After Ninety-Nine Lies, My Husband Finally Told Me the Truth novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Lie Ledger
At their fifth anniversary dinner Anders hands Cora a notebook of her ninety-nine lies and says she needs medication. She walks out and finds entry ninety-nine names the clinic she told no one about.
On our fifth anniversary, my husband gave me a notebook in front of fourteen people.
We were at the long table in his mother's lake house, the one set with the good plates.
Anders had barely spoken all night, which was normal for him.
He sat at the head, with his sister Signe on his left and me on his right.
Signe had been lovely all evening.
She had walked into my kitchen that morning with a pie and stayed an hour to dry my dishes.
She had told me I looked tired and made me sit.
Now she reached into her big canvas tote bag and took out a leather notebook with a rubber band around it.
She set it beside Anders's plate before he had touched his fork.
"Go on," she said gently. "Before the pie."
Anders picked it up and held it a moment.
Then he slid it across the tablecloth to me.
The front said, in his square handwriting: THE LIE LEDGER.
"Happy anniversary, Cora," he said.
Nobody laughed.
His mother, Margit, sat straight in her chair at the far end and looked at her plate.
The family doctor, a man I had met twice, looked at his hands.
"What is this?" I asked.
"Ninety-nine times in five years," Anders said, "you told me something that wasn't true."
He said it flatly, to the candle between us.
"I wrote down every one. I wanted you to see it."
My face went hot.
"Anders, I don't lie to you."
"You do," he said. "You can't stop. It's the worst thing about you."
The man from the boatyard office put down his glass.
Somebody's chair creaked.
"I've talked to the doctor," Anders said, and the doctor gave one small nod. "You're starting medication Monday. It's already arranged."
I looked at the doctor.
He wouldn't look at me.
"Read the first page out loud," Signe said, and laid her hand over mine. "Please, Cora. It'll help to hear it. Nobody here is angry."
Her hand was warm.
I wanted to believe her.
I pulled the rubber band off and opened the notebook.
The first page was in blue ink, numbered down the margin, with a date beside every line.
It was all small neat capitals, which I took for his.
I read the first entry in a voice that didn't sound like mine.
"March ninth, year one. Told Anders she had finished the tax forms. She had not."
I stopped.
I had done those forms myself, at the kitchen table, with a pot of coffee and a calculator.
I had put the envelope in the mailbox.
"I did them," I said.
"You see?" Signe said softly, to the table. "She believes it."
Somebody coughed.
I turned the page.
There was another entry. Then another.
The third said I had told him I was working a double shift, when I had been at a movie.
I had never been to a movie without him in my life.
I looked up the table, at the faces I had cooked for every Christmas.
Margit had her hand pressed flat over her mouth.
Anders was watching me.
I waited for him to say it was a joke.
He didn't.
His face gave me nothing at all.
I closed the notebook.
I stood up, and the chair scraped.
"Cora," Signe said. "Sit down, honey. Please."
"No."
I put my napkin on the plate.
"Happy anniversary," I said.
So I walked out.
I took the notebook with me.
Behind me nobody said a word, and nobody followed.
Outside the air was cold and smelled of the lake.
In the driveway Anders's hand caught my back for one second as I went past.
It was the only warm thing that happened to me that night.
He let go.
I got into my truck and shut the door.
The ledger lay on the passenger seat.
I turned on the dome light and opened it to the last page, to see how it ended.
The final entry was numbered ninety-nine, and it was dated Tuesday of this week.
"Told Anders she was at the library. She was at the Lakeview Women's Clinic."
I read it three times.
I had been at the clinic on Tuesday, in a paper gown and then in a chair, while a nurse said congratulations.
I hadn't told one person.
I had not even told Anders.
The appointment card was in the drawer by my stove, where I had put it Tuesday night.
This morning I had sat at my own table, like Signe told me to, while she dried my dishes alone in my kitchen.
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