feels like it’s been days. There’s so much new information swirling around in her head, and she knows she still hasn’t really processed it all. Not to mention a big fat check sitting in her pocket. 

“Actually, I think I’d like to go to the cemetery after all,” she says suddenly, surprising them both. Luke drives them both in his car, a small sedan with a dent in the front bumper. He gives a small laugh when he sees it, thinking about how easy it would be to get fixed now that he was flush with cash.

He leads the way to their mother’s grave when they arrive at the cemetery; it’s a small stone with her name and the dates of her birth and death, nothing more. Laura remembers the funeral, details popping into her head with startling clarity after so many years. The warm air, the almost overpowering smell of flowers, the glaring sun making everyone squint and shield their eyes. She remembers wanting a cigarette; she had smoked her first one about a month earlier when a friend stole a pack from her older brother during a sleepover and they smoked one after another on the back deck under the moonlight. She remembers the reaction she had after feeling the craving for nicotine - a jolt of panic, realizing that she may be on her way to her own addiction. She hadn’t smoked a single cigarette since then, and had avoided drugs and most alcohol too. She had been so careful, so determined not to end up like her mother. And now she knows that whatever her mother was, in the end she was in control, and not the addiction. 

Somehow tears are flowing down Laura’s cheeks before she knows it, and then she is sobbing. She doesn’t speak, but for some reason she thinks her mother hears her anyway. She feels Luke’s arm tentatively squeezing her shoulder, and she turns to embrace him properly. They stand with their arms around each other, holding on for dear life, for who knows how long. When they finally break apart, sniffling and wiping their eyes, Luke asks what she will do next. Laura doesn’t answer.

“I’m going to donate it all,” Luke says. “To an organization that helps addicts.” He hadn’t even known this was his plan until it came out of his mouth. 

Laura puts her hand in her pocket and touches the envelope. “Me too,” she lies.