Cost of a Lie

by SAMANTHA MARIS

Chapter 1

“Mom!” Kira called out in a voice pitched higher than her normal alto. Her mother, standing twenty feet away at the entrance to the garage mused to herself how rich her daughter’s voice had gotten once she matured to the ripe age of seventeen.

“What?” Darlene attempted to imitate Kira’s excited pitch but that wasn’t possible any longer.

“I found a box and I want to go through it but…” Kira’s voice became less confident as she looked up from the box she was cradling and met her mother’s eyes. Darlene caught the uncertain sadness in Kira’s face and quickly went to see what had her youngest child looking so distraught. The writing on the box lid stopped her in her tracks, her hand slapped hard against her lips to keep the profanity on her tongue from bursting into the world.

“THE box” as Kira called it, forgotten for years, had remained sealed since the day they moved it from their mother’s home after her passing. Darlene lightly ran her fingers over the beautiful script preserved with permanent marker and clear tape.

COLBY

Kira watched her mother’s face as it twisted with the pain of memories, but there was also a curve of her lips as good times softened the rawness of the outcomes of Colby’s life. Kira pushed “THE box” into her mother’s arms. Her voice was soft and warm as she asked her mom to carry it to the backyard table.

“You never talk about her and I barely remember her. Can we look at it?” She pointed to “THE box.” Darlene’s chin hit her chest, and she appeared to be hanging her head with shame.

“Mom?” Her mom shook her head and tried to turn away as fat tears slowing dropped onto her cheeks. She tossed her head back and took several slow breaths to control her emotions. Kira almost giggled when her mom literally stomped her foot and threw her hands in the air but it shocked her when her sweet, demi-religious mother shouted to the heavens, “FUUUUCKkkkk”. Kira’s heart hurt to see her mother so distraught. Kira was confused about what could be so traumatic about finding a box of Aunt Colby’s things.

“Why don’t I just throw this away or put it in the pile to be moved to the new house?” Kira hoped her suggestion to remove “THE box” from her mother’s vicinity would help her calm a bit and get a grip on her emotions. They were not a highly emotional family, Kira was not comfortable with this loud display of despair.

“NOPE!” Darlene’s right hand went up in a stop motion. “I am sick of the omissions. I was so wrong to have agreed to go along with the family’s plan. I knew that hiding Colby from you would not keep you from being what you are.” Darlene sat at the table with a sigh and motioned for Kira to take a seat on the bench next to her by patting it with her hand. “Come on Rabbit, let’s bring this family into the twenty-first century. Kira rolled her eyes at the childhood nickname though she secretly still loved hearing her mom say it.

Chapter 2

Mother and daughter pulled the contents of the box and placed them on the table. They found pictures that needed more than one thousand words to launch the tale the picture portrayed.

Date organized newspaper clippings, kept well preserved in an old photo album with black pages, had exciting headlines and many showed the face of the missing Aunt Colby.

“Mom?” Kira asked hesitantly in a voice smaller than Darlene had ever heard. “Is.” Kira did not want to ask, did not really know how to ask but she needed to know. Her mom understood.

“You want to know if Colby is dead?” Kira nodded.

“I’m not sure. If she is, we weren’t notified or I don’t know about it. But this family treats her like she is.”

“Why, mom?” Darlene chewed the inside of her cheek and looked at the sky again. After drawing a deep breath and exhaling with exasperated force, she replied, changing the subject from the present. Darlene picked up a photo of a woman swinging from the mast of a sailboat. The sun was on her face and radiated from the big smile that graced her face.

Kira watched as her mother pressed two fingers to her lips and then placed them on the women’s face in the photo. “This photo epitomizes the free spirit of your aunt. She was so bold and inspiring. She was my little sister, and I looked up to her, admired her, and wanted to be that brave. In the end, I was a coward and I lost my best friend because of it.” Kira could see the anguish on her mom’s face and went through more of “THE box’s” contents while her mother regained her composure.

Colby Tidwell Takes Hawaiian Iron Woman Race

Local Woman, Colby Tidwell, to Receive Medal of Honor

Women’s Football League MVP Winner Colby Tidwell, Grateful, Humble

The Tidwell smile and the mirth-filled eyes of Colby accompanied every headline. Fascination followed by devastation hit Kira. She had never gotten to know this accomplished woman from her own family.

“So again, mom, why does Aunt Colby never come to visit? Or why don’t we go to her?” Kira watched her mother’s changing body language and facial expressions with suspicion and curiosity.

“The one woman who loved her more than anyone in the world collected the items and put them in that box. There are elements missing that were the catalyst that caused the rift, things that wouldn’t have had tangible proof to store as physical evidence.

“Did G-ma keep all of this?” Kira inquired about Gloria, her grandmother, Colby and Darlene’s mother.

“Not your grandmother, noooo. I don’t know if she knew the box was in her possession.”

“Who? And how did it end up at grandma’s?” Kira pressed, her mouth becoming a thin line as she tried to think of whom else in their family would have taken the time to box up the life of a person no one in the family ever spoke of.

Chapter 3

Kira slid closer to Darlene, the picnic table allowing her to scoot close to her mom and try to comfort her. She put her arm around her mom’s shoulders; she leaned her head toward her Darlene’s until their heads touched.

“Mom, to you I am still your baby, your little girl but I am so much more now. I can be your friend too. You don’t have to tell me, but you need to talk to someone because this all sounds really fucked up. Does it ever mess with your head?”

“Language.” Her mother said without conviction. They sat that way, drawing strength and empathy from each other until her mother gave a small but audible sigh and announced with a slap on Kira’s thigh that she had come to a decision.

“Alright, let’s go through the good stuff first.” Picking up the stack of photos, she pointed to the first one. One of her Iron Woman competitions. “She was fearless! Especially with physical stuff. No matter the sport, she could excel. From the time you were five we knew you had her athletic abilities. The Marines recruited her out of high school. Gave her a four-year scholarship and sent her to the Naval Academy after she graduated from MIT. She never had less than a 4.0 GPA” Darlene stopped to pour some tea from a pitcher they brought out to share. The old Tupperware glasses filled with ice reminded her of her mother. Each tumbler was a different color. A truly brilliant idea in its time.

“Was she like super smart? Like Sheldon smart?” Kira asked. Darlene giggled at Kira’s reference to the popular sitcom.

“She was real life smart too though. I know very little about her work — it was all classified — but she designed specialized equipment for the government. In school, she was always the best. Dual major. And she was a doctor. She wanted to design medical equipment that would take us into Star Trek‑level medicine.”

She laughed softly. “I had zero doubt she’d do it someday.”

“I see nothing in these clippings or awards about her discharge from the military. Does she still serve?” Kira continued, looking through items for clues.

“No. The uh, defecation hit the rotary oscillator while she was serving in Africa and the Middle East.” Kira raised her eyebrows and rapped her knuckles on the table. “C’mon mom.” Kira whined in her best pouty voice. Darlene rolled her eyes.

“That box was put together by the person that loved your aunt more than anyone in the world and the person who Colby chose over family. And I don’t even know her name. When I saw it today, I thought Colby was dead and no one told us. But looking through this, it is all her past before I made her choose.”

“WAIT! What? Why?” Kira couldn’t believe her ears. Why would Colby need to choose between a person and her family?

Chapter 4

Kira waited. Her mother’s silence had changed — no longer grief‑thick, but heavy in a different way and Kira didn’t like the way it made her stomach drop.

Darlene rubbed her palms on her jeans, the way she did when she was about to confess something she’d avoided for years. She picked up a photo — Colby in her Marine dress blues, chin lifted, eyes bright with mischief — and held it like it burned.

“She didn’t choose a person over the family,” Darlene said finally. Her voice was thin, papery. “She chose a person over me.”

Kira blinked. “What do you mean?”

Darlene swallowed hard. “I was the one who made her choose.”

The words hit the table like a dropped plate. Kira felt the crack ripple through the air.

Darlene kept going, as if stopping would shatter her nerve.

“She came home out of the blue. Usually, she called a week or so ahead to let us know when she could visit. This time… nothing. No warning. We knew she was on assignment all over the world — Afghanistan, and a lot of lesser‑known countries the U.S. had conflicts with back then.”

“What years?”

“The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell years.”

Darlene’s voice thinned even more. “When she came home, it was with a dishonorable discharge. And the woman she was discharged with — or because of, I’m not sure. But I could tell she loved her. That was… breathtaking. To see that kind of devotion between two people.”

Her voice broke. Kira rubbed her back, her hazel eyes — so much like her mother’s — soft with concern. She didn’t push. She just comforted her the way Darlene had comforted her as a child: steady hand, healing touch.

When Darlene finally looked up, her eyes were red and puffy. Her next words came with the kind of strength only brutal honesty can summon.

“I stood there and watched as your grandfather beat my sister and the woman she was with. I watched until I couldn’t anymore and… I turned away. Your grandmother pulled him off and told them to leave. Colby asked me to drive them to the hospital because her eyes were swelling shut.”

Kira’s breath caught. “So what happened?”

“What happened,” Darlene whispered, “is that I was a coward.”

She pressed her fingers to her eyes, but the tears still slipped through.

“I told her the family would never accept it. That she’d ruin everything. That she needed to choose between us and… and that woman.” Her voice cracked. “I thought I was protecting her. Protecting all of us. But really, I was protecting myself. My comfort. My place in the family. My fear of being judged.”

Kira felt her chest tighten, a slow, painful squeeze.

“Mom…”

“She looked at me,” Darlene said, staring at the photo as if the memory were reflected in it. “And she said, ‘I won’t choose shame over love.’ And she left. And she never came back.”

The backyard went still. Even the birds seemed to hold their breath.

Kira’s voice was barely audible. “So, you didn’t lose her. You pushed her out.”

Darlene flinched — a small, honest wince that told Kira she’d hit the truth dead‑on.

“Yes,” Darlene whispered. “I did.”

Kira didn’t pull away. The truth sat between them — raw, agonizing, necessary.

After the charged air settled like dust, she reached out and took her mother’s hand.

“Let’s stop acting like she’s dead. She exists, and she deserves to be acknowledged, Momma.”

Darlene couldn’t remember the last time Kira called her Momma.

“Let’s start by saying her name,” Kira said, her voice steady with encouragement.

Darlene looked at her daughter — really looked — and something in her face shifted. Not relief. Not forgiveness. But the first fragile flicker of courage.

“Colby,” she said, voice trembling. “Her name is Colby.”

Kira squeezed her hand.

“And she’s still your sister.”

Darlene nodded, tears slipping freely now.

“She is my sister,” she said, louder this time. She pounded her hand against her chest. “MY SISTER!”

Kira reached into the box, pulled out the photo of Colby swinging from the mast of the sailboat — sun on her face, joy radiating from her smile — and stood.

“My Aunt Colby belongs on the mantle with the rest of the Tidwells.”

Inside, she placed the photo on the living‑room mantle. Darlene stood beside her, shoulders shaking, but she didn’t look away. Tears filled her eyes but didn’t spill over.

“Mom, let’s make Aunt Colby a promise right here, right now.”

Kira lifted her phone and waggled it. “This is a beginning. We’re going to find Aunt Colby — and wherever she is, we’re going there.”

“You are just as stubborn as her so we should get started.” Darlene hugged Kira and felt in her bones a missing piece of her soul would soon be restored.