I Love You More: A Novel (19 page)

“Not this July third,” Mama said. “Next July third. A year from—”

She must’ve realized what she said, because she didn’t finish her sentence. She bit her lip and looked at me with a combination of guilt, the kind of guilt that happens when you get caught doing something you shouldn’t, and fear. It seemed like forever that the two of us stared at each other, it was like we were having a conversation without really having one, and then her eyes got watery and she looked away, and what I really wanted to do was hug her and tell her everything would be okay, but I knew I couldn’t do that because it wouldn’t be okay if the three of them went through with their plan. And so I think I said something about overhearing her on the phone or being clairvoyant—I can’t remember what exactly—but I do remember saying in a practically begging manner, “Please Mama, don’t kill Daddy. I don’t want you to go to jail.”

Just then, on the tail of the word
jail
, Daddy walked in the front door.

And here’s the thing. Right then and there, I felt this overwhelming need to get out of there, because even if Daddy hadn’t heard what I said, he could surely see that Mama had been crying, and I had no idea what might happen next, but I was pretty sure something would. So this is what I did. I quickly turned down the corner of the page so I could find it again later, which as it turned out wasn’t too smart, put the catchall book back on the counter, all but ran up the stairs and into my room, shut and locked the door, found the messiest and therefore most obscure corner of my room, made myself as small as I possibly could, and prayed. Yes, prayed. Me. Picasso Lane. I prayed for God to deliver me from the evil that was about to come, the evil I couldn’t stop. And I prayed for God to save Mama from his wrath, and me from his disappointment.

Stick to the plan
.

Jewels’s words rang in Diana’s ears as she, Oliver, and Picasso drove to the beach house, and as she swam the following day. She had every intention of doing so.

Until she heard Bert’s voice message.

For weeks, Diana relived those final twenty-four hours in her mind. She remembers Oliver rubbing her neck and shoulders because they were sore from her swim. They sat on the sofa. The sliding glass doors were open, the sounds and smells of the ocean trailing inside. He’d lit candles.

“I brought some oil,” he said. “Why don’t you take off your shirt?”

It had been an hour since Picasso went to bed. Diana didn’t necessarily expect that the massage would lead to sex. Oliver would wait for a sign from her; he was respectful. Yes, sex had been part of the plan, but she didn’t intend to follow that part. She knew Oliver would watch her swim regardless.

Oliver pulled Diana’s shirt over her head, carefully folded it, placed it aside. “Lie down,” he said.

She rolled onto her stomach, pressed into him. It was a position they’d adopted many times before, a comfortable
couple
position. It came as natural as meeting his open hand with hers when they walked down a sidewalk, or moving with his step when he guided the small of her back to a restaurant table. She closed her eyes, heard him opening the bottle of oil. His wet palm rested on the nape of her neck for a moment, then squeezed her skin, moved toward one shoulder, squeezed again, and so on. She dozed off.

They were entwined when she woke, his cheek against hers. Their lips found each other’s. The kiss was soft, sweet. He ran his fingers through her hair, searched her eyes. Tears fell from his, and then he sobbed.

She embraced him, rocked him while he cried into her chest, until he calmed.

“I love you,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

“For what?” she asked.

Oliver told her
his
story, and though she didn’t tell him this, it was a story Diana already knew. How he met Jewels and then Bert. The events that unfolded, the actions that led to the current situation. Two other wives. Two other lives. Wives and children he loved but knew he couldn’t keep because it wasn’t fair to anyone. He didn’t make excuses or ask for Diana’s forgiveness. He merely stated he didn’t want to do it anymore. He only wanted her, Diana, and their daughter. He understood if she didn’t want him anymore. Regardless, he planned to come clean with Jewels and Bert. Regardless, he planned to sever those relationships.

A tear fell from his eye, hit Diana’s cheek, then another, and another. He wiped them away with his thumbs, kissed her, and she kissed him back, hard.

A woman knew the difference between making love and having sex. When making love, she entered an alternate state of consciousness. The place she went was wet, slippery, mystical, warm. It was a place Diana had only gone with Oliver, the man she loved. It was a place where the two of them shared the same skin, the
same heart, where their feet and hands intertwined, bodies merged, a place that felt as safe as she imagined her mother’s womb had. Where life and death ceased to exist.

Euphoria came later, after Diana walked on her own again, and although they had physically separated, the taste, smell, and feel of the man she loved still clung to her. And he, the object of her love, became the sole reason, sole purpose, for her existence.

The next morning, as planned, Diana went for her swim. As she paddled her way toward shore, she saw Oliver and Picasso building their sand castle. There was nothing more beautiful, more right, in the world. Oliver smiled as she walked toward them. The smile she loved. He reached for her hand, followed her into the house. They took off their swimsuits as soon as they got inside, kissed and touched their way to the bedroom, and while Picasso studiously worked on her sand castle, they made love again. Afterward, they cuddled; Oliver wiped a tear from his wife’s eye. Took her into his arms. Held her.

“Why are you crying?” Oliver asked.

“I’m happy.”

“Me too,” he said as he wiped a tear from her cheek. “I’m going to take a shower. I won’t be long.”

When she heard the sound of the water, Diana walked out to the living room to gather their suits. There, sitting next to Oliver’s swim trunks, was his phone. She picked it up, saw the pop-up, a voice message.

“Hi, babe.” Bert’s voice startled her with its loudness; she quickly turned down the phone’s volume, listened for the sound of the shower. Still on. “I got your message from this morning, and all I can say is no matter what you say, whatever you feel you need to confess, of course I’ll still love you. Of course I won’t leave you. It
is
you and me and Isabelle against the world. Call me as soon as you get this. I love you.”

This morning? Diana checked the time of the outgoing call.
Oliver had called Bert that morning while Diana was swimming, after Oliver had confessed to her the night before, after he’d so sincerely and fearfully apologized, after he’d sworn to end his relationships with Jewels and Bert, after he’d told her he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and only her, after they’d made love, beautiful, attentive, and tender love, after he’d looked deep into her eyes and with such honesty, such humility, such vulnerability, told her that he loved her more than life itself.

Diana resaved the message so Oliver wouldn’t know she’d heard it and put the phone back exactly where she’d found it. For a moment, she wondered why she didn’t feel numb or devastated, why she felt clearer and more alive than she had in months, as if the lenses of her heart and mind had been polished to sharp, crystalline transparency, and then she simply accepted the inevitability of what was to come, what
had
to come, and she understood that she was the instrument of this inevitability. She returned to the bedroom, got dressed, retrieved the gun from the bureau, loaded it, and shoved it to the bottom of her purse.

Lie
: (noun) an intentionally false statement, or a situation involving deception or founded on a mistaken impression.

Lie
: (verb) to get oneself into or out of a situation by providing an intentionally false statement, presenting a false impression, or being deceptive.

Lie
: (ninth commandment) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Lie
: (Pablo Picasso, my namesake and therefore my destiny) Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.

Lie
: A lie told often enough becomes the truth.

Vladimir Lenin said that last thing. He was a mean and unpopular leader, who in 1917 led a revolution in Russia that started the form of government called Communism. We learned a little about him in fourth grade, but not what he said about lying. That came from Daddy, and whenever Daddy made a point of teaching me something I didn’t already know, it meant there was a good reason I should know it. We were sitting at my desk up in my bedroom; he was helping me with my history lesson. He’d pushed all the stuff on the chair to one side and pulled it up next to me.

“What do you think he meant by that, Pinion (the wing of a bird)?” he asked.

I took my time before I answered like he’d taught me to—
You can always tell a stupid person by how fast they answer a question they don’t know the answer to
—and then I said, “Sometimes it’s easier for people to pretend what they said is true, because then they don’t have to feel bad about themselves?”

“That’s one way to look at it,” Daddy said. “But another might be that when you tell a lie, you have to make sure you stick to it.”

I remember being confused about that, because lying is supposed to be a sin and all, and I wanted to ask Daddy more about it, but I could tell that he was done with the subject, and when Daddy was done talking about something or doing something, he just got irritable if you kept on asking about it or doing it.

When I first started telling lies, I thought a lot about them. That’s not too surprising, I guess. It’s probably similar to when you buy something new, like shoes or a backpack, and you start seeing the exact same ones everywhere, on other kids, in magazine pictures, on mannequins at the mall, whereas before you bought them, you never even knew they existed. Well that’s kind of how it was with me and lies. I saw and heard them everywhere. All kinds of them: intentional, unintentional, big, small, mammoth. It seemed like lies were such a part of our society that they were practically acceptable. Daddy used to say that lawyers lied all the time. Mama, Jewels, and Bert not only lied to everyone else, including the police, they obviously lied to themselves. My teacher lies about everything, not only about minor stuff like what’s going to be on a math test but about his past accomplishments (like I’m betting he didn’t play football for Alabama and wasn’t a DEA agent). Mrs. Jesswein lies about her age; Mama says she’s in her seventies, not sixties. And God lies too. Maybe not with words, but putting Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden with those apples he told them not to eat, and then acting all surprised and mad when they did, seems dishonest.

The point is, there are obviously many, many shades to lying,
and I figure every living person has told at least one, which might mean Daddy wasn’t such a bad person after all.

Sometimes I wish I could ask Daddy why he lied to Mama and me, and why he needed to have three families. I wouldn’t get mad about his answer. I just want to know. But mostly, I guess I just miss talking to Daddy. I miss his stories. He took me to the heavens. I drank wine with Zeus, fought battles with Ares, and played the harp with Aphrodite. When Daddy was alive, I lived in the sky. I bounced from cloud to cloud. Earth was far away. I also miss Daddy’s pragmatism. When I came to him with a predicament, he analyzed, reasoned, and asked me the exact right questions to enable me to solve my own problem. Just like he did with Ryan Anderson’s Valentine’s Day gift.

There are a lot of things I miss about Daddy, but I especially miss our secrets. I miss him always saying “Don’t tell your mama,” like when we got ice cream before dinner, or when he and I went to the bookstore and read mythology books together. I asked him once why he didn’t just buy one of the books, and he said, “I don’t need to. The stories live inside me.” I miss telling him about things that bother me, like when Ryan Anderson didn’t like me back or the All That Girls were bullying me. Now that he’s gone, I keep secrets bottled inside me.