The Lies We Are

At her son Bobby's third birthday party, Grace watches her wine-drunk mother-in-law announce that the boy's nose and mouth are the spitting image of Grace's sister, Chloe. The room freezes. Chloe cuts her finger, and Grace's husband, Mark, goes rigid, then snatches Bobby away as if afraid Grace might look at the child too long. Grace smiles and says the old woman isn't wrong; she has always wondered why Bobby resembles his aunt.

For three years Grace has buried the doubt. She carried Bobby for ten months and nearly died giving birth, yet he never looked like her, and as his features sharpened, Chloe's shadow on his face became impossible to ignore. That night she confronts Mark: she remembers the money he quietly transferred to Chloe, and the years of small kindnesses he showed her sister. She asks what he has been hiding, and demands that Chloe visit less.

Mark agrees, and for the first time in their marriage they sleep in separate rooms. Grace lies awake holding her son, replaying every overlooked detail, no longer willing to believe the lies she once wrapped herself in.