"White Lies" (Excerpt)

We waited in silence for the next fifteen minutes while Radio Disney roared out of the cracked windows. The smell of flame broiled burgers, salted fries, and the exhaust from the cars lined up at the drive thru, permeated the summer air. Through the tinted Camry windows I observed a family placing an order-to-stay (a calculated choice, considering the 92 degree humid weather). While receiving their order, a boy around my age ran to take a cardboard crown from off the indoor platform that protruded away from the glass pane, toward the registers. As I built up the courage to ask my father if I can get a crown from inside Burger King, I heard the beeping of a motor vehicle approaching from across the walkway-median that divided the parking lot.

My mother parked the burgundy Corolla in the parking space across from my father’s Camry. My Dad kissed me good bye and told me that he would see me the weekend after next. I hugged his right arm tight (the only part of him my seven-year-old arms could wrap around) and left the car. I walked across the median that divided my parents’ Japanese car-notes and opened the back seat door on the passenger side of my mother’s Corolla.

I sat silently on the way back home, enduring the contrasting senses of a damp lower back and a throat dried from the summer air: no air conditioning and open windows. As we pulled into the driveway of 15 Tower Court, home, my mother broke the quiet of our four minute ride in silence.

“I’m sorry boo-boo I know it makes you sad when you have to leave your father. Do you want to talk about it?”

I responded with a faux smile and lowered eyes, an awkward facial expression that had grown more common over the past months.

“O.k. baby. Well—what did you and your father do today?” My mother asked attempting to smooth over the subject.

Remaining silent, I opened the back door, grabbed my Spiderman backpack, and walked toward the front door of our Tudor styled home. Without asking any questions my mother followed me to the screen door and ushered me into the inviting cool of our sunken living room. Once inside, I rushed to the couch (and after kicking off my shoes) sat back, dug my thighs into my chest and hid my head behind my knees.

“Oh come now bay-bee.” my mother added as she sat beside me. “You were all smiles until we drove home. What did you do today?”

I always wondered why my father, who was still married to my mother at the time, even dated Michelle. I think the answer was part of the reason I kept the truth about her from my mother until that day. The idea of an intact home, family weekend strolls through the mall, and Saturday morning matinees was tempting. My father must have found playing house on the weekends, a feminine distraction alongside his only son, to have been as equally enticing.

I looked at my mother and provided the parcel of information that would seal my childhood.

“Dad and me saw Bugs Life; Michelle came too.”