Liars Garden

Chapter 8

Dad didn't leave for another woman. Me, Leslie, and Mom knew this. We told everyone this because the truth was too hard to tell Chris. At ages eleven and nine we promised mom we wouldn't tell the truth of what happened or else mom would punish us. And she would let everyone know it was my fault.

It was the middle of summer, it had been so hot that Leslie had spent the day outside, playing in a pool we had just bought as a family. Chris was out with a friend at the beach. I remembered that day I wished I had gotten invited to the beach. 

Leslie had come in at the wrong moment.

Maybe she had to go to the bathroom.

Maybe she had needed a drink.

I just remember her standing by the end of the banister when dadfell.

It had been horrible. I saw it all from the top of the stairs like it had been in slow motion. Dad's feet sliding on the top step, him slightly turning toward me on the top landing; it had all been so slow. At first. When his back hit the second step it went into fast mode. The sound of his limp body crashing into each step, his head thumping off the banister, the wooden steps, and lastly the tiled floor. It was sickening. He never tried to stop it. Just one little pushand he had fallen like a sack of potato's.

And there I was, standing at the top of the stairs.

Mom came out of her bedroom. It used to be upstairs, the room that was present day my room. Her hand covered her mouth as she saw Leslie froze at the bottom of the stairs.

"What did you do?" her voice was sharp. It pierced the air likea bullet.

I started crying silently.

Blood seeped onto the tile and puddled around Leslie's feet. She was still staring at where dad used to be, not where he was now. Her eyeswere terrified.

"I..." I never knew what I had been trying to say.

Mom pushed me aside and ran down the stairs. She pulled Leslie away before she had lowered herself down next to her husband.

"Honey? Alex?" her voice had been level. She had already knownhe was dead.

Leslie's bawling had started them. She had looked up at me and wailed and wailed and wailed.

It was my fault dad had been at the bottom of those stairs.

It was my fault there was a giant chip out of the banister.

I still wonder if his head had made that wound on the wood.

Mom made us promise not to tell. She told Leslie not to tell anyone so her big sister wouldn't get in trouble. She told me to never tellor else I would be in trouble. I pinky promised her even though I had known I was to old for that at the time.

I promised to lie about everything.