Truth for Truth. Here we are.
But I can’t bring myself to speak that name, even here, thirty seconds before we set everything on fire.
But I can give her truth. My truths. The truths that have defined whoever I’ve become.
“I’m not her anymore. I’m not sure I ever was.”
“That’s not an answer,” she tells me, shrewd as ever.
“I am Lee’s sister,” I say. “I am Wes’s best friend.” I hate how my voice shakes, but I force myself to continue. I owe her this. “I am someone who survives. I am a liar and I’m a thief and I’m a con artist. And I hope I’m still the girl you’re in love with, because I am really, really in love with you.”
“Well, fuck, Nora,” she says, the sheen of tears in her eyes back. “Now we can’t die.”
My hands close over hers holding the lighter. “I told you: I’m someone who survives. We’re going to survive together.”
In her other hand, the last few grains of sand trickle out of the hourglass.
It’s time.
— 50 —
Raymond: How I Did It （In Four Acts）
Act 1: Spin
Five Years Ago
The night it happens, it’s just us at home. Raymond dismissed everyone early for the day. A family day just for us, he tells Mom.
At first, she’s pleased. She’s trying to cater to him, squeezing lime slices down the thin necks of his Coronas, swishing her hair over her shoulder the way she does, but his mood gets darker and darker as he checks his phone. When she asks him what’s wrong, he mutters something about business and get me another beer.
I stay in the living room because I know what happens when I leave her alone with him when he’s like this. I ran away the first time, and it was not the last time. But I have nightmares the most about that first night. Nightmares where she doesn’t come upstairs to persuade me to forgive him . . . because he’s killed her.
I fail her again, because I fall asleep on the couch.
When I wake up, it’s dark outside. I’m covered with a blanket, and neither of them are in the living room. The TV’s on mute—some infomercial—and the light dances across the neat line of empty beer bottles on the coffee table.
Thud.
There’s a certain sound that a fist makes against flesh. A sound that, once you learn it, you can never forget.
I’m up off the couch, the blanket falling away, and I don’t know it yet, but that blanket is the last sweet thing my mother ever does for me. Raymond’s house—it was never ours, never home, never anything but a McCage disguised as a McMansion—is all cool tile and long hallways and no rugs. My feet are cold as I walk toward his study, each step echoing.
The door’s open a crack, and when I push it open, neither of them notices me. He’s got her on the ground and there’s blood already, there are tears, and she’s begging—she’s begging, and she never begs, even when he’s hitting me.
“Raymond, can we just talk about this, please. Just give me a second. I really don’t know what money you’re talking about—” She’s trying to talk sense into him, but there’s no talking sense into a man who’s always seen you as less-than.
“You’re the only one who could’ve taken it. I’ve checked out everyone else. If you don’t tell me the truth . . .” His hand doesn’t rear back, but instead, it pushes forward.
And that’s when the shadows shift, and I see he’s got a gun pointed at her.
I don’t know what to do. I can’t think. I can’t move. The fear wraps around me and squeezes until my bones feel like they’re splintering, and it almost carries me away.
I almost run.
But instead, I move toward him, toward my mother, my twisted constant, toward the gun I know is loaded. It’s the bravest thing I’ve ever done. Also the stupidest. In a second, that gun’s on me, and now he’s got even more leverage against her.
Mom’s sobbing, mascara down her cheeks, knees bruised and scraped. He must’ve sent her sprawling, and my fists clench even as I stand as still as I can, trying to get his wild eyes to focus on me.
“What are you doing?” I don’t sound like myself. My voice is breathy. High. Am I breathing too hard? Everything feels sped up and too slow at the same time. I wonder if this is what a panic attack is like. I’m not supposed to get those. She tells me I have to be strong.
“Get out,” he snarls. “This is between me and your mother.”