Postmortem. Patricia Cornwell

All this when I know human relationships are not founded on reason any more than my roses are fertilized with debate. I know seeking asylum behind the wall of intellect and rationality is a selfish retreating into self-protectiveness at the expense of another’s well-being.

What I did was so intelligent it was as stupid as hell.

I remembered my own childhood, how much I hated the games my mother used to play when she would sit on the edge of my bed and answer questions about my father. He had a “bug” at first, something that “gets in the blood” and causes relapses every so often. Or he was fighting off “something some colored person” or “Cuban” carried into his grocery store. Or “he works too hard and gets himself run down, Kay.”

Lies.

My father had chronic lymphatic leukemia. It was diagnosed before I entered the first grade. It wasn’t until I was twelve and he deteriorated from stage-zero lymphocytosis to stage-three anemia that I was told he was dying.

We lie to children even though we didn’t believe the lies we were told when we were their age. I don’t know why we do that. I didn’t know why I’d been doing it with Lucy, who was as quick as any adult.

By eight-thirty she and I were sitting at the kitchen table. She was fiddling with a milk shake and I was drinking a much-needed tumbler of Scotch. Her change in demeanor was unsettling and I was fast losing my nerve. All the fight in her had vanished; all of the petulance and resentment over my absences had retreated. I couldn’t seem to warm her or cheer her up, not even when I said Bill would be dropping by just in time to say good-night to her. There was scarcely a glimmer of interest. She didn’t move or respond, and she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“You look sick,” she finally muttered.

“How would you know? You haven’t looked at me once since I’ve been home.”

“So. You still look sick.”

“Well, I’m not sick,” I told her. “I’m just very tired.”

“When Mom gets tired she doesn’t look sick,” she said, halfway accusing me. “She only looks sick when she fights with Ralph. I hate Ralph. He’s a dick head. When he comes over, I make him do ‘Jumble’ in the paper just because I know he can’t. He’s a stupid-ass dick head.”

I didn’t admonish her for her dirty mouth. I didn’t say a word. “So,” she persisted, “you have a fight with a Ralph?”

“I don’t know any Ralphs.”

“Oh.”

A frown. “Mr. Boltz is mad at you, I bet.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I bet he is too. He’s mad because I’m here-”

“Lucy! That’s ridiculous. Bill likes you very much.”

“Ha! He’s mad ’cause he can’t do it when I’m here!”

“Lucy . . .” I warned.

“That’s it. Ha! He’s mad ’cause he’s gotta keep his pants on.”

“Lucy,” I spoke severely. “Stop it this minute!”

She finally gave me her eyes and I was startled by their anger. “See. I knew it!”

She laughed in a mean way. “And you wish I wasn’t here so I couldn’t get in the way. Then he wouldn’t have to go home at night. Well, I don’t care. So there. Mom sleeps with her boyfriends all the time and I don’t care!”

“I’m not your Mom!”

Her lower lip quivered as if I’d slapped her. “I never said you were! I wouldn’t want you to be anyway! I hate you!”

Both of us sat very still.

I was momentarily stunned. I couldn’t remember anyone’s ever saying he hated me, even if it was true.

“Lucy,” I faltered. My stomach was knotted like a fist. I felt sick. “I didn’t mean it like that. What I meant was I’m not like your mother. Okay? We’re very different. Always have been very different. But this doesn’t mean I don’t care very much for you.”

She didn’t respond.

“I know you don’t really hate me.”

She remained stonily silent.

I dully got up to refresh my drink. Of course she didn’t really hate me. Children say that all the time and don’t mean it. I tried to remember. I never told my mother I hated her. I think I secretly did, at least when I was a child, because of the lies, and because when I lost my father I lost her, too. She was as consumed by his dying as he was consumed by his disease. There was nothing warm-blooded left for Dorothy and me.

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