Read Online As I Die Lying by Scott Nicholson - Free Book Online Page B

again, to sag back
into the dark hollow in my head. Even then, I didn’t want any
responsibility for my actions. I was a disciple of the Blame Game
and I had learned at the feet of masters.
    "And the police will
know...self-defense or something... people will understand if
it's me . It's the
only way."
    She made me call the police. A long night of
questions followed, and I didn't have to pretend that I was hazy on
the sequence of events. Mother sat at the kitchen table talking to
the officers as red and blue lights pulsed through the window from
the driveway. Her hands, the ones she had rubbed in her husband's
blood, were shaking, but her voice was firm. Much later, the police
led her out into the cold night through the crowd of neighbors and
she sat in the back seat of one of the police cars. I watched from
the porch as she was driven away, and she waved at me with one
bloody hand.
    "Was that you, Mister Milktoast?" I asked
later, in the silence of my dark bedroom.
    "That wasn't us. That couldn't have been
us."
    "Who, then?"
    "Richard. I think...we've got company."
    Of course, what else could he say? After all,
we’d learned the Blame Game together.
    Never had I been so proud of Mother as when
she stood calmly before the court and spun a hundred tales of abuse
that were too vivid to be mere imagination. Never had I loved her
so as she bravely detailed her imaginary crime. Never had I hated
her so as she took the blame that was rightfully mine.
    After the testimony of a handful of
neighbors, not a jury in the country would have convicted her.
Following a finding of not guilty by just cause, she walked down
the high-roofed halls of the courthouse as a headline, beset by an
army of photographers and news crews and tight-jawed reporters. As
she walked down the granite steps, holding her red wool coat closed
against the early spring wind, she dropped to page two. Driving
away, her story was shunted to the back burner. In a week, she was
last week's news.
    Except at home.
    "Do you want to talk about it?" she
asked.
    "No."
    "What's done is done."
    "It'll never be done."
    "I still love you."
    "I don't need love." I could lie like that.
"What's it ever brought me?"
    "We still have each other."
    "That's even worse."
    "I don't care what people say. I just care
about us."
    "Do you miss him?" I was afraid to ask,
afraid not to ask.
    "I just get lonely sometimes. And tired."
    "Don't cry. He's not worth it."
    "I'm not crying for him."
    Crying for us. Always for us. "Shh. It's
okay."
    "It's not okay."
    "Let's not talk anymore. It's time for
bed."

 
     
    THIS CHAPTER HAS NO NUMBER
     
    "You think?" I asked Mister Milktoast.
    We were waiting in the hall to see Mrs. Bell,
the high school guidance counselor. I had been sent to her because
I made it into the ninth grade without ever fitting in. Plus people
thought my mother had killed my father. If I didn’t have Mister
Milktoast, I probably would have doubted my sanity. But if two
people share the same delusion, it’s not really a delusion, is
it?
    "Sounds a little crazy to me,” he answered.
“And you know what I think about you and crazy."
    "Yeah. But it sort of makes sense."
    "Come on, Richard. Multiple personality
disorder? Who are you trying to kid? Nobody falls for that
anymore."
    "How else can I explain your existence?
You're not the result of schizophrenia. 'Split from reality.' That
doesn't quite fit the bill. And I don't think you'll let me write
you off as the invisible childhood friend any longer."
    "No,” Mister Milktoast said. “And there's the
new one to think about. The one who killed Father."
    "See? That takes care of the 'multiple'
part."
    "But how can you call it a 'disorder'? From
where I'm sitting, it looks like I'm the one who keeps things in
here from falling apart."
    "I've got to hand it to you there."
    "And don't you ever forget it. United we
stand, divided we autumn."
    "We'll stick together until the end. You've
kind of grown on me, you know?"
    Laughter