Lies

Chapter 1:

The town of Ranglewood was named after my maiden name. My fathers family came here to this wooded area on the coast of Michigan and settled. They named it after themselves to signify that it was their's and that they claimed it. It was all my family ever did. Claim more land so that they can have more money.

I didn't care about money and that was the difference between my father and I. Don't get me wrong, I loved my father. He was the best father anyone could have asked for. It was just that he loved money. He loved it so much that he broke relationships because of it. He was a good man but he wasn't always honorable.

My mother was his police. She kept him under control and made sure that he didn't do anything foolish. He loved her dearly because of it. She was the one who yelled at him when he was being irrational but was always nice about it. That's why my father listened to her. He didn't like when people yelled at him to do the right thing. My mother was the only one who could do it. She was his rock and he thanked her everyday for it.

I was born Iris Marie Ranglewood. I was the first of five children and the most loved by my father. He adored me and spoiled me to the point where I didn't like getting gifts anymore. He seemed to think that by giving me gifts that I would automatically love him as a good daughter should. I did but his gifts exceeded what I wanted. I wanted to be like all the other little girls in Ranglewood and have fathers that would hug them and be reassured in that sense. But my father wasn't like that. He loved all of us but was not very good at showing us, affection wise. He never hugged us or kissed our foreheads. He just showered us with gifts because that was the only way that he felt that he could show his love.

He did spend time with us though. He was often busy at work or stressed but he always found time for us. Each of us children all got the same amount of time with him because he felt spending time was important. My mother praised him for it.

I've also always thought highly of my father. He supported me in all my decisions and was pretty great. My friends were often jealous of me because of my father. I pretended most of the time not to notice but my mother did. She could tell anything. It was like a gift of hers.

My father paid for all of us to have a prime education. I went to Yale, two of my siblings went to Harvard, one went to Princeton, and my youngest brother is going to Standford. We all have stable jobs but I was the only one that stayed in Ranglewood. All my brothers and sisters were sick of it there and moved away, far away.

Ranglewood was the only place where I could get a decent job as a professor at the community college. I loved to teach. Especially the college kids that studied there. I taught biology and absolutely loved it. The hours were great too.

I never really cared though for how my family had acquired so much money in the first place. They were immigrants and had little money to begin with. My father though was a billionaire and a successful one. He knew what to invest in and what not to. He was smart and wanted us to be smart too. He helped us manage our bank accounts and discovered fraud when there was some. He was the best and that's why I never questioned him. Why question someone you look up to? Shouldn't you believe that all their ways were moral?

They should be but that's not always the case. People hide things, important things so that others around them won't be affected and hurt by it. They think it's the right thing to do. But maybe lying isn't all what it's cracked up to be and so, the truth must come out, weather that person likes it or not.