Page 19 of An Honest Lie

“I guess I thought, why not? I’ve always wanted to.” Her mother tilted her head to the side, making her little earrings flash attractively. Summer felt disgust as thick as vomit fill her esophagus.

“But it’s against the rules.”

“Not mine.”

The soup sat between them, no longer steaming, as Summer considered what to say next. She wanted to know when she’d had it done, and who had gone with her, and what she’d been thinking at the time. Instead, she settled on a more direct question: “Has Taured seen?”

That drew a reaction. Her mother’s expression seemed to curdle, her eyes growing dull and her lips shriveling up like dried fruit.

“Why are you acting like this?” Summer lowered her voice, though she didn’t need to; the air conditioner was groaning loudly. “When you brought me here, you told me that these people...these people were here to help us. Now you’re acting...ungrateful. Like you don’t want to be here.”

Something passed over her mother’s face—she couldn’t tell what. Then, all of a sudden, the look disappeared from her face and she leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms.

“Ungrateful.” She said the word as if she were tasting it. “Taured should be grateful to me. Can’t you see the new meat I bring him?”

Her mother was purposefully staring over Summer’s shoulder. She turned around in her seat to see Taured, now sitting at a table with Feena and Jon.

“‘New meat’? That’s terrible. What’s wrong with you?” Summer was appalled. She shook her head, a sneer pulling the corners of her mouth. For months, her mother had been changing, looking different with each appearance she made at the compound. She journaled her thoughts about it to Taured and then sent them to him through the computer like a prayer. He never responded, but she knew he was reading. Now, she wished she’d asked him for advice on how to handle a situation like this. She sat up ramrod straight and practiced her leadership abilities. She doubted it would work on her mother, but it was worth a try.

“The work that you do is important. You gather lost souls and bring them to help.”

Her mother laughed. The sight of her with her eyes closed, white teeth exposed, was beautiful. The sound that her laughter made was not. Feeling cynical and raw, Summer flinched away from it. No one looked, thankfully. Everyone was too busy being nosy about the new people.

“I don’t bring them to help, Summer,” she said. “I bring them to hell. He’s brainwashed you—they’re all brainwashed.”

“Mama—”

“Yeah, I am your mother, Summer, I am. And I made a grave mistake bringing you here. I need you to listen to me, and listen carefully, okay?” Lorraine reached for her daughter, but Summer’s hands were under the table in her lap. She would have yanked her hands away, anyway, if her mama had dared touch her.

“No,” Summer said very softly. “No, I don’t want to. You’re embarrassing me. You’re acting crazy. And if you say things like this again, I’m going to tell Taured.”

The look on Lorraine’s face made Summer’s stomach ache. She’d only ever seen her mother make that face once before: on the day her dad died. She stood up from the table suddenly, not caring if she drew the attention of everyone in the cafeteria. She wanted to get away. Turning, she heard her mother hiss her name, then call it loudly as she charged past the soup bar, and then the soda fountain. She would have to walk past the table where Taured was eating dinner with Feena if she wanted to go back to Kids’ Camp. Taured paused in his conversation with Feena and Jon to look at her, and instead of walking past them, she veered left out the double doors that led into the main side of the compound. She needed to think. Her heart was hammering around so hard it hurt.

What had happened to her mother out there? If Taured found out what Lorraine was really thinking, would he ask them to leave? The thought sent panic, pure as pain, through her insides. Then she felt angry. Her mother couldn’t do that, ruin their lives here like she had with their last apartment, forcing them to leave their home in the middle of the night. Summer had left her things behind, things her dad had given her, written to her. People in the compound were headed to dinner, and she seemed to be the only fish pushing upstream. People said her name, but Summer acted like she didn’t hear them. She was almost to the chapel now, and the chapel led to the doors out front. Light-headed, she reached the corridor where the chapel stood, its doors propped open for anyone who needed a safe space to pray and think.

Summer stepped inside and smelled new paint and fresh carpet. Taured had had the whole thing redone last month. She’d been in there a couple times since, but never alone. The newly installed pews were modern and made the space look less threatening than before, when it was covered in dark wood. Through the chapel and to the back, where the Bibles were kept on a wheelie rack, was an alcove used for storage, and through that was a door that had been kept locked while the compound was a prison. Guards had used the hallway, which circled the perimeter of the building like a vein. There were access points to this vein through the chapel, the infirmary and Taured’s office. Sara had shown her where each one was. She’d been at the compound since the beginning—her family was the first to leave their former lives and join Taured here—and she told people that with pride. Summer knew where the key was stashed. To the left of the door was a framed picture of a Bible verse: plucking it from its hook, she turned it over, and wedged behind the frame backing and the frame itself was a key. She needed the key to get back in, so she pocketed it and slipped through into the dark hallway.

It smelled funny back there, like wet concrete and something sweetly rancid. The light bulbs hadn’t been replaced in years and the only light came in from the tiny rectangular windows near the ceiling. Summer walked a ways until she reached another door marked with an exit sign. This lock took the same key. It slid in and she shoved the door open, letting the fresh air pool in her lungs. There was a narrow sidewalk, and beyond that, the ground dropped off at a sharp, odd angle, a mini–Grand Canyon. On the other side of the mini-canyon was a fence and, beyond that, the desert. Summer followed the sidewalk around the building to the old prison entrance. From there she could see the guard shack perched on top of the hill. Not wanting to be seen—Marta, whom she’d called Noodles on that first afternoon, still manned the booth most days—she walked toward the carport where Taured had greeted them on their first day here.

Her mother’s words—“new meat”—were still echoing in her head. What had she meant by that? It had sounded so ugly. And if her mother was opposed to bringing back new members, why was she going on those mission trips, anyway? But Summer already knew the answer to that: the mission trips had been chosen for her mother. People were assigned to jobs based on their strengths, and it was their duty to serve the community with those strengths. Summer served here, leading the younger girls by example.And what type of example are you setting now?she thought, keeping her eyes trained on the guard shack. The carport looked different than the last time she was there: there were three SUVs this time, a shiny new RV—an Airbus—with a lightning bolt painted on the side and parked horizontally, taking up six spots, and a black convertible BMW that looked brand-spanking-new, as her daddy used to say. She walked alongside the RV, and when she got to the driver’s-side door, she tried the handle. It was open.

Climbing into the driver’s seat, Summer closed the door gently behind her and looked around. Everything smelled new. She leaned around the front seat to see into the back. The gut of the RV had a living room preceded by a small kitchen. To the rear of that were two closed doors that must be the bedroom and bathroom. There was no indication it had been lived in. Reaching across the passenger seat, she opened the glove box. When she was little her dad had kept Tootsie Rolls in the glove box. She pressed the button that sprang the little door open and found a pile of notebooks stacked inside. Summer's forehead creased together as she reached inside to retrieve one. Opening it, she saw with surprise that it wasn’t a notebook at all, and she was staring at a photo of her mother, but the name beside it didn’t match. Staci Cartright, it said. Born August 3. That was not her mother’s name or birthday, and yet the passport she was holding said it was. Shaking her head, Summer reached for another. They were all photos of her mother, matched with strange names. She put them all back as she’d found them and moved this time to the stack of driver’s licenses, bound by a rubber band. Summer found her mother’s real driver’s license. She squinted at the address: Forsythia Drive. It was the old one, the apartment they’d left in the middle of the night. According to the front of the card, it was expired. Among the other cards, she found another face that actually matched the name: it was Feena’s father, Jon Wycliffe, his thinning hair limp across his forehead, his eyes two dead brown puddles. They were from a place called Rolla, Missouri. She stared at his photo long and hard, wondering if Feena got her looks from her mother.

She put everything back as she’d found it except her mother’s expired driver’s license and Jon Wycliffe’s—which she slid into her back pocket. The last place she looked was in the large armrest between the driver and passenger seats. Popping it open, Summer stared inside: it was messy, unlike everything else in the RV: a polaroid camera, a pack of Doublemint gum, a handheld voice recorder and two pairs of rolled-up white socks. She heard a door slam and instinctively ducked her head, thumping the armrest closed and sliding down in the driver’s seat so that her body was half under the steering wheel and her legs jutted awkwardly toward the pedals. Footsteps and voices. Summer made a mewling sound in the back of her throat. If she were to be caught... She tallied up her crimes, knowing the harshest punishment would come from the stolen items in her pockets. They’d be angry she’d used the key and snuck out, even more that she’d gone through the RV without permission, but Taured hated stealing—said it was the most dishonorable of all the sins.

The driver’s-side door was still open and unlatched; she pushed on it roughly with her shoulder. It would leave a bruise, but it opened enough for Summer to wriggle out from under the wheel and drop to the asphalt. She hit the small of her back on the step as she went down, landing on her haunches. The pain was sharp and she gasped from it, clapping a hand over her mouth. They were on the other side of the RV now, and any minute one of them would walk around the front of the vehicle and see her, crouched and panting. She pushed the door closed silently with her palms, but there wasn’t enough force to latch it. Two men: Taured and someone else. Real fear flowed through her now, making her tremble, as if she were cold. But she wasn’t cold, it was a hundred and four degrees outside. The only option was under, so she dropped to her belly and rolled. Summer came to a stop faceup, the underbelly of the RV staring back at her. Her heart was hammering and she’d swallowed a good amount of dirt, but she lay as still as she could, afraid the slightest movement would alert them to her presence.

“The money is under the seat, passports and IDs in the glove box.” The voice belonged to Sammy, one of the men who went on the mission trips with her mother. Sammy did most of the driving, her mother had once told her. His boots stopped on the passenger side, so close Summer could see the yellow stitching on their soles. She blew out her cheeks, holding her breath, her hand still over her mouth, and followed the other set of shoes to the driver’s-side door. Nice boots: gray snakeskin.

“The photos?” Taured’s voice this time.

“In your car,” Sammy said. “Front seat.”

The driver’s-side door didn’t open as suddenly. Taured was hesitating. Summer breathed through the hand cupped over her mouth. It was the door. He never missed anything that was half-finished, half-closed or half-assed.

“You didn’t close the door.”

“What—yeah, I did. I always—You’re right. I probably didn’t. It won’t happen again, boss.”

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