One Last Lie (30 page)

He recognized her at once: plain face, straw-like hair, and big teeth. Other than her deep wrinkles and sagging jowls, she’d looked the same thirty years ago. Not knowing what else to do, he clenched his fists and looked out the window. He didn’t hate her. He barely knew her. His initial reaction was to have Katy throw her out, but he kept his mouth closed. What did he have to lose at this point?

“This is June Juarez,” Katy said. “Do you remember her?”

June took a few steps closer to the bed. “I was June Stokes back then.”

He wanted to look at her, but couldn’t make himself do it. He stared out the window, where the sky was now blue and a hawk circled in the distance.

“I know who you are,” he whispered.

“Would you like me to leave?” Her voice was weak, shaky, as if she were about to start weeping. “I know this must be difficult for you.”

He didn’t answer, just shrugged his shoulders and watched the birds disappear behind a giant maple. A snapshot of the night Angela and June came to their house shot into his head and his body twitched. It was the night of conception, a memory he’d driven from his thoughts for over thirty years and was now forced to face head on.

A sudden noise came from the doorway and he turned to see Katy lifting the open-armed visitor’s chair and placing it beside the bed. June nodded her appreciation and sat down, her movements slow, her frail, inflexible body hard to bend. She laid her pocketbook on her lap and used both hands to sweep brittle strands of hair to each side of her face.

“Jonathan, I’ll be right outside if you need me.” Katy tapped June’s shoulder and smiled at them both before walking out the door and closing it halfway.

Still unable to look June in the eyes, Jonathan watched her trembling hands.

“Angela’s dead,” June announced.

Jonathan couldn’t move. His entire body went cold, numb. These were the words he’d longed to hear for three decades, yet now he felt nothing.

“Supposedly a brain tumor, but I don’t know the details. Angela and I hadn’t spoken for over twenty five years.”

Jonathan slowly moved his gaze up her body until he reached her eyes — hazy and gray, the same as his own.

“Why are you here?” Jonathan clasped his hands so tightly his knuckles were white. “After all these years, why are you here?”

June grabbed her pocketbook with both hands and squeezed it. Tears filled her eyes. She took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair. “I’m not sure you know this, but I was Little Philip’s godmother.”

Hearing the name made his legs jerk with such force he feared he was losing control of his muscles. The last time he’d heard the name Little Philip was in G’s office while signing the child support documents.

“Do you want to know what she named him?” G had carefully watched his expression as she slid the documents across the table.

Jonathan shrugged. Unable to understand the legal jargon, he scanned the pages for a place to sign. He trusted G. She’d fought as hard as she could to minimize his payments to Angela, but as she told him over and over again, without his participation in the proceedings her hands were tied. He didn’t care. His only wish was never to see or hear from Angela or the child again and he’d sell his soul in order to make that happen.

“Little Philip,” G said softly. “I thought you should know, because I remember that was the name you and Philip decided on.”

Jonathan threw the pen onto the table. “G, please stop.”

She looked down at the table and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Jonathan. I’m so sorry. I know I shouldn’t bring it up, but I can’t help it. For God’s sake, it’s your son. I just can’t believe you, of all people, could act as if he doesn’t exist. I don’t doubt for one second that Philip would want you to be a part of your child’s life.”

Jonathan jumped up and walked to the window, trying to calm the intense trembling deep inside his stomach. He didn’t want to let his anger loose on G, he needed at least one friend to help get him through this. But if she didn’t stop talking nonsense, he’d have to let her go like all the others.

“G, please, stop.” He leaned his back against the wall and looked deep into her eyes. “First, don’t ever assume to tell me what Philip would have wanted. Only Philip knows what he would have wanted. And second, I’m in the midst of building my wall.” He smiled at her bewildered expression. “I don’t expect you to understand. Maybe because you’re a mother and have mother instincts, or maybe it’s because we’re just totally different people. But I need to build a mental barrier between myself and the child. It’s the only way I can get through this.”

G tilted her head and looked up at him, her expression pleading for him to reconsider.

“When I think of everything that’s happened — Angela, , the insemination, Philip’s death, the baby, it feels like a nightmare; like a bunch of unspeakable events that took place with me on the outside looking in. Everyday I’m learning how to package those events and distance myself from them so I don’t have to feel the pain and fear that’s goes along with every memory.” He shook his head and looked out the window again. “I know it sounds crazy, G, but if I want to live any kind of life, this is the only way I can manage.”

“Okay, okay,” G said. “I’ll give in on that. If that’s the way you want to live, or think you have to live, then so be it. But Jonathan, to give this selfish bitch five thousand dollars a month for eighteen years? That’s over a million dollars. You know that, right? One million eighty thousand dollars to be exact. It’s excessive, for
any
child support arrangement.” She stood, walked around the table, and leaned against the back of a chair so her face was only inches from Jonathan’s. “I know you’re getting your insurance claim and I know you make a good living, but I’ll say it again: It kills me to think that she’ll be living off Philip’s memory and your hard earned money. The only good thing is your son will be provided for. Other than that, I think the whole arrangement sucks.” She kissed his cheek. “And that’s my professional, legal opinion.”

He kissed her back and gave her a tense hug, the only kind of affection he’d been able to display since Philip’s death. Touching others had become more of a task than pleasure. He felt more alone every day, pulling away from friends and family in a way that felt dangerous, but unavoidable. In time he’d return to his old self, or somewhat close to it. At least that’s what he told himself day after day, year after year, until surrendering to the irrefutable truth that the life he was meant to live had been stolen.

*

And now, here he was, a shadow of the man he used to be, wondering what this woman sitting beside his bed was up to. Why, after all these years, had she decided to stir up memories he’d buried so well?

“Are you okay, Jonathan? Can I get you something?” June grabbed the bed railing and tried to lift herself.

“No. I’m fine. Now please, June, just tell me why you’re here.”

Once again June squeezed her pocketbook as though holding on for dear life. “I’m sorry. I’ve thought this through a hundred times, but now that I’m finally here I can’t seem to get it out.” She took a breath and pushed it out through her teeth. “It was two days before Little Philip’s fourth birthday. The phone rang at one o’clock in the morning and woke me from a deep sleep. When I saw Angela’s number on the Caller ID I panicked, figuring something was wrong at the apartment. But there wasn’t.” Her voice weakened. She opened the pocketbook and rummaged through the contents desperately searching for something. When her hands finally surfaced, they held a bundle of tissues.

“She called to tell me I was no longer Little Philip’s godmother. No warning. No reason. Nothing. Just that I was no longer going to be a part of her life — or his.” Jonathan watched in awe as she wiped the tears with the wadded up tissues. She acted as though she’d heard this news only days before rather than decades ago. “I asked her why. I begged for an answer. But in her obnoxious, selfish way she just said, ‘This is just the way it is, June. You’ll have to deal with it.’ And then she gave me the worst news of all. They were moving to another state and she wouldn’t tell me where.”

“That sounds like her,” he muttered. “Rotten to the core.”

June pulled at the tissues and nodded her head wearily. Jonathan scrunched his eyes to see her better and realized she was lost in thought. Or maybe she had Alzheimers and didn’t know where she was. He cleared his throat to get her attention, but didn’t get a response. He cleared it again, this time much louder, shaking her from her fog and bringing her back from wherever she’d gone.

“I did everything for that boy. Bathed him, sat for him, took care of him when he was sick. I was the one who potty trained him for God’s sake. He was such a sweet child. And then bam! She takes him away from me like it meant nothing.” She wiped her eyes with the shredded ends of tissue. “For the first few days I left ten to twenty messages a day. I’d go by her building, but the doorman wouldn’t let me in. I even stood outside the building one day in the freezing cold, waiting for them to come out. When they finally did, I ran up to her. She stood in front of Little Philip’s stroller so I couldn’t see him. Then she said she didn’t care if my husband
was
on the police force, if I didn’t stop harassing them she’d call the cops and press charges. In the end it didn’t matter. Less than a week later when I tried calling her again, the phone had been disconnected. She’d taken Little Philip and moved away.”

Unable to look her in the face, Jonathan stared at her hands.

“Was she still big?” His voice was barely audible.

“As a house,” June said, covering her smile with her hand. “At least she was the last time I saw her. But that was almost thirty five years ago.”

A ray of sun slid past the blind slats and through the crystal Katy had stuck on the window a few days before, painting June’s face with spots of color.

“I’ll ask it again, June. Why are you here?” He struck the mattress with the side of his fist. “I’m tired.” He looked into her eyes. “I’m just so tired.”

She placed her hand on his with such lightness he could barely feel it. Even so, his body jerked. “About three weeks ago, I received a call from Little Philip.” She smiled and tightened her grip on his hand. “I should say Philip, not Little Philip. He
is
thirty five years old, though it’s still hard for me to believe. He told me Angela had died. When he met with her lawyer to review the will, he saw something odd at the bottom: there was a heading that read, ‘For Answers’ and beneath it was my name and someone called Dee Previn, along with our telephone numbers. The phone number next to my name was old, from before I married Jesse and we moved to the Village. But Philip did some research and found me. I couldn’t believe he recalled so well the things we did together. He was only four at the time, but he remembered. We talked for over an hour.” She smiled and turned toward the window. “I cried for half of the conversation. Just hearing his voice and the fact that I was part of his memories filled my heart with joy.”

Jonathan let her fingers slide into his closed fist as he fought back tears and tried to swallow the painful lump in his throat. Something was coming. He could feel it in the air and in her touch. He felt it in the sun that brightened the room with its midday glow and warmed the side of his pallid face. He’d ask no more questions. He’d just let her speak.

“Philip said the phone number Angela left for Dee Previn now belonged to someone else. He tried every way to discover who or where she was, but had only reached dead ends. I told him my husband Jesse was an ex-police officer and had detective friends who could probably find something. So Philip and I set up a date to meet and I promised him by that day I’d have more information about Dee Previn.”

June held onto the bed rails and struggled to pull herself up. Once she was standing, she hobbled to the end of the bed, placed her pocketbook gently on the mattress beside Jonathan’s feet, and looked directly at him.

“The week before Philip and I were to meet, my husband’s contact found information about Dee Previn. She died about ten years ago in a car accident on Route 91 while on her way from New York City to Boston for a family reunion. At that time she was the Senior Lab Director at Spectrum Diagnostics in Manhattan, one of the top DNA testing labs in the country. She’d worked there for almost thirty years.” June leaned forward, keeping her eyes on Jonathan’s. “Jesse’s contact dug further and discovered that for ten years Dee had received a check for one thousand dollars from Angela every month. The payments started right around the time Little Philip was born and continued until he turned eleven.” She glanced toward the door, then back to Jonathan. “It didn’t all come together until I met with Philip last week and saw his face and his eyes. When I saw his beautiful smile and his kind-hearted expression, it all clicked.”

June stopped talking for a moment and walked to the door. Jonathan placed his hand over his heart, its pounding so strong he thought it would beat out of his chest.

“I should have known when she took Little Philip and ran away to another state she was up to something. She didn’t want me to see him grow up because if I did, I’d know the truth — that she paid this Dee Previn woman to manipulate the results of your paternity test. It became obvious when I thought about the night of the insemination, how she kept me out of the bathroom while filling the syringe. She didn’t need your sperm. She already had what she needed, frozen from fifteen years before when she worked at the sperm bank in Boston.”

Jonathan watched June step into the hallway and gesture for someone to come closer. When the man entered the room, Jonathan moaned as if someone was squeezing his chest and wouldn’t let go.

What he saw seemed impossible. The man standing before him was Philip, looking exactly as he did thirty five years ago. This had to be a vision; some sort of delusion brought upon by extreme anxiety. But when he saw June and Katy standing behind the man, both wiping tears from their cheeks, he knew this vision was real.