Chapter Thirteen: A Pretty Lie

Reality is a soft, blurred dream. Some people think reality is harsh, but it's worse inside my head, so I try my best to stay awake. I cooperate with the expensive lawyers Kenneth and Berland hire, and they pat my hand and tell me not to worry. Berland isn't a criminal attorney, but he has a lot of friends, and they all line up for me. The lure of Kenneth's money is irresistible, as is the fame of defending his daughter in a widely publicized trial.

There are reporters who flash their microphones, such a terrible crush of them, and I cry out. It's so bright that I can hardly see, and later, when I get the rare chance to steal a newspaper, I glimpse myself splashed over the front page.

The woman is standing there, with a dazed look on her face. She's wearing her best black coat and a conservative outfit. Her long hair is whipping in the wind. If you study the picture more closely, there are tears in her eyes. The shallow part of me thinks that she's beautiful, and then I realize it's me.

The bold headline "TYCOON'S DAUGHTER IN JAIL!" screams above the picture. The article goes on to report that Yukiko Sato, the next-door neighbor, heard a commotion and called the police. I always knew she was untrustworthy, and now she has proven it. My eyes skim various details: Mrs. Wyman murdering her brother, the police saying she was highly agitated, the removal of the body...

I drop the newspaper in shock. It isn't true, but whenever I visualize that horrible night Charles went away, it gives me such a headache.

He's never stayed away so long, though, and it worries me. I asked Kenneth and Berland where he was, and they wouldn't tell me. Kenneth broke down in tears. He buried his face into his hands and sobbed. "My God, Cassandra. What have I done?" he manages to say before Berland ushered him out of the room.

It's always Berland who visits me now. He refuses to bring Kenneth along, and when I ask for Clara, he turns a deaf ear to my request. All he will say is that she is with her mother, and I know that means he has her watched.

Since I'm out on bail, I'm back living at the Davidson manor, in the very same suite I had as a child, but my only saving grace is that Hilda Sterns doesn't want to supervise me anymore. She says I tried to kill her once. Old bat. I should have tried twice.

There are so many memories suffocating this room. When I close my eyes and lay on my side, I remember hands on me, always stroking and touching. My skin quivers from the ghostly feel, and when I open my eyes, I realize I'm alone. Sometimes I hear Charles's voice, a distant echo of his tenderness, the stories he would tell me at night time. He held me when I crawled into his bed, trembling from nightmares. But when I hold myself now, it's no good.

I can't fall apart, though. People want so many things from me, so many questions and answers and puzzles. "Why did you do this?" and "Why did you do that?" They ask, ask, ask, and I put words together for them. They have me visit doctors, and when I find out I may have to go to a mental hospital, I resist.

Fight me, if you want. We both know I'm the stronger one. Isn't that so, sweet sister?

I'm almost even happy to hear him, but when I look around, he's not there. It was just an old memory, I realize. One of those disconcerting fragments that slip free from time to time. If I had the inclination, I'd sit down and piece them together, like a small child assembling a toy, but the haze is overpowering.

"... suffered extensive psychological damage... possible sexual abuse... should try therapy... some new medication..."

I let the words wash over me. It's nothing I haven't heard before - I remember their white coats and the instruments they used last time. Despite my best efforts, the fog envelopes me, and when it finally lifts, I'm sitting in a courtroom. It's very nearly like the one I see in those eternal Law and Order reruns.

My family is sitting behind me. They're all dressed in black, and that's when I suck in a breath. My mother is there! She's wearing a discreet veil, one that darkens her features into the proper cast of mourning, but it really is the second Barbie. Someone must have dragged her out of Florida.

She lifts her veil when we're in the hallway. The judge's declared a brief recess, so we have some time. "Cassandra," she whispers, her voice parchment-thin. "My child." Her eyes are so sunken that it takes me a moment to orient myself. She has the perpetually ill appearance of a person sorely afflicted. "Don't you remember me?"

I stare at the once-beautiful face. "Mother," I say, the syllables awkward on my tongue. "What happened to you?"

That provokes a dry chuckle. There is no joy in her - even Connor had a malicious love for life that propelled him - but for this woman, there is none. "Guilt will do that to a person," she whispers again. "I paid and paid."

Her words make me shudder. I don't think I'm talking to a person anymore; this is only a husk imitating a human being. I wish she hadn't come; I wish I hadn't seen her. And when tears ravage her face, I recoil.

Berland takes me back to the courtroom. I'm still shaking from the encounter with my mother, and eventually the judge notices. He asks me if I'm all right, but I can't speak. One of the lawyers puts his arm around me. I can nearly read his mind: he thinks the jury will find the gesture compassionate.

They don't put me on the stand. The press is disappointed, so they keep screaming questions at us when we leave the courthouse, but Berland hires some muscle that clears our way through the throng. They shove me into the waiting limousine and whisk me off to the genteel prison that is Kenneth's home.

As always, I check my cell phone for any messages. My head droops when I see nothing from Charles, but Clara has called.

"Cassie, it's me," she says in the message she leaves. She has her voice very low, so I think she's sneaked off to make this secret call. "I just wanted you to know that I'm in your corner. That fucker deserved to die." The bad language makes me smile. It is so uniquely Clara - the money Kenneth spent on etiquette lessons was wasted. "If you ever need me..." She gives me an email address.

The defiance in her voice is heartening. "I am going to get out of here," Clara says quietly. "They can't hold me forever. And when I do, I'll come find you, Cass."

I hope she doesn't.

Clara is perhaps one of the very few people who care about me, but if she wants to fly free, she has to forget she's a Davidson. Otherwise she'll get stuck in this toxic swamp masquerading as our family. If there was only a way to get the younger kids out... they'll be used as weapons soon.

I consider sending her an email, but I change my mind. The Vegas Showgirl's betrayal is too sharp and clear, and even in my state, I still remember what she did. Maybe even now, she's watching her daughter. It's better for Clara's sake if I don't contact her often.

It's back to the courtroom. My attorneys have assembled a stellar lineup of physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists (I don't know what the difference is), expert witnesses, character witnesses - the list goes on. They all dance, and I listen.

The second Barbie sits a few paces behind me. The back of my skin crawls under the intensity of her gaze. I don't know what my mother wants, but I wish she wouldn't stare so. She hangs onto Kenneth's arm, and sometimes they hold hands. His latest Barbie is on his other arm, clinging to him possessively. Even Connor's mother is there. One look at her face, and I suspect the Diva wants to see me punished.

It amuses me darkly that I'm not being tried for Connor's death. As far as I can figure, the lawyers are saying that Mr. Wyman abused me during our marriage. He snapped my mind, and that is why I killed Charles, and thus Kenneth and Berland get to keep their empire, if not slightly tarnished.

A doctor up there on the stand is speaking. "When I first examined Mrs. Wyman, she had marks and scratches on her face and arms... She exhibited classical signs of paranoia..."

I stare at my manicured hands. Berland insisted that they dress me in soft colors such as white and pink, in order to assert my almost-girlish appearance. I have a pretty hair ribbon that matches my clothes. My slight height and frame helps to convince the jury that I possibly can't hurt anyone, that I only did it because I was afraid.

Then one day I find out why my mother is here. They summon her to the stand as a character witness. She swears that she will tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help her God. The court gasps collectively when she unveils herself. Even the judge winces when he sees how mutilated she is.

"I should have known," my mother whispers, the microphone kicking up her voice a few notches. "She was my daughter, my baby." She keeps her eyes on the Diva. "George Wyman was hurting her, and I didn't stop it."

The Diva's face twists into a mask of hatred. She half-rises from her seat, but Berland has smartly seated himself next to her, so he grabs her hand in a gesture that looks as if he's comforting her. He whispers into her ear, and I wonder what threats he is issuing. Connor is dead, so she has nothing but his memory.

Kenneth leans his forehead against the railing. He hides his face, but his shoulders are shaking. It's a powerful picture that stays in the jury's mind. Here is the man who runs a Fortune-500 corporation, now suddenly human.

It's a pretty lie, isn't it?

With such actors in my family, it is no surprise when the jury declares I am not guilty by reason of insanity. The verdict upsets the District Attorney to no end, but it excites the media even more. The insanity defense almost never is successful, but now that I've won, it makes me notorious. It means I have to go to a mental institution.

I scream and scream and scream, but they wrap me in a straitjacket and shove me into a padded cell. "Crazy bitch," one of the guards say, and I collapse on the floor, sobbing. This is the place I dread the most, and now I'm in it.

"Charles, where are you?" I cry out. Or at least I try. My voice is so small that I can scarcely hear myself speak. "Why don't you love me anymore?"

Silence is my only companion. It weighs heavy on my mind, and when I talk to myself, it drowns out my words. Charles promised he'd always take care of me, but I never saw him during the trial. I expected him to come out, charging on his white horse, and sweep me up into his arms like a fairy princess, but if the knight never comes, the princess never gets rescued. The stories never tell you that.

I'm lying on my side, reciting numbers until I become dizzy. I can't get out of this place until the doctors decide I'm mentally competent, and with Berland leaning on them, I don't think I'll be seeing the sun for a while.

I have to die somehow.

My gaze searches my cell, but there literally is nothing I can use, and besides, I'm wrapped up like a mummy. Even my clothes are made from paper, so I can't form a noose. There has to be a way, I think. Maybe I'll hold my breath or bite my tongue. Or maybe I can make the guard kill me. I don't know.

Unshed tears choke my throat. The pain is indescribable, and when I swallow, the hot ball of pain digs deeper into my chest.

"Charles," I whisper again. "Where are you?"

The laughter jerks me awake. Connor is leaning against the wall, his arms crossed. "Always so dramatic!" he says, his eyes lowered in a gesture of sensuality. "Really, Cassie, only you would behave as if you were dead. Need I remind you that I am the dead one?"

Before I can draw another breath, someone else answers him. "Leave her alone. Haven't you done enough?" My mouth falls open when Charles sits on the floor. He's smiling at me. "Cass..."

I try to speak, but my eyes swim. My beloved brother is here after all. Everything those people said was a lie. "I thought you'd gone away," I say when I finally calm down. "I thought you were angry with me."

Charles laughs quietly. His throat has some strange markings, in the shape of a rope that goes around his neck. Someone's hurt him, but he only combs my hair. The gesture is so familiar, so loving that I turn my head towards him.

Connor's smile is ugly. "Still her protector, Charlie boy?" he purrs, but he draws closer to us anyway. There's some red in his eyes, some dried blood on his shirt, but despite everything, he remains beautiful on the outside. "You should extend me some grace, brother. We're in this together, aren't we?"

"Apparently," Charles says, ice-cold.

I understand now. This was always my fate, entwined with my brothers. No matter what we did, we always thought of each other. Even Connor, in his mockery, never broke away from us. Charles and I... when Connor died, it destroyed something inside us. But now that God has granted us another chance, we must forge this threefold cord anew. Yes, this is what we must do. Somehow I must reconcile my brothers and find a way to love them, even Connor. And maybe we will be happy one day. Maybe even I will be happy.

Wouldn't that be beautiful?

Fin.

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AUTHOR NOTE: And now the story is done. It's not one that I've enjoyed writing, but it demanded to be written :) Thank you so much for reading.