They Thought I Was Asleep, So I Let Them Keep Lying novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Couch
On the night of the funeral Kate fakes sleep to be alone, hears her mother's two tenants say she won't know if they touch her, and decides to let them.
The last casserole left my mother's house at ten, and my uncle's sale notice was still on the kitchen counter.
My uncle had tucked it under the fruit bowl so it wouldn't blow off, and written "Call me when you're ready" on the corner.
I had read it twice during the funeral lunch, standing by the sink with a paper plate.
He had signed it with a fountain pen, the way he signed every Christmas card.
It said my mother's house would be listed Monday week, to settle a debt she had never mentioned to me.
I folded it small and put it in the pocket of my funeral dress.
Then I stopped, because my mother's two tenants were watching me from the kitchen doorway.
Cal Brennan and Devin DeWitt had rented the garage apartment out back for three years.
They had done every dish in the house that afternoon, and they had been the only people in the room who didn't tell me she was in a better place.
Bev from the diner had left a pie on the counter and gone home crying, and they had put it in the fridge without being asked.
"Go lie down, Kate," Cal said. "Devin and I will lock up."
"I'm fine."
"You've been standing for fourteen hours," Devin said. "Please sit."
I sat on the long brown couch in the front room, because my old bedroom upstairs had my mother's sweaters stacked on the bed.
I didn't want to sleep.
I wanted every person in that house to stop talking to me.
So I pulled the afghan over my legs, turned my face into the cushion, and shut my eyes.
I snore.
My mother liked to say I could sleep through a marching band and keep time with my nose.
That night I made my breathing small and even, so nobody would hear it and think I wanted company.
I heard the dishwasher start.
I heard the back door lock, and the lamp by the stairs click off, and then two sets of boots come slowly down the hall.
They stopped by the couch.
"She went out fast," Cal said quietly.
"She's been awake since Tuesday," Devin said.
I heard Cal move closer.
I heard him check his watch, and I heard him bend down, close enough that I could smell the soap on his hands.
I kept still.
"Joan used to say a marching band couldn't wake her," Cal said.
"She did say that."
"So we just..." Devin stopped.
He tried again. "Cal, is this okay? It feels wrong."
"She's asleep," Cal said. "She won't know. We'll be careful. We touch her a little, that's all, and see what she's like."
"That's all."
"That's all. We're not going to do anything."
I knew he was lying.
I could hear it in his voice, the hunger he was trying to keep flat.
It was a thin excuse, and it sounded thin even to him.
For two weeks, since the call from the hospice, everyone had touched me gently and told me to be strong.
Nobody had touched me like they wanted something.
And God help me, I wanted Cal to keep lying.
His fingers came down on my hair first.
They moved along the side of my head, slow, and I held my breath in small sips.
"See?" Cal whispered. "She doesn't even stir."
"Her hand is cold," Devin said.
He had picked it up from the afghan.
His thumb pressed into my palm, carefully.
It was his job to check pulses.
Mine was going so fast I was sure he'd count it and know.
He said nothing.
He turned my hand over and laid his mouth against the inside of my wrist, just for a second.
My whole arm lit up.
Cal's hand slid down from my hair to my shoulder, over the black dress, and stopped at my collarbone.
"We shouldn't," Devin said.
His voice was rough.
"You can stop," Cal said. "Go ahead. Go upstairs."
Devin didn't go.
I lay there with Uncle Dale's notice crackling in my pocket, with the house about to be sold out from under me and my mother in the ground since noon.
I could have opened my eyes.
I could have said both their names, and it would have ended, and I would have been alone in the dark again.
I thought about that for exactly as long as it took Cal's hand to find my ankle under the afghan.
So I kept my eyes shut, and let them.
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