Bodyguard of Lies

CHAPTER 26

Lunch was pretty much symbolic as neither woman could muster up much of an appetite. Neeley toyed with the fruit tart on her plate and tried to get past all that had happened in the park.

“Who do you think the man was?” she asked Hannah.

“I don’t know,” Hannah admitted, her thoughts elsewhere.

“If he was from the Cellar why didn’t they stop us in Atlanta? Or have someone waiting when we got off the plane?”

“Good questions,” Hannah said. “I need more data before I can give you an answer.”

“’More data’?”

“More information,” Hannah said. “We’re behind on the old information curve here.”

“’Information curve’?”

Hannah stared at Neeley. "Do you have a problem with me? I’m doing the best I can.”

Neeley backtracked. "I'm sorry. Let's not get into anything right now or right here.”

"No, Neeley, I've listened to your story and while parts of it horrify and even anger me, it is not what I see in front of me now. And I don’t know for sure what you see in me but I don’t think you know enough. Everything in your past put you in a place where you chose to save my life. So it couldn’t have been all bad."

Neeley put her napkin on the table. "We need to go."

"No." The retort was harsh enough that Neeley dropped obediently back onto her chair.

Hannah's voice was cold. "I have a story to tell, too. One I've never told before because my first foster parents warned me that no good could come from anyone knowing my past. They were simple, ignorant people who didn't know any better, but I was an obedient child who became an obedient adult.

"In the past few days I've realized my entire life has been dominated by only one desire: I wanted no shit in my life. That was important to me because as a young child, shit was all there was. Well, given the fact that we just killed some man over a piece of paper, I would say I now have plenty of shit in my life, so the old rules don't apply anymore."

Hannah's words were coming out steady and the tone brooked no interruption. "My parents didn't die in a simple car crash even though I've told the lie so often that it seems more real to me than the truth.

"I was six the night my parents died. My mother woke me up to go the sheriff's office to pick up my father. He was drunk as usual and he had been arrested in a bar fight. My only real memory of her is the smell of her cream and the varying hue of her bruises. I guess she was pretty hopeless. She had no one but my father.

"That night I sat in the backseat in my cotton nightie and asked him what had happened. He reached back and slapped me so hard my head hit the side window. Then he passed out and my mother started the drive home.

"We drove for a long time, much longer than it should have taken. She talked, but my head hurt and I didn't understand a lot of what she said. I finally fell asleep and I don't know what happened to my mother's mind then. When I awoke, it was to a huge thundering noise and a glaring light.

"I sat up and shouted for my Momma and she turned and grabbed my hand and held me. The noise was so loud I couldn't hear her at first and then she shouted 'Forgive me' and her hand was torn out of mine.”

Neeley was perfectly still listening to Hannah’s quiet voice. The noise of the restaurant had faded to a distant murmur.

"That was all I remembered,” Hannah continued. "In the hospital everyone whispered dreadful accident and what a miracle for such a small child to survive. But I knew my mother was waiting for the train and the only accident was that the car had sheared in half rather than crumpling into a pile of jagged metal. I was barely injured. My parents were destroyed."

Neeley stared at Hannah, not quite wanting to believe her but knowing it was true. "Oh my God, Hannah. Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Because now you'll understand the end of the story. Nothing from that night, the train, the hospital, nothing was as bad as months later when I tried to explain to my first foster mother what had happened. The look on her face when I told her of my mother's holding me in that car was terrible. That was the worst.

"I swore that no one would ever look on me with such appalled pity again. But we both know that was an empty promise."

“Why would I know that?"

Hannah signaled the waiter for the check. "Because you've been motivated by pity since you first discovered what a sham my marriage and my life were and how screwed I was that John had left me in the hole he did."

Neeley held up a hand in protest. "I never meant that. I think you've been incredibly strong and I wouldn't have made it without your help. I don't pity you."

Hannah put a fistful of francs on the table with the careless American gesture that signals your money means nothing to me. "I didn't say you pitied me. I said you were motivated by pity. The pity is for you. Really it's for the you in that airport holding a bomb and knowing Jean-Philippe didn't give a shit about you."

Hannah wasn’t done. “I learned some things over the years from those women you listened to at the golf course — my bitch brigade. I bet you ten-to-one your Jean-Philippe could hand you that bomb and kiss you good-bye because he had someone else ready and waiting to take your place. That’s the way men are.”

Neeley's hands were clenching into fists and she dropped them into her lap as if they were untrustworthy and could at any moment cause her acute embarrassment. "Why did you tell me your story now?"

Hannah pushed her friend into the beautiful spring afternoon. "Because I know betrayal too. But I know something you don't. Sometimes betrayal is the only love left. Remember that."