Girl of Lies (24 page)

His mother and his wife couldn’t have more disparity in their backgrounds. Alex came from the wealthy Thompson family. Daughter to an Ambassador. She’d lived in Belgium and China and Russia and spoke flawless French. Like all of her sisters, she’d trained on a classical instrument (the violin) from a young age and was an accomplished musician, yet she didn’t judge his amateurish, self-taught guitar playing. Alex was so far out of Dylan’s league that some days he was still astonished he’d won her over.

Linda Carlin—she’d gone back to her maiden name after giving Dylan’s father the boot—was from a dirt-poor north Georgia family. Her father occasionally found work as a short-order cook, but usually couldn’t hold a job long. Her mother was killed by a drunk driver who ran across the lane on a winding two-lane blacktop in the North Georgia mountains in 1988, Linda’s junior year in high school. His mom didn’t graduate high school—Jimmy Paris—the charmer with a lopsided grin, broad shoulders and too-quick fists—got her pregnant the summer before her senior year.

Despite the dramatic differences in their backgrounds, Alex and Linda got along amazingly well. They had little in common besides their love for Dylan, but that was enough to create a powerful common bond. So as they chatted on the way to her apartment in Stone Mountain, Dylan just stared out the window at the passing cars. In the front seat, Alex and his mom talked about school, about their tiny studio apartment on 102nd Street in Manhattan, and finally about the events that had rocked their lives: Ray Sherman’s death.

That caught Dylan’s attention, his eyes darting back up to the front of the car. He didn’t say anything. Just listened. But that strategy wasn’t going to work, because his mom asked him directly, “How are you holding up, Dylan?”

He shrugged. “I’m good.”

“That sounds like a crock of shit to me, Dylan.”

Dylan winced. Not that his language was any better. But Alex came from a much more refined background. “Mom, come on…”

“Don’t you ‘Mom’ me, Dylan. I was worried about you before, and now even more so.”

“I’m doing all right.”

“You talking to your therapist?”

Christ on a crutch.
He
had
been, right up until July. When Dylan had arrived in New York in the fall of 2012, he didn’t kid around. Focused on healing from his injuries, he’d spent five mornings a week at the VA hospital in Manhattan. Three days for physical therapy, two for post-traumatic stress. His psychologist was a fully qualified mental health practitioner, but more important for Dylan, he was also a combat veteran with two tours in Iraq under his belt. When Dylan talked about digging entire families out of the snow, when he talked about people being blown to bits by grenades, his therapist knew
exactly
what he was talking about.

Until July, right before Sherman was killed. Then, his doctor was replaced by a twenty-three-year-old intern, Heather Katz. Heather was cute, perky, and clueless. Dylan missed two appointments, then two more, and pretty soon he was only going to his now weekly physical therapy appointments. He’d leave the apartment early in the morning, take the subway downtown, then sit on a park bench reading. It was calming and peaceful, but he didn’t like that he found himself telling more and more lies to Alex.

He finally answered his mother. “Yeah, I’m talking to my therapist. It’s just grief, Mom. Everybody goes through it.”

“I’m worried about you,” she said, eyeing him in the rearview mirror.

“Mom, leave it alone, will you?”

The rest of the awkward ride continued. Finally, they pulled up to his mom’s house. A one-story, two-bedroom ranch house with brick facing on the front and 70s style wood paneling throughout the interior. The last time he and Alex had been there was mid-summer, two weeks after their wedding. His mom had done a considerable amount of landscaping in the months since, planting fall perennials.

When she parked, Dylan lagged behind and got the bags out while his mom unlocked the door. Alex hung back, leaned close, and said, “Why are you being so rude to your mom?”

His eyes widened. “What?”

“You’re being mean, Dylan.”

“Shit. Sorry. I’m just grumpy today.”

She sighed then touched his arm. “You’re always grumpy, lately.”

Dylan swallowed, then said, “Sorry, sweetheart. I’ll try.” He turned and picked up the bags and began to carry them toward the house.

Inside, Dylan’s mother’s house had made progress. Growing up, he’d lived in whatever shitty apartment his parents could afford. A couple of times—when he was younger—that meant fairly nice apartment complexes. But by the time he was a preteen, they mostly lived in weekly rooms and tiny roach-infested apartments. But after six years clean, during Dylan’s senior year in high school, his mother had announced a surprise. She was buying a house. It was tiny, in a depressed area well outside the city of Atlanta. But it was hers. During the months after he got out of Walter Reed and before leaving for Columbia, Dylan had stayed here. Every day she’d kept herself busy: painting, refinishing floors, and patching walls. What had been a crappy, terrible house was now a showpiece on the inside.

Along the mantelpiece were photographs. The display and the silver frames were all new, part of his mother’s ongoing rehabilitation of both her living quarters and her life. Alex approached the photos eagerly when they entered the house. Dylan was a little more wary.

“This is new,” Alex said, smiling.

His mom gave Alex a proud look. “I bought the frames at an estate sale for a dollar each.”

“They’re beautiful,” Alex replied.

The frames were, indeed beautiful—silver filigreed with costume gems. The photos were something else entirely. His grandparents, before his grandmother died in the accident. His mother’s older brother, crouched on the front slope of an Abrams tank in Iraq in 1991. Jay Carlin was an Army Master Sergeant now, and he’d encouraged Dylan to think about the military. The largest photo made Alex and Dylan gasp. In the center, Alex was in her white wedding dress, Dylan’s arm around her waist. They were flanked by their unnaturally tall best man and maid of honor—Carrie and Ray Sherman, who had secretly married the day before. Ray looked sharp in his dress blues.

Dylan felt his eyes go wet, and he sniffed.

“I love that picture.” Alex slid a hand up his arm.

“I miss him,” Dylan whispered.

“Me too,” she replied.

He tried to shake it off. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get this stuff put away.”

###

When Dylan awoke on Thanksgiving morning, he was disoriented. His neck hurt and his back was sore, and he was curled up on his side on the edge of a none-too-comfortable mattress in his mother’s house.

In the kitchen, his mother bustled about, preparing a Thanksgiving meal as she and Alex talked. Dylan could easily hear them from the room—his mother’s house was tiny, after all. So he lay there on the bed, his eyes closed. He wanted a cigarette and a cup of coffee, as soon as possible. But for the moment, he lay on his side listening.

They were talking about
him.

“I don’t know,” Alex said. “He’s been through an awful lot.”

“Dylan’s stronger than you may think,” his mother said. “Even before he went into the Army, he’d lived more than a lot of adults twice his age.”

“I know. But the one person who doesn’t believe in him is himself. Ray used to be able to shake him out of his moods. But I don’t know how to.”

He heard his mother sigh. “It’s a tough road. He loved Ray.”

“I loved him too,” Alex replied. “But I’m not dropping out of life. I’m worried about him, Linda.”

His mother said something, he couldn’t tell what, and Alex replied, “I don’t know how to help him.”

Fuck.

He rolled out of bed and threw clothes on. He didn’t care what. He needed to get a cigarette and a cup of coffee. He stumbled out of the room, and both of them went quiet. Alex looked guilty. He murmured, “Morning,” as he walked by, then poured himself a cup of coffee. In silence, he prepared his coffee with his back to Alex and his mom, then went and sat outside on the porch.

He lit a cigarette and stared up at the sky, grateful that it wasn’t gray or raining.

Four hours later the first guest arrived—his mother’s sponsor in AA. Mary Lou Sorensen was a conservatively dressed sixty-five-year-old woman, so tiny and frail Dylan was afraid a stiff breeze might carry her away. As Mary Lou got out of her car and headed slowly up the walk, she teetered a little on her heels. She wore a red and white suit, with a long string of pearls around her neck and bracelets at her wrist. Her hair was teased and poufed in a style that was probably popular in the decade before Dylan was born.

“Is that little Dylan? Well, I’ll be… I haven’t seen you since you was in high school.”

“Hey, Mary Lou, happy Thanksgiving.”

As she approached, he saw the signs of age. More wrinkles underneath the makeup around her eyes, her hair now fully grey. Dylan took her arm and led her toward the house.

“How is Columbia, Dylan?”

“It’s going well,” he said. “I love the classes. How about you? You still teaching at the pen?”

“I am,” she replied, smiling. Mary Lou spent most of the 1970s as an
inmate
in the Atlanta Women’s Prison, following her 1972 conviction for murder. While there, she’d gotten sober, found God, and begun a new life. Now she went back to the Metro State Prison, a women’s maximum security prison, three times a week to lead AA meetings and teach classes.

Dylan opened the door and led her in. Alex met them as she came out of the kitchen.

“Alex, this is Miss Mary Lou. May Lou, this is my wife, Alexandra.”

“Oh, Lordy,” Mary Lou said, her face flushing red. “I’m so excited to meet you, Alexandra. What a beautiful name.”

“I mostly just go by Alex.”

“Some names shouldn’t be shortened,” Mary Lou replied. “And yours is one of them. That’s a name that says royalty. I love it. Come sit and talk to me, dear.”

Just like that, Mary Lou had Alex by the arm and was leading her off to the living room. Dylan chuckled a little as he walked into the kitchen.

His mother was still bustling around.

“Hey, Mom, Mary Lou is here.”

His mother said, “Oh, can you keep her company—”

“Don’t worry.” He cut her off. “She and Alex are chatting.”

His mother smiled. “Well, then, that’s good. Maybe you and I could talk for a minute then?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she turned back into the kitchen, expecting him to follow.

He did, of course, automatically reaching to help as she stooped to pull a huge turkey out of the oven.

His mother didn’t pussyfoot around. “Your wife is worried about you, Dylan. So am I.”

Shit,
he thought. “Mom, you gotta give it a rest—”

“No. Listen to me. I know you’ve had a rough couple of years. I know it’s been much harder than you ever expected. You just have to stop trying to do it all on your own. You’ve got a lovely woman there who wants to help you.”

“Ma, I’m all right—”

“You’re drinking again, aren’t you?”

He froze. She nodded her head. “I thought so. How much?”

“Not much. Just every once in a while. Mom, I’m not like you and Dad, I don’t fall apart every time I have a drink, okay? That was your issue, not mine.”

She shook her head. “You’re fooling yourself. You’re not out drinking at parties or social occasions.”

“No, just one every once in a while to take the edge off.”

“If you’re drinking to
take the edge off
, you’re going to turn into a drunk, Dylan. That’s the way it works.”

He shook his head. “Not everybody’s like you, Mom.”

“No. But you are. You’re my son, and I’m worried about you. You haven’t told her, have you?”

“No,” he replied. “And I don’t want you to. I’ll talk to her when it’s time.”

“Oh, Dylan. I can’t promise you that. It’s not just about you.”

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.”

She shook her head. “She’s your wife. You need to talk with her. You need to ask her for help.”

Dylan stared at his mother. “Are you seriously going to do this? You ruined my entire childhood, and now you’re going to ruin my marriage?”

His mother gave him a long, sad look. “Dylan, you’re making your own choices. You need to get help.”

Alexandra Thompson was probably the least experienced and least cynical of the Thompson sisters. But that didn’t make her an idiot. She’d been through heartache. She’d been through sexual assault. Step by step, she’d helped the man she loved rebuild his life. And then she’d gone through the heartache of seeing Dylan’s best friend, her sister’s husband, killed.

What Alexandra learned in the weeks following Ray’s death were lessons she wished she’d never had to think about. She’d never minimize or underestimate the incredible pain Carrie went through with the loss of her husband. The two of them had been passionate lovers, and Ray’s loss was a staggering blow to Carrie.

But Alexandra also saw what it did to Dylan. Because he had walked into that hospital room last August to say goodbye, and he shambled out a dead man. Cold. Isolated. His eyes a thousand miles away. He didn’t speak. He didn’t cry. He walked to the waiting room chairs and slumped into his seat, staring straight ahead, eyes unfocused. He broke Alexandra’s heart, because she knew right then that the grief he felt was going to take a long time to deal with. She knew right then that Dylan Paris wasn’t going to be healed in an hour or a day or a week or a year—this was going to be a lifetime effort.

She struggled the first few days. In the past, faced with such an emotional gut punch, she would have instinctively called her big sister Carrie. Carrie, who had taken care of all of them. Carrie, who’d been a shoulder for Julia to cry on, a protective shield for Alexandra and the younger girls. Carrie, who had been stripped of everything that mattered. She
couldn’t
go to Carrie and burden her with even more problems, especially problems rooted in the same loss she’d suffered. One night she found herself picking up her phone not long after dinner. She dialed Julia without really paying attention.