Lying With Strangers by James Grippando Read Free Book Online

ones.
    She heard talking but feigned sleep, in no mood for visitors. The voices grew louder as she became more lucid. There was no telling how long her mother and father had been sitting in the room with her, talking to each other as Peyton drifted in and out of consciousness.
    “I’m right about this, Hank,” her mother said, but Peyton was only half listening.
    Funny, there was a time in her life when ignoring her mother would have been a capital offense. She remembered the familiar old drill of, “ Peyton, are you listening to me? ” followed by the inevitable, “ Then tell me what I just said. ” As far back as Peyton could remember, her mother was always trying to educate her. A simple question like “What did you do in school today?” could evolve into a pop quiz in mathematics during the car ride home. When it was finally time for college, Peyton couldn’t wait to get away—to FSU, which was contrary to everything her mother had wanted for herself and her daughter. Ayounger Valerie Stanton had been a pretty, fair-skinned blonde living the life of old Boston Brahmins, complete with summers in Maine and a house in Brookline that was supposedly built by Charles Bulfinch before his commission to design the Capitol in Washington, D.C. She’d gone to Princeton and had been working on her master’s in English at Harvard when she’d fallen in love with a handsome jock who was on the six-year plan toward a B.A. from Boston College. He was fun and funny and absolutely nothing like the man she’d thought she would marry. Hank Shields never did get his degree. Valerie never got her master’s. She’d gotten pregnant. She spent the rest of her life making sure that Peyton would build a better life. Over and over Peyton had heard the same advice, till she heard it one last time the night before she left for Tallahassee. “Whatever you do,” her mother had said, “don’t make the same mistake I did.”
    It amazed Peyton that such an incredibly smart woman could be so oblivious to the real message she had been sending her daughter all these years: she was the “mistake.”
    “What are you doing?” It was her mother again, speaking to her father. Peyton listened with eyes closed.
    “Praying,” he answered.
    Peyton sensed the uneasy silence in the room. She knew her mother didn’t talk to God anymore.
    “Do me a favor,” said Valerie. “Ask Him why this happened.”
    “I’m not asking Him anything. I’m thanking Him.”
    The sigh was audible even across the room. “That’s my Hank,” she said softly, as if talking to herself. “An asteroid could slam into the earth, and we should all thank God for leaving us the moon.”
    “I heard that,” he said.
    Peyton sensed a fight coming on. It was eerily reminiscent of her childhood, the way her mother would pick fights with her father right in front of Peyton, as if their child weren’t even there. She was about to reveal herself and break it up when she heard her mother ask, “Are you praying for the baby?”
    Peyton withdrew and listened. Her father said, “Do you want me to?”
    “Only if you think Peyton would want you to.”
    His voice dropped. “Of course she would.”
    “You honestly believe that?”
    “Yes.”
    Peyton felt her eyelid quiver, as if yearning to open, but she continued her false sleep.
    “Do you think…” Her mother started to ask something, then stopped.
    “Do I think what?”
    “Do you think Peyton wanted this baby?”
    It was like a punch in the chest, but Peyton didn’t flinch. She just listened. “Absolutely,” her father said.
    “You answered too quickly,” she said. “Think before you speak, for a change.”
    “I don’t need to think about it. I know how torn up she must be.”
    “Just because she’s sad about losing it doesn’t mean she was excited about having it. She didn’t tell anyone she was pregnant. Not even Kevin.”
    “That’s between her and Kevin.”
    “The heck it is. Can’t you see