The wave of relief that washes over me feels like a physical thing. My fingers are almost too weak to hold my phone. My chest feels too heavy for my body, and I slump toward the wall, ignoring Jacobson’s look of alarm.
“I know it’s dinnertime,” Mrs. A says. “And I haven’t cooked a thing. But can you come out to the house right now? I didn’t sleep at all last night. I need to see you. We both do.”
“I’m on my way.”
Jacobson already has his keys in his hand. “Where to?” he asks.
“The Andersons.” I pound the button for the elevators.
“Everything okay out there?”
I must take too long to answer, because he taps the communication device on the lapel of his loose-fitting jacket. “Garfield? Do you have eyes on right now?”
“Yes, sir,” comes the immediate reply. “Female subject returned with grocery bags fifteen minutes ago. Male subject helped her to carry them inside. No indication of hostiles nearby.”
“Copy that,” Jacobson says. He looks at me. “Want me to send Garfield inside?”
I shake my head. “No, nothing like that. Just get me out there as fast as you can.”
Jacobson completes the thirty-minute drive in under twenty. He doesn’t even try to accompany me to the front porch.
Mr. A opens the door before I can raise my hand to knock. As I feel each individual beat of my heart at the backs of my eyes he says, “We appreciate your making time for us so quickly.”
He sounds like he’s talking to a bank manager or maybe an insurance agent. I know I have to say something, but my brain seems offline. I cement the awful awkwardness by finally saying, “I’m happy to be here.”
Mrs. A looks up from the dining room table, where she’s setting down a plate of pink sugar wafer cookies. Years ago, I told her Shannon gave them to me instead of a birthday cake one year. Mrs. A thought that meant I preferred strawberry wafers to any sort of cake. In reality, Shannon forgot my birthday, and when she remembered two weeks later, the only sweets in the apartment were stale cookies in the back of the cupboard, the ones nobody liked.
“Sit,” Mrs. A says. “Please.”
I sit. I take a cookie, because I have to be polite.
I’m a business executive who regularly runs meetings with millions of dollars at stake. I talk to Silicon Valley moguls. I shake hands with royalty. And I can’t remember how to start a single, civil conversation with the two people I love like parents.
But this isn’t the first time I’ve been tongue-tied in this house. The day Mr. A picked me up at juvie, he sat me down at this table. We didn’t even have pink cookies then. The three of us just stared at the bright daisy oilcloth, the silence stretching longer and longer until Mr. A finally said, “This is your home now. For as long as you need.”
I take a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry,” I finally say, at the exact moment Mrs. A says the same words. I gesture for her to go on.
She picks up a cookie and taps it against the plate, knocking off the pink dust at the edges. “I was… Evan and I were bothangry, Cole. It felt like you lied to us when the one rule we’ve ever had in this house is always telling the truth.”
That’s the other thing Mr. A said the day I moved in. I could stay here forever, so long as I never lied.
But Mrs. A has never told her husband she hates the smell of the Easter lilies he brings her every year. And Mr. A doesn’t say he’d rather have crunchy peanut butter than smooth. Neither one of them admits they’d be happier skipping the interview segment onJeopardy!every night.
Some lies make life work more smoothly.
But others simply corrupt. My hands work in my lap as I say, “Youfeltlike I lied to you because I did. I’m sorry. And if I had everything to do over again, I promise I would make very different decisions.”
Mr. A gives me an encouraging smile. I’ve said exactly what he wanted to hear. But Mrs. A says, “We weren’t just angry, Cole. We felt…embarrassed. Like we should have figured out the truth. Should have somehow paid more attention.”
“You don’t have anything to be embarrassed about,” I say, with enough vehemence that they both sit back in their chairs. “Youknowwhat my life was like with Shannon. She never made any distinction between truth and lies. She just said whatever worked best in the moment. And she made me an expert at that before I could ride a bike. That’s on me. Not you. I’m a world-class liar, trained by the best. You shouldneverbe embarrassed because of that.”
Mrs. A clears her throat. She turns her face away, pressing her index fingers beneath her eyes, so I know she’s trying to keep from crying.
Mr. A reaches over to pat her arm before he says, “It just feels strange, knowing we were offering you pot roast and meatloaf when you could eat at any three-star Michelin restaurant in the world. I taught you how to change the oil in your Camry, butyou must keep a mechanic on call for your… What do you really drive? A Lamborghini?”
Despite feeling like a shitheel, I smile at the longing in his voice. “A Jaguar,” I say, because I owe them an honest answer. “Most of the time.”
I could get you a Lambo,I want to add, but I know that won’t make things better. Instead, I say, “I’m still the kid who won at three-card monte before he was five. I’m the boy who sat at the back of every class because I was new at my seventh school in seven years. I’m the one who obsessed over spin rates for robot wheels and who spent every spare second coding video games.” I take a deep breath, because I have to say the rest. “And I’m a billionaire who made my fortune hacking, black hat some of the time, white hat others.”
