Diane Chamberlain - The Lies We Told

It was still light out, light enough to let me see the neighborhood deteriorate block by block. I glanced at my sister, whose tanned and superhumanly toned arm was stretched across the back of Adam’s seat. Her mouth moved with words I barely heard. She was talking about the last time she was with DIDA in South America. Someone had boarded the bus she was riding and stolen money from all the passengers, threatening them with a machete. Nice, Bec, I thought. Nice, reassuring conversation for Brent the night before he leaves. But Brent was laughing, as was Adam. I was the only one who felt like I was on that bus. The only one who could see the guy coming toward me, the sharp blade of his machete catching daylight as it sliced through the air. I reached for my purse, opened it, poured my money onto the floor of the bus. Take it. It’s yours.

When Brent suggested this restaurant the other night, I thought for sure Adam would realize its location and offer an alternative. He knew this was hard for me. Either he just wasn’t thinking, or he was truly angry with me and didn’t care how I felt. But really, I was a grown woman. If I hadn’t wanted to come, I should have said so. It wasn’t up to them to take care of me. I’d kept my lips sealed, though. Adam was psyched and I was not going to give him one more reason, no matter how trifling, to be disappointed in me. He’d been cool toward me since our appointment with Elaine. I’d apologized over and over for keeping the abortion a secret from him and didn’t know what more I could do. One thing

I’d learned over the years was that I couldn’t change the past, no matter how much I might want to.

“The only time I was in Brazil,” Rebecca was saying, “my friends ordered this dish for me in a restaurant and it turned out to be boiled alligator.”

Oh, great, I wanted to say. And why do we want to go to a Brazilian restaurant?

We drove past a liquor store, where a string of women—clearly prostitutes—posed and preened on the sidewalk.

“There it is.” Brent pointed to a tiny glass-fronted building squashed between a pawnshop and a video store.

“That’s it? ” Rebecca sounded both astonished and delighted.

There was no sign above the door. The word Restaurant was hand painted on a piece of cardboard taped inside the window.

“Yeah,” Brent said. “They’re so new, they don’t have their sign yet.”

“Cool,” said Adam.

“Do you see any parking?” I asked, craning my neck. I wanted a spot right in front of the restaurant so we wouldn’t have to walk any farther in this neighborhood than was necessary.

“Nothing.” Brent looked left and right.

“Is that one?” Rebecca asked. “Up there on the right? Oh. Mini Cooper.”

We drove one block. Then another. “Maybe it’s not a good night for this,” I said.

“There’s one!” Brent shouted, and he started to whip the Prius nose first toward the curb, stepping on the brake just in time to avoid creaming the motorcycle that had been hidden from our view in the parking place. “Damn!” he said. “Dude’s taking up two spots.”

“It’s puny,” my sister said. “Let’s move it!” Before I knew what was happening, she and Adam were out of the car, laughing as they half lifted, half rolled the bike out of our way. I watched the lightness in their movements, the energy, unable to remember the last time I’d seen Adam laugh, and I was glad I’d agreed to come despite my reservations. I wanted to see that smile on my husband’s face, even if I wasn’t the person to put it there.

Brent managed to squeeze the car into the parking place once the motorcycle was out of the way. We were in front of a wig store. The window was full of mannequin heads, most of them dark skinned, wearing wigs in every shade of the rainbow.

Adam offered me a hand as I got out of the car. “Oh, Maya,” he said, sudden sympathy in his voice. “We should have dropped you off out front. Are you up to the walk?”

He meant physically, and physically I was fine. “I’m okay,” I said, already starting to walk, setting a brisk, brisk pace.

“Look out,” Brent said as we bustled past the wig shop, “this woman’s hungry!”

The restaurant was long and narrow and packed, but we found a table in the rear. As we walked toward it, I saw one of the E. R. docs from Duke sitting against the far wall, and she waved. I waved back. Seeing her there gave me courage, as if it had not been a stupid idea to come to this part of Durham for dinner after all. I began to notice the other patrons. Some dressed up; most dressed down. White, black, brown. Probably some native Brazilians, happy to enjoy a meal that reminded them of home.

Rebecca and I took the far side of the table and sat down, facing the front of the room. By the time Brent and Adam sat down across from us, I was starting to relax. I liked this place, I decided. I liked the lively atmosphere. The laughter. The spicy smells.

The menus were handwritten in Portuguese and filled with bad photographs of the entrées. Sitting across from each other, Adam and Rebecca leaned over their menus, trying to pronounce the names of the dishes. The table was so small that their heads nearly touched. Their hair was the exact same shade of brown, I noticed, and very nearly the same length, Adam’s too long and my sister’s too short.

“I want this one.” Rebecca pointed to one of the pictures. “It’s the most bizarre-looking thing on the menu.” From where I sat, the entrée looked like a pile of pink flesh covered with some sort of leafy green vegetable.

“I’m going to pass on that,” Adam said with a laugh, and I was glad he hadn’t fallen completely under Rebecca’s spell. When he told me he was joining DIDA, I knew he’d finally succumbed to her persuasion. I’d always been glad that she and Adam got along so well, but I wished she’d left him alone about DIDA. I loved my sister, but she could be a steamroller.

We ordered beers while we continued to study the menu, and Adam held up his bottle in a toast to Brent.

“Drink up!” he said. “This’ll probably be your last cold brew for a while.”

Brent groaned, but he was grinning. “It’s going to be so bloody hot down there,” he said.

“Next trip is yours, bro-in-law.” Rebecca tapped her bottle to Adam’s.

“Is that a threat or a promise?” Adam asked.

“Both,” she said.

An African-American woman was walking toward the rear of the restaurant, a little girl in her arms. I suspected she was heading for the restroom, but she was looking straight at me, a broad smile on her face.

“Do you know her?” Rebecca whispered.

She wasn’t the least bit familiar.

“Dr. Ward!” she said, and for a moment, I thought she meant Rebecca, but her eyes were definitely on mine.

“Hi.” I smiled, struggling to place her. Then I noticed the little girl in her arms. “Taniesa!” I said, jumping to my feet. I reached for her, and Taniesa came easily into my arms, as though she’d never connected the pain from her surgery the year before with me. She clutched a small stuffed panda bear in her hand. “You’re getting huge, baby girl.” I planted a kiss on her cheek.

“I seed you and Mama said no, that isn’t you, but it is too,” Taniesa said.

“And you were right. How are you, honey? How’s that arm of yours?”

“Good,” she said, and she lowered her head to my shoulder as if she wanted to go home with me. I could picture the X-ray of Taniesa’s left arm, shattered in a tricycle accident, as clearly as if I’d seen it only minutes before. I’d never had a photographic memory when it came to reading, but show me a juicy X-ray or CAT scan or MRI image, and I’d never forget it.