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Proof of Lies
by Diana Rodriguez Wallach

Copyright © 2017 by Diana Rodriguez Wallach. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Prologue

Only my parents could make a trip to Europe seem dull. But they were always heading off to some far-off country, to the point that, if they stayed home for more than five days in a row, that was unusual. Tonight, my dad was flying to a chemical conference in London. Last week, my mom spent three days in Tokyo meeting with government officials about a prospective deal. Before that, they both spent an entire week in Egypt ironing out problems with a potential investor.

For a teenager, I was home alone a lot—and not in the let’s-throw-a-keg-party kind of way. Literally, home alone. Especially now that my sister was in the seven-year medical program at Boston University and living in the dorms, but at least she was just down the street.

“Hon, have you seen the garment bag?” my father yelled from the master bedroom as we listened to him rifle through the closet.

“It should be hanging on the back of the door!” Mom hollered back.

“Don’t you think I looked there?”

“Maybe it’s still in the car?”

“Can you check the trunk for me?”

“I will, after I eat. You should sit. We got Chinese.”

“Come on, Dad, we’re all eating together, and it’s not even my birthday!” I teased.

Takeout was a primary food group in my family. Neither of my parents cooked—and they had no desire to learn. In the few months since we’d moved to Brookline, we’d acquired an impressive amount of menus. We could get Ethiopian delivered.

But of all the places we’d lived, this was one of my favorites. For the first time in years, I had my own bedroom. Whenever we moved to Europe, the flats were so tiny, Keira and I always landed in side-by-side twins. And I don’t even want to begin to describe the bathroom situation in our home in Morocco.

But the biggest perk of moving to Beantown was the obvious—I knew the language, even if everyone here was pahking the cah in Hahvahd yahd. It was nice not to have to conjugate verbs in my head.

“Can you pass the soy sauce?” Keira asked. I slid the bottle across our rustic table, an antique my parents had flown in from Tuscany. Another perk of their travels—lots of souvenirs.

“How’s your biochem class coming along?” asked Mom.

“It’s coming.” Keira singsonged, clearly not wanting to talk about it.

“Have you gotten into genetics yet?” Dad asked, suddenly appearing in the kitchen. He leaned against the counter, digging a plastic fork into a carton of lo mein. “If I could go back, I would study human genomes, DNA. It’s the future, absolutely fascinating. You should look into it.”

“Well, I’m thinking pediatrics,” Keira mumbled, staring at her food.

“Really?” said Mom. “Not research? Because cancer research—”

“No,” Dad interrupted. “I’m telling you, the advances in human genomic DNA will lead to personalized medicine. You’ll want to be in front of that. Look at our DNA, for example—”

“Or we could talk about something else,” Keira interrupted.

“You’re right. Advanced scientific research is not nearly as interesting as a career changing diapers,” Dad mocked.

“I wouldn’t be changing diapers. I’d be treating sick children,” Keira defended.

“Hey, at least, she’s not thinking dermatology,” said Mom.

“Or podiatry!” Dad headed back to the master bedroom as if he were done listening to whatever defense my sister had for her seemingly subpar career path.

“I know, I’m such a disappointment,” Keira griped, aggressively stabbing her food. Despite our parents’ frequent absences, they had an unusually strong desire to control our futures. It was why I took martial arts and not soccer, and Keira transferred to BU from the University of Miami. They were hard people to stand against. “Seriously, I’m becoming a doctor, just liked you wanted. Do you really want to choose my specialty? Pick my classes? Arrange my marriage?”

“Don’t tempt us.” Mom raised a teasing eyebrow. My sister did not look amused. “We’re not trying to control you,” Mom continued, “we’re trying to give you the benefit of our experience. We’re taking an interest, leading you down the right path.”

“Sure you are. Look, just because you and Dad are engineering gods who flit around the world solving every biochem problem known to man, doesn’t mean that some weird advanced organic chem gene was passed down to me. I have to work just as hard as everyone else.”

My sister complained often about her classmates’ snarky opinions regarding our parents being the heads of the Dresden Chemical Corporation. They assumed she didn’t have to study, or even try, because there was a research job waiting for her the moment she snatched her diploma. In all fairness, there probably was. Dresden was big on hiring families. But that wasn’t the future Keira had planned. Or me, for that matter. Still, it was like studying computer science when your dad was Bill Gates.

“I never said you didn’t have to work hard. Don’t you think we work hard?” Mom said, unfazed by Keira’s attitude. Nothing rattled our parents. Ever. We could scream obscenities until our cheeks turned cobalt blue (like when they told us we were moving to Morocco), and they still would barely blink in response.

 “Why are we talking about me anyway?” Keira turned my way. “Aren’t we here to talk about something else?”

The sounds of my father packing ceased, as if he could hear our conversation from the bedroom, down the hall, with the door closed. My mother leaned back in her chair, her eyes suddenly serious. Then, on cue, my father appeared in the kitchen entry, his hazel eyes possessing a familiar look, a scary look, a look I knew too well.

I dropped my spoon. “No. No way. I refuse.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Mom said.

“Of course you have a choice! There’s always a choice. Don’t. Move,” I snapped. We’d been living in Boston for only three months. Three months! If we moved again, it would make this our shortest stay ever. And they swore this was our home, this was where I would graduate. Keira enrolled in BU. We relocated to Dresden’s corporate offices; my parents took desk jobs in their headquarters downtown. I was actually making friends. I joined a local karate studio. I was invited to a party, for the first time in my life. I was not moving again.

“It’s not that simple. When projects come up…” My father’s tone sounded like he was talking to a toddler on the verge of a tantrum.

“Send someone else!” I screeched. “Come on, you guys run the company. Send a different employee. Let someone else pay his dues. What about Randolph Urban? He’s been living in Boston for years now. Why can’t he go for once?” I rose from my chair, too livid to sit.

Urban was my parents’ best friend. They’d started the company together, after having met at Princeton University, back when he and my mom used to date. Now he sat comfortably behind a desk barking orders as the CEO. He hadn’t been in the field in years.

“Randolph’s not an option. That’s not how we run things. And this is a government project in Montreal. We can’t trust it to just anyone,” my dad reasoned.

“Think of it this way, at least they speak English in Canada,” Keira chimed in. “You’ll be fine.”

That was when it hit me—she wasn’t coming with us.

“You’re staying in Boston.”

“I have to. I’m in college. If I want to be a doctor, I can’t keep transferring. I’m lucky BU accepted my credits from Miami.”

That was the last place we’d lived, for a whopping six months. I was actually excited to move there until I realized exactly what Miami humidity felt like. The entire city needed to be tarped and air-conditioned. And the people were way too tan. My milky skin blinked tourist almost as drastically as it had in Africa. But at least for those moves, I had my sister. We didn’t fit in together. Now, I’d be moving to Canada alone.

“I’m not going,” I insisted, shaking my head. “I’ll stay here with Keira.”

My parents exchanged a look. “You’d rather be with your sister than us?”

“I’ve been with Keira more than you my entire life! How would this be different?”

“For starters, she lives in a dorm,” Mom replied.

“She can move here. What’s wrong with the brownstone?” I cut my sister a look. “You promised you’d never leave me, that you’d never be like them.”

If my parents were insulted by the comment, they didn’t show it. They never would. “I’m in med school,” Keira said, her eyes sympathetic but her tone definitive. She didn’t want me.

“Anastasia, we’re your parents,” my dad stated.

“Then be my parents! Don’t make me move again. Put me first!” I yelled, fingers clenching. “I don’t get it! You’re engineers. Why do we have to move so much? You promised this was it. You said this was home. Were you lying to me this whole time?” I backed away from the table, away from all of them.

“We weren’t lying,” my mom defended, her voice annoyingly calm. “We believed it when we said it. We never thought things would progress so fast.”

“But you knew it was a possibility?” I picked apart her words. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. I hate you! And I swear I won’t go anywhere with you.”

I stormed off to my bedroom, bare feet stomping on the hundred-year-old floorboards. I’d never said “I hate you” to my parents before, but I wanted to hurt them. They were hurting me.

I slammed my bedroom door and locked it tight, guilt rushing through me. I wasn’t going to apologize. Maybe I’d said something wrong, but what they were doing was wrong. I couldn’t spend my entire life as the new kid. I couldn’t keep pretending it didn’t bother me. Of course I wanted friends, a social life, and a bedroom where the boxes were actually unpacked. My parents were the ones who needed to say they were sorry, for all of that. Then maybe I would take back those three mean words.

 I stayed in my room. Hours later, they knocked on the door to tell me they were leaving for the airport; I didn’t say good-bye. Instead, I listened silently as they told me that they loved me and that they wished things could be different. Still, I didn’t apologize. I didn’t say a word.

I didn’t realize that would be our last conversation.

I didn’t realize they’d never come back.