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Photo: Stephanie Scott |
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YA Buccaneers site |
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Photo: Stephanie Scott |
The Darkest Lie, by Pintip Dunn
Excerpt
It’s time to view the body. Family first.
Well, technically, me first. There was always only three of us in the nuclear unit, and
Dad’s been locked in the den for the past seventy-two hours. I’ve only seen him once, when he
shuffled upstairs like a pajama-clad zombie and asked me if I’d eaten.
That was it: Did you eat?
Not: I prefer the cherry wood casket. Or: Let me make your grandma’s travel
arrangements. Or even: I know this was Mom’s favorite dress, but isn’t the neckline a
little...low?
Did I eat?
Yes, Dad. I had soup from the can and microwaved pizza rolls and a bowl of cereal. The
food sloshes in my stomach now as I walk down the runner to the casket I picked out because of
its mauve tint.
Calla lilies pile in urns around the viewing room, and the air-conditioning wars with the
sweat along my hairline. My mom smiles at me from a portrait erected behind the casket. Her
eyes are hesitant and a little wary, as if she knew, somehow, some way, she would wind up here.
Lifeless. Pumped full of formaldehyde. About to be gawked at by a town full of gossips.
This was only going to end one of two ways—with Tabitha Brooks dead or in jail. I never
thought I’d say this, but I’d give anything to see my mother behind bars.
I wade through the dense, chilly air and stop a few feet from the body. Behind me, my
grandmother and aunt sit, a box of tissues between them, blowing their noses like it’s a sport.
“Look at our Cecilia,” Gram sniffs. “So brave. Not a single tear shed.”
If she only knew. I’m not brave. Fifteen minutes ago, I was retching into the toilet bowl.
Five minutes from now, when the doors open for the visitation, I’ll be long gone, leaving Gram
to shake people’s hands and deal with the bit lips, the knowing eyebrows, that inevitable
speaking-in-a-funeral-parlor whisper. I can hear the titters: “Is it true? Tabitha’s heart stopped
while she was boffing the high school quarterback? Why, she must’ve been twenty years his
senior!”
Twenty-three years, to be exact, and a high school English teacher to boot. But she didn’t
actually die during sex. Instead, a few days after Tommy Farrow came forward with their affair,
my mother took her own life.
What could be a clearer admission of guilt? She might as well have been caught in the
act. The investigation was shut down before it even began.
I take a shuddering breath. Two more minutes. A hundred and twenty seconds and then I
can leave. I steel my shoulders and walk the final steps to my mother’s body.
Oh god. It’s even worse than I thought.
The room whirls around me, and nausea sprints up my throat. My hands shoot out to grab
the casket, stopping short of actually touching the corpse.
This . . . this thing . . . can’t be my mother. She never smiled like that, all serene and
peaceful-like. She never wore this much makeup; her red hair was never chopped so closely to
her head. My mother was chaos and passion, devastation and joy. Dad used to say you could
reach deep into her eyes and pull out a song.
Well, her eyes are closed now, and I’m not sure there’ll be any music in my life, ever
again.
Here is the Storify link to the tweets I'm referring to.
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Photo credit: Stephanie Scott via Instagram |
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Photo credits: Leah Lewis, Jason Scott |
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My Instagram Mantra |
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Photo: Stephanie Scott |
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Photo: Stephanie Scott |