Empire of Lies

TUESDAY
Breakfast with Serena

I was in the kitchen making coffee when Serena stumbled in. Gray, small, and uncertain, she stood wavering in the doorway to the garage. Her narrow shoulders were hunched. Her face was screwed up painfully against the morning light. Her party dress hung on her like a wrinkled pink rag.

"You remember where the bathroom is?" I asked her.

She nodded weakly and shuffled across the room and off down the hall.

I set the coffeemaker going. Got some eggs and bread, butter and milk out of the refrigerator. Set them on the counter by the sink. I could see the backyard out of the window as I worked. It was a beautiful blue autumn day, the oaks red, the elm trees yellow, the rolling grass pale green. I had the window cracked open a little, and the cool air came to me. The smell of the dying leaves made my heart ache for the past. I used to play tag with my friends on that stretch of grass beneath the trees. My mother would stand right where I was now, making lunch, washing dishes, watching me.

"I can't find my purse."

Serena was back from the bathroom, even more hunched, even more gray than before. Water glistened on her cheeks, dripping from the curlicues of brown hair around her ears.

"I brought it in from the car," I said. "Your shoes, too. They're over there."

I gestured at the breakfast nook, one corner of the kitchen where a small rectangular table sat surrounded by four white wooden chairs. Her purse was on the table. Her shoes-open-toed straps with pointy little heels-were on the floor.

"Sit down," I said. "I'll make us some breakfast."

"Can't eat," she said. But she plopped down on one of the chairs.

"Eggs'll make you feel better. Also, they're the only things I know how to cook."

"Need some fucking coffee."

"It's almost done."

Still at the counter, I cracked the eggs into a bowl and used a fork to stir them up with milk. Standing there like that, I could see her out of the corner of my eye. She was in the midst of pulling this whole big complicated sneak maneuver, sort of rubbing her face and massaging her forehead with one hand as a way of hiding the fact that at the same time she was opening her little pink purse on her lap with the other hand and sneaking a look down into it.

"I didn't steal anything, Serena," I said with a laugh. "I didn't even open it."

She made that fish-frown teenaged girls make when you catch them at something, chin pulled back, upper lip jutting defiantly. She snapped the purse shut and tossed it onto the chair next to her. She held her head in her hands, rubbed her temples. Then she noticed a sheet of paper lying on the table: it was a draft of a flyer my Realtor was preparing for the house. She picked it up and studied it sullenly.

"Is this where we are? Long Island?"

"Mm-hmm. It's a house I own. It belonged to my mother."

She tossed the page aside without interest. "I need to get back to the city."

"Have some eggs first."

"I don't want any. I don't feel well."

I managed not to say anything snarky.

"Look, you don't have to play out this whole big, like, breakfast scenario," she said. "I said I'd blow you, I'll blow you. Only let's just do it, all right? I have to get back."

I laughed, shaking my head. "Thanks, but no thanks."

"Why not?" she shot back nastily. "What, are you, gay?"

"Oh, now you've rattled my sense of manhood to its depths," I said. "Have some coffee."

The machine was gurgling out the last drops of water. I took the carafe and slopped a dollop of coffee into a mug, plunked the mug in front of her. She did a real job on it, dumping as much milk into it as there was coffee and even more sugar. She was just a little girl, see, pretending to enjoy a grown-up drink. It was kind of sad, when you thought about it. Even when she was finished doctoring it, she didn't actually drink any of it, not right away. She just wrapped herself around the mug and inhaled the healing fumes.

I went to the stove and got to work making toast and cooking eggs. Now my back was to her.

"You remember who I am?" I asked her.

Her voice came sullenly from behind me. "A friend of my mother's, or something. I don't know."

"My name is Jason Harrow."

I was using my fork to scramble the sizzling eggs in the pan when I heard her say: "Hey. Yeah. My mother told me about you."

I was glad she couldn't see my face. This wasn't going to be good. I reminded myself to stay cool and patient, just like I did with my own kids. "Oh, yeah?" I said. "What'd she tell you?"

"She said you and her were together for a while. I remember now! She said you were into this whole, like, BDSM scene together. Only you got freaked out by it, so you moved to the middle of nowhere and went on this whole religion trip. She says you're, like, some right-wing Christian asshole now."

I laughed again-what could I do but laugh? I worked the eggs. "My life story in a nutshell."

"Man, that is so fucked up."

"That's true," I said with a sigh. "It was."

But I had misunderstood her. "I mean, you're, like, a Christian?"

I was scraping the eggs onto a couple of plates now. Shaking my head, smiling. "Oh. That. Yes. I am."

"That's some really fucked-up shit."

I grabbed the toast from the toaster, slapped butter on it.

"I had this teacher once? Mr. Benson?" said Serena-as if she were asking questions instead of trying to start an argument. "He says if people didn't call Christianity a religion, it would be classified as a mental illness."

That got another laugh out of me, louder this time.

"I mean, like, you believe people, like, rise from the dead and go to Heaven and do miracles and all this shit."

"It's not for sissies, that's for sure."

"And, like, no one can have sex with anyone else or whatever."

"Right. No sex. That's how we get our magical powers."

I set a plate in front of her and one for myself. I poured myself a mug of coffee and sat down with her. I said a silent grace.

"All that stick-up-your-ass shit, it just makes everyone, like, crazy, you know?" Serena said. "I think anyone should be able to, like, fuck anybody they want to-it's no one's business."

"Uh-huh. And how's that philosophy working out for you?"

She had lifted her coffee mug to her lips with both hands and was just taking her first actual sip from it when I asked her that. The question caught her off guard. She laughed. The coffee went up into her nose. She set the cup down, coughing.

That was the first time I liked her, liked anything about her. I liked her for laughing at that, for realizing how miserable she was making herself and being savvy enough to laugh. It was the first I'd felt anything for her besides pity and guilt and maybe disgust. I laughed, too.

But that made her angry-angry, you know, at having given so much of herself away. So she did that wonderful thing children do when they've unintentionally revealed their feelings: She pretended it hadn't happened, as if she could simply talk me out of having seen it.

"Would you stop laughing at me all the time?" she snapped. She yanked at her nose where the coffee had come out. "I mean it. It's so fucking rude. You laugh at, like, everything I say."

"You say funny things. I can't help it. They make me laugh."

"It's like you don't take anything I say seriously. It's really fucking rude. How would you like it?"

I was eating now, and I went on eating.

"Well? How would you?"

"You can laugh at me all you like, Serena. Then we'll be even. How's that?"

She withdrew to the sidelines, grumpy and dissatisfied. So far, I was ahead on points, see. But, to tell the truth, it was easy to beat her at this game. I had a big advantage. I was a dad, and she'd never had a dad, not really. I understood the rules, and she didn't have a clue. In order to win, you had to be clear about what you wanted. I wanted information, enough information to figure out what was going on in her life, what my responsibilities were, what I should do next. She thought she knew what she wanted, but in fact she didn't. She thought she wanted to outsmart me and make me look foolish and then get away from me and go brag about it to her friends. What she really wanted, of course, was for a grown-up to take charge of her and help her out of whatever jam she was in. She was working against herself and never had a chance.

I went on eating, but I watched her, too. I could see her thinking, scheming-looking for a new line of attack because she hadn't been able to get a rise out of me yet. That's what teenagers do, you know, they probe for weaknesses. They're smart enough to see the world is not what it seems, smart enough to see that we adults are all liars and hypocrites and so on, but they're not wise enough to know what to do with the information. All they can figure is to use their new insight as a weapon, a way of short-circuiting the power of the big people: You lied so I don't have to listen to what you say; you've done wrong so you have no authority. It's an idiot's game but they're young and it's all they know. Hell, some people never learn anything else.

Serena picked up a piece of toast. She examined it suspiciously as she thought things through. She nibbled at it, very delicate, very girly. There was another thing I could like about her. I approve of girly-especially in girls. Maybe she had enough woman inside her to make a lady out of, if anyone ever took the trouble. You never knew.

The next minute, though, I saw a wicked look come into her eyes, a sly smile to her lips. I could tell she'd come up with a new way to get at me.

"I remember something else my mother told me about you," she said.

"Oh, yeah?" I said around a mouthful of eggs. "What's that?"

"She said you might be my father."

I raised an eyebrow. That was interesting: might be-only might be. It'd be a hell of a relief if she turned out to be Carl's kid, after all. I tried not to sound too eager. "What else did she say?"

"She said she started fucking Carl right after you left, and she wasn't sure whose I was. She was gonna get me tested, but I wouldn't let her."

"Why not?"

"I thought she just said it 'cause she didn't like that I, you know, didn't hate Carl as much as she did."

I nodded. Smart girl.

"So do you think you're my father?" she asked, naughty and wheedling, looking for that weakness.

"I honestly don't know, Serena."

"Is that why you don't want to do anything with me?"

"I'm having breakfast with you. Doesn't that count?"

"I mean sex stuff."

"Oh." I dabbed at my mouth with one of the paper towels we were using for napkins. "I guess. That and the fact that I'm married and you're a child."

"I'm sixteen."

I'm afraid I smirked a bit at that.

She returned to the attack. "Like, is that why you're here? You think you're my father and you're gonna, like, swoop down suddenly and save me from my life. You're gonna, like, bring me to Jesus."

"I, like, might." I laughed. "You better be careful. Before you know it, you'll be singing hallelujah, handling snakes, God knows what else."

"Yeah. Like fat fucking Chinese chance. Y'know?" She reached down for her shoes. Slipped them on her feet. "Look, I gotta get back to the city," she said. She stood up. She took hold of her purse. "Are you gonna drive me, or do I have to hitchhike?"

I give myself some credit here. It would've been a lot easier to just let her go. Let her go and forget about her. Then I could've finished up with the Realtor, cleaned out the house, put it on the market and gone home, back to the Hill. I could've walked away from this, from all of it, even from the End of Civilization as We Know It. I mean, what was that to me?

But the thing is, when you take charge of someone, you take responsibility for her, too. If I've learned nothing else in life, I've learned that. So I took a sizable chomp out of a piece of toast. And chewing on the mouthful, I said, "Why don't you sit down, Serena."

"I gotta go," she insisted.

"Sit down," I insisted back.

She snorted with scorn. "Yeah, right. Like you're gonna make me? I didn't think so. 'Bye."

"Sit down. Right now."

"Oh? Or, like, what? You'll spank me? I know you're into all that sick shit."

I cracked up. I dropped my forehead into my hand, laughing. Kids. "For crying out loud, Serena. Would you sit down, please?"

"Stop laughing at me, God damn it! All right, that's it! I'll hitchhike."

She started to flounce off. I sighed. I reached out from my seat and grabbed hold of her arm. It was so thin, my thumb touched my knuckles.

"Let go of me!" She yanked away violently. I let her go and she stumbled back a step. "You fucking pervert."

I stood up, towered over her, blocked her way. "Sit. Down. Now. I'm not kidding."

Her eyes moved to the door. She thought of trying to rush past me. Then she thought better of it: She wouldn't have made it. She gave me her angry teenaged fish frown-she waggled it up at me.

"This is, like, kidnapping, you know. You could, like, go to jail for this."

"Call the police then."

She started, and her face went blank as if a little shock had gone through her. I seized the moment. I grabbed the purse out of her hand.

"Give that back!" she said, but weakly.

I snapped the purse open. I dug out her cell phone. I tossed the purse on the table. Held the phone out at her.

"Call them," I said. "Tell them you're being kidnapped. Call 911. Go ahead. I'll wait."

For once, she couldn't think of anything to say. No childish taunts, no naive threats, no ignorant arguments. The whole teen arsenal was shot. Her pale face trembled; her eyes pleaded and grew damp.

"Now sit down, Serena," I said. "I'm not going to tell you again."

She sank slowly, resentfully, back into her chair. I stood above her, looking down at the top of her head. I could see her white scalp through the part in her dark hair. It made her seem very vulnerable somehow. I felt for her.

"Now who got killed?" I asked.

She looked up suddenly, shocked and terrified.

"Last night," I said. "You said you didn't know they would kill him. Who were you talking about?"

She lied in answer without any hope that I'd believe her. She let her head sink again, her gaze on the table. She didn't even bother to meet my eyes. "I didn't say… I don't remember saying anything like that."

I opened her phone. I laid it down open on the table in front of her, right under her nose. I pressed the numbers. As I pressed them, they showed up on the readout screen, large and bright. 9.1.1. I held my finger over the CALL button.

"Let me explain how this works," I said. "I'm the grown-up. You're the child. When I tell you to do something, you do it. All right? Now let's give it a try. Answer my question, Serena. Who got killed?"

She didn't answer. I heard her swallow.

I pressed the CALL button.

Her two hands fluttered out together. They seized the phone and snapped it shut. Her head sunk down, she clutched the phone close to her belly as if she were afraid I'd snatch it away again.

"If you call the police, they'll know," she said softly. "They'll know it was me."

"Who'll know?"

"The people. The people who… did it. They have guys who listen. To the radios. They can get into the computers, too. They'll know if the police find out. They'll know it was me who told them. There's no one else it could be."

She lifted her face to me then, her little-girl face, helpless and sick and pleading. I looked down at her and my heart just sank-it felt like a stone inside me dropping into a well of fathomless darkness.

I could see it now. I couldn't see it last night, but now in the morning light it was obvious. I could see the resemblance between us. I was certain she was mine.

"If you call the police," she said very quietly, "these people-they'll know. They'll know and they'll kill me, too."

Then, crying, she told me her story.