Sometimes I Lie

It is Friday, four days after the accident. Amber’s husband and sister keep her company, but Amber feels the emotional distance: “Our lies form a mortar, holding the walls together […] we’ve built ourselves a prison” (120). Amber gathers from conversations between the two that she has had a pregnancy loss, a girl, as a result of the accident. She spirals into grief and panic, fearing that perhaps she may never come out from the coma. She imagines she is being buried along with the little girl in the pink dressing gown. The little girl calmly tells Amber if she does not want to be buried alive, she needs to point her finger. She does, and her sister notices the movement.

Given that encouraging sign, Amber is taken off the ventilator, and she breathes on her own. She feels herself flying, her perception of being moved through the hospital corridors for tests. She is aware she is being pushed a bit too quickly. She hears the same strange voice from earlier whisper to her that he must take better care to administer the right amount of drugs to keep her comatose. She is returned to her room. She panics, now alone in an empty hospital with a man who is, for reasons she does not know, overmedicating her. Only the unexpected early arrival of Paul and then Claire saves Amber. The stranger, whom she now realizes must be on staff, departs. Paul and Claire briefly debate whether Amber actually moved a finger or whether that was some kind of nervous tic. Paul says he will give his wife until New Year’s—that a long-term coma is not what Amber would want.

Thinking that visitors from work might help Amber, Paul tries to search Amber’s phone for Jo’s number, the only name Paul knows. Amber panics, uneasy over what messages Paul might find, but Amber’s phone is dead. It is not until the next day, New Year’s Eve, when Paul recharges Amber’s phone that he finds no listing for anyone named Jo, and when he calls the studio, they tell him no one by that name works there.

In the past narrative, it is two days before Christmas. Amber heads to the studio. She is a bit nauseous and believes she might be pregnant. Madeline stops her on the way in—she tells her that she has been receiving anonymous letters, always in red envelopes, threatening to reveal her secret. She does not tell Amber what the secret is but wants to know if Amber has noticed anyone in the studio acting unusual. Amber says no. Amber must arrange for a puff piece television interview, done live, with Madeline about the studio’s major charity foundation that helps lower-income families. Before the interview is to begin, and knowing the mics are already on, Amber goads Madeline into admitting how little she thinks of the charity or the families it helps: “The sluts who get pregnant by mistake, often with someone they shouldn’t. That’s why God invented abortions. Sadly, too many of the dumb bitches don’t have them” (129). Just hours later, at what was supposed to be the studio’s holiday party, the show’s producer announces that Madeline will no longer be hosting Morning Coffee.

At that moment, Amber notices Edward at the restaurant window. She leaves with him. They go to a bar for drinks, and Edward asks her point blank, “Happy? Are you?” (151). The next thing Amber knows, she wakes up, half naked, with a pounding headache, in an apartment she does not recognize. Her body feels bruised, used. She hears Edward’s voice singing in the shower. She struggles to walk but gathers her clothes. It is late afternoon. She hails a taxi and heads home. Paul greets her and tells her ominously they need to talk, but the news is all good. His second novel has been sold. His agent wants him to go to America for a tour and to discuss film rights. He may be gone for several months. Amber then tells him that she quit her job that very afternoon.

Back in 1992, on Claire’s 11th birthday, her mother notices the bracelet Claire is wearing. Unwilling to confess she stole the bracelet from Taylor/Amber, Claire tells her mother the jewelry was a birthday gift from Taylor’s mother. Claire’s mom thinks such a gift was wildly inappropriate. She yanks the bracelet off Claire’s wrist, snapping it in two. Incensed, Claire pushes at her mother, who falls down the stairs. Claire’s father rushes her mother to the hospital, and Claire is left alone to eat birthday cake. Days later, Claire records that her mother miscarried because of the fall down the steps. Claire tries to return the broken bracelet, which she has clipped together with a safety pin, but Amber/Taylor tells her to keep it. When the mother returns home from the hospital and Claire refuses to apologize—refuses even to stop watching cartoons—the mother tells her she is not to see Amber/Taylor again. Claire says to her mother, “I HATE YOU” (138).

Just weeks later in December, Claire is suspended from school. A girl in science lab was taunting Amber/Taylor using the open flame of a Bunsen burner, and Claire intervened. She slugged the girl hard enough to break her nose. When Claire’s mother does not answer the call from the school, Amber’s mother brings Claire home. She finds Claire’s mother passed out in the kitchen. Amber’s mom stays with Claire until her father comes home. Two weeks later, as Christmas approaches, Claire’s father tries to explain to Claire why they have to move from the grandmother’s house: Her grandmother’s sister (Claire did not even know her grandmother had a sister) contested the will and now wants to take the house.