"The Truth As We Know It" by Rebecca Dueben

Would you lie to protect your child from punishment?

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The Truth As We Know It by Rebecca Dueben

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Celia had just finished prepping meals for the week when she first heard the sound. She was stacking entrees in the fridge for the coming week. A mountain of dishes slid into the sink. She was wearing her apron, the one she always wore, over her standard T-shirt and jeans. She’d pulled her hair into a ponytail leaving a pouf of bangs on her forehead, the same style she’d worn since childhood. She was surveying the work yet to be done when she heard the noise from the living room.

The house should have been silent, save her pan rattling in the kitchen and her murder mystery podcast. One show had ended before the next automatically began as she looked around the kitchen. In that momentary void, she distinctly heard a noise. She paused the podcast and walked in the sound’s direction but struggled to see into the living room. A storm had been gathering all morning. Clouds half-enshrouded the sun, throwing long and strange shadows across the unlit room.

“Hello?” she called into the space. She heard a sniffle and caught a movement just out of the corner of her eye. “Theo?” she said, and then she saw her son, pushing his way into the corner of the living room by the large picture window as if he hoped to disappear into the wallpaper or sink into the carpet.

Celia loved him for all of his eccentricities, but she couldn’t protect him from his peers’ rejection. At eleven years old—almost twelve now—he was pudgy. Shorter than even the smallest girls in his class, he emanated an irresistible feminine beauty. His hair was midnight black and his skin was the olive tone of Celia’s family. His chocolate eyes were surrounded by thick, long eyelashes. He lived in his own world, too. He danced as he walked to music no one else could hear. When he concentrated hard, he spoke aloud to people who were not there, and he carried his journal with him everywhere he went. At school, they called him a variety of names, all of which questioned his sexuality, made fun of his size, and were intended to humiliate him. None of that, however, explained why he was now shrinking into the corner of the living room.

“What’s wrong, hon?” Celia lowered herself to her knees to look him in the eye. His thin T-shirt was filthy. Tears and snot streaked his face. He was hot, sweating even, but he was shivering, too. He sucked his bottom lip in repeatedly.

Celia glanced outside. They had two vehicles, the SUV they used for driving around town, and her husband’s pickup truck, often used for more manly adventures, like helping friends move, hauling firewood, or in this case, going fishing with her son. She had been married to Jason for six years, and in that time, he had made it his mission to help Theo become more masculine. The fishing trip this morning was one more effort in a long line of Jason’s attempts.

The SUV sat in the driveway but the truck was gone. “How did you get back here?” Celia asked.

“I w-walked,” Theo said.

“All the way from Miller’s Pond?” None of this was making sense. When he didn’t answer, Celia asked, “Where’s Jason?”

It wasn’t particularly unusual for Theo to be quiet. He had a way of disassociating when things got rough. He had learned the technique from her. Celia’s childhood was a troubling series of abuses. When she was five, she learned to take a shelf out of her wardrobe so she could fold herself into the bottom and close the door. There, in the cedary darkness, she created fantasies of happy families, or even abusive families but who eventually found their happiness and loving kindness toward each other. If she focused on her imagination intently, the blows her father inflicted against her mother seemed far away and less real than the story she made up.

Clearly, Theo was disassociating now. “Hey buddy.” She took him by his ample shoulders and gave him a light shake. “I need you to come back now, baby.” But his gaze went through her and a shudder racked his body. “I need to know where Jason is, Theo. Look at me.” She took his cheeks between her forefinger and thumb and forced his head in her direction. “Theo.” His eyes came softly into focus and looked into hers. Immediately he started crying again.

Jason and Theo had a difficult relationship. Jason’s intention to make a man out of Theo contrasted with Theo’s desire to avoid conflict. When Jason mocked him, Theo typically shut down. Once, Theo was helping Jason move concrete blocks. Celia watched from indoors as Theo staggered with each block he hefted. He moved one block after another, without complaint, until he was exhausted. He lifted one more block. He half-groaned and half-whined as he did so. Jason mimicked the noise.

“Ah, what’s the matter? Is that block too heavy for you, chunky boy?” Jason called Theo “Chunky,” and sometimes brought Theo a candy bar of that same name. Even though Theo was embarrassed, he’d take the candy bar and eat it.