Genuine Lies

the words so much as the look in Eve’s eyes that had the breath backing up in Julia’s lungs. They were hungry, fearful, and clear as glass. Instinctively she tried to jerk her hand free, but Eve held tight.
    “Eve, you’re hurting me.”
    “That’s not what I want to do. But I have to.”
    “What are you trying to tell me?”
    “I asked you to come here, to tell my story, because no one has more of a right to hear it than you.” Her eyes held Julia’s as unrelentingly as her hand. “You’re my child, Julia. My only child.”
    “I don’t believe you.” She did jerk free now, scrambling up so quickly she sent the chair flying back. “What a despicable thing to try to do.”
    “You do believe me.”
    “No. No, I don’t.” She backed away another foot, raking both hands through her hair. She had to fight for each breath, fight it past the bitter anger in her throat. “How can you do this? How can you take advantage of me this way? You know I was adopted. You’ve made this all up, all of it, just to manipulate me.”
    “You know better than that.” Eve got slowly to her feet, bracing one hand against the table for support. Her knees were shaking. “You know this is the truth.” Their eyes met, held. “Because you feel it, you see it. I have proof if you need it. The hospitals records, the adoption documents, the correspondence with my attorneys. But you already know the truth. Julia …” She reached out, her own eyes filling as she watched her daughter’s overflow.
    “Don’t touch me!” Julia screamed it, then closed her hands over her mouth because she was afraid she would go on screaming.
    “Darling, please understand. I didn’t do this, any of this to hurt you.”
    “Why then? Why?” Emotion after emotion layered inside until she thought she would explode from the weight of them. This woman, this woman who months before had been only a face on the screen, a name in a magazine, was her mother? Even as she wanted to shout out the denial, she looked at Eve, caught in a tower of moonlight, and knew. “You brought me here, involved me with your life, you played games with me, with everyone—”
    “I needed you.”
    “You needed.” Julia’s voice slashed through Eve’s like a blade. “You? The hell with you.” Blind with grief, she shoved the table, sending it teetering over on its sides. Crystal and china shattered. “Goddamn you. Do you think I should care? Do you expect me to run and embrace you? Do you think I should suddenly have this burst of love?” She dashed the tears from her face while Eve stood silent. “I don’t. I detest you, I hate you for telling me, for everything. I swear I could kill you for telling me. Get out of here!” She whirled on Nina andTravers as they raced out of the house. “Get the hell out. This has nothing to do with you.”
    “Get back inside,” Eve said quietly without looking at them. “Go back, please. This is between Julia and me.”
    “There’s nothing between you and me,” Julia managed to get out as a sob welled up in her throat. “Nothing.”
    “All I want is a chance, Julia.”
    “You had it,” she snapped back. “Should I thank you for not going through with the abortion? Okay, thanks a lot. But my gratitude ends with the moment you signed the papers that gave me away. And why? Because I was inconvenient to your life-style. Because I was a mistake, an accident. That’s all we are to each other, Eve. A mutual mistake.” Tears choked her voice, but she pushed through them. “I had a mother who loved me. You could never replace her. And I’ll never forgive you for telling me something I never wanted, never needed to know.”
    “I loved you too,” Eve said with as much dignity as she could muster.
    “That’s just one more lie in a series of them. Stay away from me,” she warned when Eve stepped forward again. “I don’t know what I might do if you don’t stay away from me.” She turned, fleeing into the garden, running away from the past.
    Eve could only cover her face with her hands, rocking back and forth against the pain. She went limply, like a child, when Travers came to lead her inside.

Julia couldn’t run from the anger, or the fear, or from the sense of loss and betrayal. As she rushed through the patchy moonlight, she carried all those things with her, along with a grief and confusion that swam sickly inside her stomach. Eve.
    She could still she Eve’s face, those dark, fiercely intense eyes, the