Neither of Us Is Lying

Chance Van Alstyne had not seen his sister in 11 years, but he knew the sound of her car as it approached. Jennifer drove the same way she had at 17, taking corners too quickly and braking only when the road forced her to. The tires hissed across the wet gravel outside their father's house, and Chance watched from the kitchen window as she climbed out. She stood looking at the white clapboard siding, the dark windows, the enormous maple leaning toward the porch. Beyond the trees, Skaneateles Lake was a gray strip beneath a gray November sky. She seemed to be counting something. Then she looked straight at the window, and Chance stepped away.

Their father had been dead for six days. Hendrik Van Alstyne had died alone in the downstairs bathroom, a hand gripping the towel bar hard enough to pull one screw out of the plaster. The medical examiner called it a heart attack. Chance believed him. He had learned long ago that not every death in their family required an investigation, even if every absence did.

Jennifer entered without knocking. Her hair was shorter than in the photographs Chance had kept, and there were lines around her eyes he had not been around to watch her earn. She set a dripping overnight bag beside the stairs. “You look like him,” she said.

“You look like Mom.”

“Don't.”

He poured coffee into the mug he had already put out for her. She ignored it and looked toward the basement door. Its brass knob was polished from years of use. Their father had been particular about keeping that knob clean, though he never bothered with the others.

“The lawyer says there are papers we have to sign,” Jennifer said.

“Tomorrow. We can sort through the house today.”

“I didn't come to sort through his house.”

“Then why did you come?”

She opened her bag and removed a folded sheet of yellow paper. She smoothed it on the kitchen table. It was a copy of their mother's missing-person report, dated October 19, 1992. Chance had seen it hundreds of times, sometimes in dreams. At the bottom, in the box labeled last known contact, their father's handwriting said: LEFT RESIDENCE VOLUNTARILY, APPROX. 9:15pm.

“It's wrong,” Jennifer said.

“Of course it's wrong. Dad lied about everything.”

“Not the way you think.”

Chance sat opposite her. “What way do I think?”

“That she drove away.”

“I watched her drive away.”

Jennifer pressed her fingers against the paper until the knuckles whitened. “And I watched him carry her downstairs.”

“You were eight,” he said.

“And you were 12. That doesn't make your eyes better.”

“It makes my memory clearer.”

“That's what Dad always said.”

Chance looked toward the basement door. “What exactly did you see?”

Jennifer told it without hesitation. Their parents had been fighting. Their mother wore a blue cardigan over her nightgown. Jennifer had crouched behind the upstairs banister and watched Hendrik lift Evelyn beneath the arms. Her head had hung backward. One bare foot had dragged along the hallway runner. He had taken her through the kitchen, down the basement steps, and closed the door. A little later Jennifer had heard the washing machine start.

Chance remembered the same argument. He remembered their mother in a blue cardigan, standing beside the front door with a suitcase. He remembered the car's red taillights sweeping across the maple trunk as she backed into the road. Most of all he remembered Evelyn turning once before she left, looking up toward his bedroom window as if she knew he was watching.

“Your bedroom faced the lake,” Jennifer said.

Chance felt something loosen inside his chest. “What?”

“The window. Your room was on the back of the house. You couldn't see the driveway.”

“I was in the guest room.”

“There wasn't a guest room. Dad used that room for his office.”

Chance could picture the window perfectly. White curtains. A chipped latch. The maple spreading its branches like black fingers across the glass. He could even remember the cold pane against his forehead. But when he tried to locate that window in the house, he found himself looking at a wall that had never held one.

Jennifer saw the change in his face. “I brought something else.”

From her bag she took a cassette tape in a cracked plastic case. Across its paper label, in their mother's careful handwriting, were the words FOR THE CHILDREN. The date beneath was October 18, 1992.

“Where did you get that?”

“Dad's safe. The lawyer gave me the combination because my name was on the inventory.”

Chance reached for the cassette, then stopped. “Have you played it?”

“No. I wanted you here.”

They found an old tape player in Hendrik's study, beneath a stack of tax returns. The machine swallowed the cassette with a mechanical click. For several seconds there was only hiss. Then their mother's voice emerged, thin and intimate, as though she were speaking from the other side of a wall.

“If you are hearing this,” Evelyn said, “it means I wasn't brave enough to tell you in person.”

Jennifer gripped the table. Chance could not move.

“I need you to understand that neither of you did anything wrong. You will remember things differently because that is what we asked you to do. It was the only way we knew to keep you safe.”

The tape clicked. Another voice, Hendrik's, said, “Start over. Don't say that.”

Evelyn answered, farther from the microphone, “They deserve to know.”

“They deserve to live.”

A scrape. A sharp impact. Then silence so complete Chance could hear the mechanism turning. He reached for the stop button, but Evelyn spoke again.

“Chance, if you remember seeing me leave, trust that memory. Jennifer, if you remember the basement, trust yours too. Please don't let him convince you that one of you is mistaken.”

The recording ended with a low electronic tone.

Jennifer began to cry without making a sound. Chance stared at the tape player, thinking of their mother sitting in this room the day before she vanished, rehearsing the words that would survive her.

“Both memories,” he said. “How?”

Jennifer looked at him as though he had asked whether water was wet. “We go downstairs.”

The basement smelled of dust and furnace oil. The washing machine was newer than Chance remembered, but its plumbing had not changed. A copper pipe ran along the ceiling to a wall of built-in cabinets. Hendrik had kept jars of screws, holiday decorations, and boxes of old newspapers there. Chance opened each cabinet while Jennifer searched the shelves. Behind a carton of Christmas lights, she found a narrow steel door painted the same beige as the wall.

There was no handle, only a recessed keyhole. Chance tried the keys from their father's ring until a small silver one turned. The door opened inward on a concrete passage barely wide enough for his shoulders.

“Did you know about this?” Jennifer whispered.

He shook his head.

The passage led to a room beneath the old garage, a space neither of them had known existed. A single bare bulb hung from the ceiling. Along one wall stood metal filing cabinets. Opposite them was a wooden desk with two child-sized chairs. On the desk sat a television, a videocassette recorder, and a box labeled OCTOBER 1992.

Jennifer opened the box. Inside were two videotapes and a spiral notebook. The notebook contained columns headed CHANCE and JENNIFER, followed by dates, times, and short observations in Hendrik's block lettering. Under October 20, someone had written: C. recalls vehicle departure, high confidence. J. recalls cellar transport, high confidence. Neither recalls intervening.

“Intervening in what?” Chance asked.

Jennifer was already putting the first tape into the machine.

The screen flickered to life. A date appeared in the corner: October 18, 1992. Chance saw the kitchen, younger and brighter, with a floral wallpaper border that had been stripped away years ago. His mother stood by the sink. His father was at the table. A man in a dark jacket stood between them, his face turned away from the camera.

The man said, “We can't keep doing this.”

Hendrik answered, “One more session.”

“They're children.”

“They witnessed something. If they tell anyone, all of us are finished.”

The man looked toward the camera. Chance recognized him immediately. Dr. Leonard Kraft, the family physician who had treated their scraped knees, their ear infections, and their father's insomnia. Kraft had died in 2008. Chance had attended his funeral.

On the tape, Kraft said, “The boy's account is stable. The girl's isn't. We need to separate the recollections before they reinforce each other.”

Evelyn said, “You promised we could stop.”

“Not until they believe it,” Hendrik replied.

The picture jumped. A second scene showed Chance at 12 sitting in one of the little chairs, staring at the television. On the screen within the screen, a car backed down the driveway. Evelyn was at the wheel. The image repeated, again and again, while Hendrik asked, “What did you see, son?”

“I saw Mom leave.”

“Good. Tell me again.”

Chance backed away from the television. He remembered the maple tree, the taillights, the cold glass. The memory had the texture of something lived. Now he knew where it had come from.

Jennifer put her hand over her mouth. The next scene showed her in the other chair, watching a different recording. Hendrik carried Evelyn through the kitchen, her head hanging backward, one foot dragging. A washing machine began to rumble in the background.

“What did you see, Jenny?” Kraft asked.

“Daddy carried Mommy downstairs.”

“That's right. Again.”

Jennifer shut off the television. “They made us remember.”

“But why different stories?”

She pointed to the notebook. In the margin beside their names, Hendrik had written: CONTRADICTION PREVENTS CORROBORATION. Chance read the words twice. If the children ever told the police what they remembered, their accounts would cancel each other out. The adults could call one a dream and the other a misunderstanding.

He opened another cabinet. Inside were photographs of the family, medical bills, newspaper clippings, and a folder marked INCIDENT. The first clipping described a fatal collision on Route 20 outside Auburn. A 17-year-old girl had been struck by a vehicle that fled the scene. Her name was Alicia Renshaw. The date was October 17, 1992.

Chance remembered the accident. Everyone in town had. He remembered their father telling them to stay away from the television because the coverage was upsetting. He remembered a dent in the family station wagon that Hendrik said came from a deer.

The folder contained photographs of the car. Its windshield was broken. A dark stain marked the passenger seat. There was also a statement, unsigned, in Evelyn's handwriting: I was driving. Hendrik told me to keep going. The children were in the back seat.

Chance looked at Jennifer. “We were there.”

She stared at the photographs. “I remember headlights. Someone screaming.”

“I remember a thump.”

Neither had spoken about it in 34 years.

“But Mom really disappeared,” Jennifer said. “Where did she go?”

Chance searched for another folder. The bottom drawer was locked, but the thin metal yielded when he pulled hard enough. Inside lay a single envelope addressed to him and Jennifer in their mother's handwriting, postmarked Buffalo. Their father had kept it, but the seal was unbroken.

The letter was dated November 3, 1992, two weeks after their mother vanished.

My children, it began. By the time you read this, your father may be gone, and I hope you will finally be free to ask the questions he taught you not to ask. I wanted to take you away after the accident. I wanted to tell the police. I was afraid of losing you, and that fear made me a coward.

I did not simply drive away. I did not die in the basement. Your father needed you to believe those things because he could not risk either of you remembering what happened after the collision.

Chance stopped reading. “After?”

Jennifer leaned closer.

The girl was still alive when we brought her home. She had been struck badly, but she was breathing. Your father said the hospital would ruin us. He made me help carry her into the basement. I thought he was going to call for help. I waited while he went upstairs. When he came back, he told me she was dead.

Chance heard the old washing machine, though the basement was silent.

I saw her move. I know I saw her move. I tried to get past him, but he locked the door. Later, when he took the body away, he said it had been necessary. He said the children would never understand.

The final paragraph was in the same hand, but the letters were larger and less controlled, as if she had finished it in a hurry.

I was not the woman in the video Jennifer watched. That was Alicia wearing my cardigan. I was the woman in the car Chance watched. Hendrik filmed me leaving so he could show the police if he needed to. Both recordings were real. The lies were about what they meant.

Jennifer sank into the small chair. “She was alive.”

Chance looked at the last sentence. Evelyn had written: I am going to the police tomorrow. If I fail, look beneath the maple.

He and Jennifer hurried upstairs and out into the yard. The rain had stopped. Beneath the maple, the ground rose unevenly around old roots. Chance fetched a shovel from the garage. Jennifer knelt beside a flat stone half buried in the mud, its surface engraved with a date: October 19, 1992.

They dug until the shovel struck metal. Beneath a foot of earth was a rusted ammunition box wrapped in plastic. Inside were photographs, an audio cassette, and a folded newspaper. The newspaper reported that Alicia Renshaw's body had been recovered from a drainage ditch on October 21st. The photographs showed the girl alive on a mattress in the hidden basement room. In one picture she was holding a glass of water. In another she was looking directly at the camera.

Jennifer turned the photograph over. In Evelyn's handwriting were four words: She knew our names.

Chance held the cassette to the light. The label said THE LAST SESSION.

They listened in the kitchen. At first there was only the familiar hiss. Then their father's voice: “Tell me what you remember.”

A child answered. Chance recognized his own 12-year-old voice. “I remember the girl asking us to help.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Why?”

“You told us not to.”

Another voice, Jennifer's, small and shaking: “She said she wasn't dead.”

Hendrik said, “And what happened next?”

Chance's younger self began to sob. “Mom tried to open the door.”

“Then?”

“You pushed her.”

“Where?”

“Down the steps.”

The tape crackled. A heavy sound followed, then Evelyn's voice crying out. There was a long silence before Hendrik spoke again, very softly.

“Now we're going to remember something else.”

Jennifer reached across the table and took Chance's hand. For a moment he could see them as children again, sitting side by side, waiting for their father to tell them what the world was supposed to look like.

“Where is she?” Jennifer asked.

Chance looked toward the window. The old maple stood in the clearing light. Beyond it, the lake was beginning to turn blue.

He took the photographs from the ammunition box and spread them across the table. There was one he had not noticed, tucked behind the others. It showed a hospital playroom decorated with paper butterflies. Hendrik stood in the doorway beside a woman whose face was hidden by the brim of a wide hat. A date was printed on the back: March 9, 2017.

The woman held a little girl by the hand. Chance recognized the girl immediately. She was Jennifer's daughter, Sophie, who had died of leukemia at nine.

Jennifer picked up the photograph. “That's impossible. Dad never met Sophie.”

Chance studied the woman's hand. On the third finger was Evelyn's distinctive emerald ring.

He turned the picture over again. Beneath the date, in their father's handwriting, were the words: SHE STILL DOESN'T REMEMBER.

Jennifer's expression changed, not to grief but to recognition. She stared at the basement door and whispered, “I remember her now.”

Chance waited.

“She came to the hospital,” Jennifer said. “When Sophie was dying. I thought she was a volunteer. She told me to forgive Dad. She said he'd done what he thought was necessary.”

Chance felt the house settle around them.

“Did you forgive him?”

Jennifer looked at the tape recorder, the photographs, the evidence their father had preserved because he had been too proud to destroy proof of his own cleverness.

“I told her I already had.”

A knock sounded at the front door.

Neither moved. The knock came again, three gentle taps, exactly the way their mother had knocked before entering their bedrooms when they were small. Chance looked at Jennifer, and Jennifer looked back. He could not tell whether she was frightened or relieved.

On the porch stood an elderly woman in a blue cardigan. Her hair was white, her face deeply lined, but her eyes were Evelyn's.

She looked at the cassette on the table behind them and closed her eyes. “I hoped you'd find it before I had to come.”

Chance could think of a hundred questions. He asked the one that mattered.

“Why didn't you take us with you?”

Evelyn looked at Jennifer. “Because your father made sure neither of you would believe me.”

“And now?” Jennifer asked.

Evelyn stepped inside. “Now I need to tell you what I remember.”

Chance glanced at the tape recorder, still plugged into the wall. He pressed RECORD before she began.