Liars

When I was a kid, maybe only four or five years old, my mother taught me the difference between truth and lies. To begin with, lies got me punished. My first lie had to do with something I broke. I still vividly remember Mom screaming on discovery of this broken object.

We lived in a nice house in a small village and Mother was proud of the house and the many antiques she had collected to fill it. I think it might have been a small dish or ashtray. I vaguely remember admiring a colorful bright design when it slipped out of my chubby hands and shattered into pieces. Mom came running at the sound of broken china.

I ran and hid behind the couch. At the sight of the pieces, the howl mother let out curdled my blood and I began to shake. Mom left the room, came back with a dustpan and broom and cleaned up the evidence. As she bent, she must have caught sight of my hidey hole because after she emptied the dustpan in the kitchen, she returned, and in an exceptionally soft voice, told me to come out from behind the couch. "Everything will be all right," she said.

If I had been a dog, my ears would have been pinned down to my head as I crawled out. No sooner had my head appeared than she lunged at me and grabbed me by the ear, dragging me out into full view.

“Did you break that? The truth!” She yelled into the gripped ear.

I stuttered, “No. I didn’t.” My face was probably red as a beet, my heart pounding so fast I was afraid it would explode from my chest.

“I know you did, you and I are the only ones home and I heard it break.” She hissed in my face, so close spittle bounced off my nose. Her grip still on my ear.

“You are a liar, and because of that lie, you are to go to your room and stay there until I tell you to come out.” And then she slapped my face with the other hand so hard my jaw hurt. Shaking me by my still captive ear, she tossed me aside. “Don’t you ever tell me a lie again. The world hates a liar and we NEVER lie in this family.

Several days passed and my transgression was forgotten by all but me. Sunday came, and our dinner that day always had a special dessert. This Sunday it was fresh sugared strawberries on homemade pound cake with whipped cream on top. My favorite. I particularly liked it when the strawberry juice mixed with the sugar melted into the cake with the cream.

I took my piece and carefully set it on the sideboard. I nodded at Mom and my sister and said I'd be back for my cake in a little while.

An hour later I returned, and the cake was gone. Horrified, I ran into the kitchen. My mother and sister were chatting at the small table. “Did you bring my cake in?” I asked.

Mom looked me straight in the eye. “I thought you were finished and dumped it in the garbage.”

“But I said I was coming back for it.” Tears filled my disappointed eyes.

“Sorry, didn’t hear you.” She turned away, going back to her conversation with sister.

I stomped out of the room and hung out on the hall stairs. I could still hear their voices in the kitchen.

My sister laughed. “I saw you eat her cake. How could you tell her that lie?”

I bent around the doorway and saw my mother shrug. “Why tell the truth when a lie will suffice.” She fluffed her hair and took her coffee cup to the sink. "She'll get over it."

From that moment until she died, I never believed a word Mom said. I knew everything out of her mouth was a lie and began to understand lies could be an exaggeration, a fantasy, something to make her look good, or someone else look bad. She lied about big things and small, happy things and sad. It was as if there was a magic switch in her brain converting truth to lies when the words sprang from her lips. It was very hard to trust her about anything, advice, family matters, where she was going, where family members were, who she was with. It was all gossamer spun from air. Much of it hurtful because you never knew truth from her lies.

Liars have to have good memories. They have to remember their lies and stick to them or they get caught, and once caught, the only way out is another lie, "I never said (or did) that." And then the lies build on each other, like a spider spinning its web, they begin to enmesh the liar in complexities hard to maintain.

As I got older, I realized my beloved older sister had taken on Mom's code of lies. She married, had a child and was visibly miserable, telling the world how happy she was through a fake smile over clenched teeth. She wasn't as accomplished a liar as Mom. The two of them lived together most of their lives, and lied with the frequency of trees shedding their leaves in autumn.

Family matters were the particular focus of lies. Mom's sister was murdered and the family was told she had moved to California and wasn't coming back. Grandmother and Grandfather died and no mention of it was made. It was as if they never existed. I had a dog and was told it had run away while she had taken it to the pound or dumped it someplace. I never did find out the truth of that story.

I left home at age sixteen and never came back to the House of Lies other than occasional visits. I could only stand being there until the lies became suffocating and I had to leave to be able to breathe again.

When I think of Mom now, I realize she gave me my superpower. I didn't have to be bitten by a radioactive spider or be afraid of kryptonite, I didn't become a raging monster when angry. My superpower was hard to see, but in all my years growing up, and later as an attorney and in business, I could tell a liar the moment they opened their mouth. Whether it was a face touch, a side look, a tiny twitch, a particular hand movement, the 'tell' was obvious to me. So, thanks Mom, you turned out to be a great teacher after all, but the learned lessons certainly weren't easy.