Page 5 of One Last Lie

She will be the hardest to reach.

I approach Samuel, who has given up chasing the ducks and now walks atop a stone bench near—but not too near—the edge of the lake, arms outstretched for balance. He positions himself on the edge and flaps his arms like wings as he jumps off.

“Are you trying to fly away?” I ask.

He looks up at me curiously and doesn’t say anything. I smile and ask, “May I sit?”

He cocks his head, confused that an adult would ask him permission for anything. I take a seat and look out across the pond. “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”

Strictly speaking, that’s a lie, but it wouldn’t help to say, “It’s a bleak and depressing day, and without snow this place looks like a cemetery,” now, would it?

“Where are you from?” he asks.

I feel a leap of joy at getting him to talk. I turn to him and say, “Boston.”

“You don’t sound like you’re from Boston.”

“Well, I grew up in England. My family didn’t move here until I was sixteen.”

“Why did you move here?”

“My father received a very lucrative job offer from a brokerage firm in Boston.”

"What's a brokerage firm?"

“A brokerage firm is a type of company that specializes in selling portions of other companies to people.”

He frowns. “Why would people buy pieces of a company?”

“Well, it’s a way to invest money.”

“Invest?”

“Yes. It’s a way to use money to make more money.”

“How can money make more money?”

I smile at him. “I’m afraid I have no idea. I never understood exactly what it was my father did.”

Samuel takes that at face value, which is good because I really have exhausted my knowledge on the subject. He looks out over the water and says with the simple brutality of youth. “My Daddy’s dead.”

“Yes,” I reply gently. “I’m so sorry for that.”

“Did you know him?”

“No, dear. I never had the pleasure.”

“Then why are you sorry?”

The similarity between his line of questioning and his mother’s isn’t lost on me. At first glance, it could seem that his question is an innocent one put forth by a small child, but four years of studying psychology and twenty-five years of teaching have taught me that very little of what a child asks is as innocent as it seems.

I answer him in much the same way I answer his mother. “Because it’s terrible to lose someone you love.”

“Have you lost someone you love?”

“I have. My sister, Anne.”

“When did she die?”

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