Reality Lies by D.F. Downey (books recommended by bts txt) 📖

down, eat.” Frieda was uncharacteristically serious. “Tell me what’s bothering you. You’ll be surprised. I’m a good listener.”

 

“That’s all right. I really want to wait for Amy.”

Frieda couldn’t resist, “Who do you think told her to tell you the truth?”

 

“Oh, you know?” In his mind he couldn’t help but think, ‘Oh great, another one.’

 

“Yes, I know. Don’t you think it would be extremely difficult for a young woman to deal with all the realities you put her through?”

 

Jay didn’t say anything.

 

Frieda went on.”Well it was. I mean Jay darling, you physically altered my daughter with an unconscious look. Don’t you think that would require some help to get used to?”

 

Jay stood silent a moment. “So you told her to tell me?”

 

Frieda could tell how she answered now would be important. “That wouldn’t be quite it. We discussed her situation. I suggested she tell you. But really I think she was only asking me to strengthen her resolve.”

 

Jay couldn’t help but ask, “Was Amy that uh, bad before?”

 

“No, everything was there. Look at her sister. Look at m… never mind. She would have eventually become this person, maybe not quite so perfect but it was there. You just saw it before almost anyone else.”

 

“Almost?” Jay had caught the condition in her last sentence.

 

Frieda answered, “I always thought she was beautiful.” Jay thought that the light in Frieda’s eyes was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. “So, you want to talk? It couldn’t hurt.”

 

There was barely a pause before Jay blurted out, “Mrs. Murphy, I killed my father!”

 

Frieda had expected something wild but she hadn’t expected this. “But Jay didn’t your father disappear when you were three?”

 

“I made him disappear. He’s been under my wallpaper ever since.” He didn’t see the look in her eyes, he just continued. It was a gusher; there was no stopping him now.

 

“I saw him as a shadow on the wall. That’s what he became. Last night for the first time I realized that. I mean my father has been trapped in my wallpaper for practically my whole life. How do you deal with that?”

 

She put her hands on his shoulder. “Is there anything you can do now to free him?”

 

“I dreamt about him last night and this morning he was out of the wall. As soon as I remembered my gift I put him back in. I don’t think I can get him back out.”

 

Frieda reached for something, for anything.”Did you get to talk to him in your dream?”

 

“I got to hold him. I got to say daddy. But my mom came to the door and I realized I was awake and he was gone. The only difference was you could see him clearly, on the wall that is. You could see his tears!”

 

She held him tighter.

 

“I started thinking, wondering what else did I do. I mean did I cause accidents? Did people die? I had no idea what I was doing. Did I trap other people in my reality?”

 

Frieda attempted to comfort him. “I’m sure you didn’t. Your mom was always there, working to help you. I’m sure she undid the things she could. You shouldn’t think about it. It doesn’t do any good.”

 

“I can’t help it. My imagination has been raging. If I made Robbie a dog, did I make animals people or other people animals. It sounds from Amy like I changed a lot of girls’ appearances. Did I do anything else? You know make women men or vice versa? I mean if I thought a plane hit a building, it hit the building. How many things did I change?” He was rocking back and forth, sobbing uncontrollably.

 

Amy came through the door just as Jay broke down. She fixed her mother with a what’s going on look. Frieda ignored her as she consoled Jay.

Amy hovered and finally Jay noticed her.

 

“Amy!” he exclaimed as he straightened and tried to regroup himself.

 

“Jay!” she tearfully whispered as she clutched him.

 

“I’ll leave you two alone.” Frieda whispered, though they didn’t hear her. She left the room, only to return moments later. “I forgot. Amy we left you a couple of slices of pizza. Do you want me to heat it for you now?”

 

“Ma!”

 

“Sorry.” She paused. “Okay, I’ll be right inside if you need me.”

 

“Okay mom.”

 

“Remember, if you need me.”

 

Amy sat with her back to the door. “Is she gone?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Thank God!”

 

“Your mom’s all right. She was a lot of help.”

 

She ignored the last part. “When did you get here? What were you talking about?”

“I really had to talk to you. But I couldn’t wait any longer. I must have been here three, maybe four hours.”

 

“So nobody was home.”

 

“No, I waited on the porch.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“I found my father.”

 

She was puzzled. She knew that should be good news but it clearly wasn’t.

 

He continued, “He’s on the wall. I put him there.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Remember how I always thought he left us, me and my mother?”

 

“Right.”

 

“Well, what actually happened is he came to see me in my crib. I must have seen him as a shadow on the wall and that’s what he became.”

 

“Oh my God!” This was far beyond anything she could have imagined.

 

“It gets better. This morning I saw him as real and we hugged.” Amy fortunately rejected the urge to say that’s good. “I thought I was dreaming. When I remembered what you and my mother had told me I returned to reality and he went back on the wall, a little more lifelike but two dimensional nonetheless.”

 

Amy didn’t say anything. Jay continued.”The whole thing started me thinking. What other calamities have my power caused. Try as I might I can’t determine what I affected. That’s how it became, because I thought it was real. But I really want to know. I have to know.”

 

“I wish I could help.”

 

“There is something you can do. I’ve never been out of this town at least since I was very young so anyone or anything I affected would likely have occurred here.”

 

“Go on.”

 

“It’s a small town. You could help me figure out the changes I caused. Take out an ad, go on cable access, go door to door, if we have to. I want to know.”

 

“Sure Jay, anything, but do you really think it’s wise? Then everyone would know. God only knows what that could unleash.”

 

“Hmm, you’re probably right.”

 

“We could act like we’re looking for the strange. I could front for you. That way people would be less likely to put it together.”

 

“You’d do that?”

 

“Of course!”

 

They sat for awhile. It grew increasingly uncomfortable. It was apparent that Jay wanted to talk some more, needed to talk. But they had lost their logical starting point when Amy hadn’t been there. It was no longer organic. Finally, Amy pressed the matter.

 

“Tell me what happened.”

 

He immediately knew what she was doing.

“After I left you I went right home. My mom was waiting up. She already knew.”

 

“How did she know?”

 

He backtracked, “Wait a minute that’s right I didn’t go straight home. I ran into Brian.”

 

“Anything happen?”

 

“I punched him out.”

 

“I know. I was there.”

 

“Yeah, but that wasn’t all. The way I saw things, it scared everyone. After that I went home.”

 

“Then you found your mother waiting up.”

 

“Yeah, she tried to pretend she was going to tell me. But I know that wasn’t true.”

 

“What did she say?”

“Like I said, she said she was going to tell me on my next birthday. I called her on it. She admitted she had found out I knew. Detective Plant told her. He was there.”

 

“He saw you and me.”

 

“No, I mean he was there with my mother. Anyway, we went back and forth and then something hit me. My father popped in my head. I asked what happened to him, what really happened to him.”

 

“And.”

 

“It took a bit but finally she conceded she didn’t have the slightest idea.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Detective Plant was there and told me he’d been searching for my father, searching for years. He thinks he’s dead.”

 

“I’m sorry.” Amy decided that this was the best response to this contradictory element.

 

He didn’t hear her. “Suddenly, an image flashed through my head. I ran into my room and started tearing off the wallpaper. He was there! He was always there! My father was part of the wall and I put him there.”

 

Amy didn’t know how to respond. She sat facing Jay, neither spoke. But she knew it was their destiny to share his pain, his gift, his burden. She took his hand. She looked deep into his eyes. She would have to heal him. She would have to exorcise the demons. She would have to cleanse his sins. She would have to protect him from the world and the world from him. There was no longer any question.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 26

 

Their romance took the usual course. A lot of three hour phone calls culminating in, “I’m hanging up now, you hang up first” marathons. They were a couple, truly a couple, forever a couple. Despite the fact they were both only sixteen when they met no one seemed to have a problem with it. They were natural, meant to be. They would continue on the traditional progression, going to the prom, graduating, going to the same college, getting jobs, getting engaged, getting married. Everything seemed fine, which in Jay’s world meant that everything was fine. People stayed as he perceived them or became as he saw them.

 

“Jay, you’re going to be a father.”

 

The words were still swimming around in his head even now, nine months later at Amy’s bedside. He couldn’t picture himself that way, as a daddy or Amy as a mother for that matter. But here they were. The hospital, doctors, nurses, the whole nine yards. He was happy, yes, but still he couldn’t help feeling unsettled. He had come to grips with his gift but now confronted with the possibility of his own child, in possession of it well he finally understood what his mother had been through or rather what she was still going through. A child is forever. The thought scared him totally. Yet, he was excited, forever an awesome responsibility, a wonderful promise.

 

They had given Amy an epidural. She had already been in labor for thirty hours after which she still was dilated only four centimeters, a ways to go. The doctor had told them they would have to do a Caesarean but Amy insisted. “No way!” she yelled at her, “I didn’t go through all this to turn back now. I