The Truth Commission by Susan Juby Read Free Book Online

is very big on making us all a full breakfast—at least he was until that morning.
    â€œDon’t read it when I’m around,” she told us. “It will make me feel funny.” Then she wandered away.
    My parents and I grinned at one another, waited until she’d left, and then opened our copies in unison.
    It took about two pages for me to realize what I was reading and another page or two for the impact of it to sink in. We looked like idiots. It was like my sister had held up a hideousness magnifier to each of us and then drew what she saw.
    She showed us doing silly things. Being shallow. And when the action moved to Vermeer, the alternate universe, we looked and acted like monsters.
    Once I started breathing again, I looked at my parents. The color was gone from my mom’s face, and my dad looked stricken, almost the same way he had when they told us they might be separating while they worked things out. Think: deer hit by an arrow from a crossbow.
    I ran to the mirror to check to see whether I really did look like a flabby, dead-eyed fish with a mouth that hung open when I listened. I was so upset, I could barely see. I came back to the table and stared at the pages again, swamped with humiliation and shame at how I’d been portrayed. Maybe the right word is
betrayed
.
    I waited for one of my parents to object. Maybe my dad would say that he wasn’t a failure or a creep. My mom would protest that she wasn’t a neurotic basket case who called the suicide hotline over every piece of burnt toast and that in another universe she wouldn’t be a psychopathic power-monger with the morals of a Norway rat.
    But no.
    â€œThis is . . . remarkable,” said my dad after a long, long pause.
    At his words a little color came back into my mom’s blanched face. “My goodness,” she said. Then, never afraid to be repetitive, she added, “This is so good. She is just . . . so good.”
    I blinked as though someone had deliberately placed a piece of sawdust in my eye with a pair of tweezers.
    â€œWhat?” I said.
    â€œMy God,” said my father. “This is going to be a sensation. A comic set in two universes! Wow!”
    â€œI always knew,” said my mother, not bothering to say what, exactly, she always knew.
    â€œI don’t think . . .” My voice trailed off when I realized my parents were staring at me. “We look like that,” I finished.
    My father, Mr. Kindly from the Produce Section, nodded at me in a way that was the opposite of affirming. “It’s art, Normandy,” he said. “Those characters aren’t us.”
    My sister was using her talent to turn us into a joke. My parents could see it, too, but they were going to make the best of the situation. Just like they always did. No matter what the cost. “But they look like us. They do the things we—”
    â€œI only wish people had supported my creativity when I was younger,” said my mother.
    â€œAgreed,” said my dad. “It’s what parents do with talented kids.” 40
    Before I could say anything else, the front door opened and Keira reentered the house.
    â€œShhh,” said my mother. “She’s coming. This is a vulnerable time for her. Just let her know how good it is.”
    And that morning, over cold pancakes, my mother and father told Keira that she was brilliant. Keira seemed to take in what they had to say. She accepted their effusive praise and listened with a stillness that was hungry but strangely detached.
    When she was tired of their compliments, she turned to me.
    â€œNorm? What do you think?”
    My copy of the comic lay in my lap. I was afraid to get syrup on it.
    â€œIt’s unbelievable,” I said. “Are you going to show this to people?”
    Keira cocked her head a little. “Well, yeah.”
    â€œOf course,” said my dad. “She’s got to get it out