I Don’t Read Between The Lines, I Only Tell The Truth Outright Chapter 01

I Don’t Read Between The Lines, I Only Tell The Truth Outright Chapter 01

I took things literally as a kid, and I never learned to read between the lines.

In middle school, a girl deliberately pushed her cheat sheet into my hand.

“Hold this for me. The teacher’s coming.”

She expected me to panic and stuff it into my pocket.

I raised my hand instead. “Mr. Dean, she just put her cheat sheet in my hand.”

After I started working, a new manager came in and started auditing the books. Diane stomped on my foot under the table and said it through her teeth.

“Take the blame for now. You’re new, so he won’t come down hard on you.”

I nodded, stood up, and looked at the new manager. “Diane is the one who took the money. She said new people don’t get blamed. You’re new here too, sir, so maybe you should take the blame for her.”

After that, nobody in the office ever whispered anything to me again.

Then my birth parents found me and brought me home, and they threw a dinner to introduce me to the family as their daughter.

Daphne ignored the place card with my name on it and sat down between my parents. She hooked her arm through my mother’s and smiled at me.

“Nora, I’ve been sitting in this seat for 21 years. You don’t mind, do you?”

Everyone at that table waited for me to be gracious and step aside.

I looked at her and asked, “Why would you assume I’d mind? Is it because that’s the daughter’s seat?”

She pressed her lips together and said nothing, so I kept going.

“Let’s say it is the daughter’s seat. You’ve had it for 21 years, so shouldn’t you be giving it back now?”

*****

The whole banquet room went quiet. The relatives who had been making small talk a second earlier all looked down into their water glasses.

The smile froze on Daphne’s face. “Nora, it was a joke.”

“Which part of it was funny?”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

She looked at me for a few seconds, and her eyes started to go red.

My oldest brother, Adrian, came over and put a hand on her shoulder. “Nora, this is supposed to be a good day. Don’t nitpick every word.”

“I’m not nitpicking.” I pointed at the place cards on the table. “My seat is next to Mom. She moved my card, took my chair, and then asked me whether I mind. And none of you see a problem with that?”

Adrian frowned. “It’s a chair. What difference does it make where anybody sits?”

“Then why couldn’t she take the seat with her own name on it?”

“She’s used to sitting between Mom and Dad.”

“Being used to something means she gets to take what belongs to somebody else?”

Adrian had no answer for that, and my mother finally took my hand. “Nora, Daphne has sat with us since she was little. She didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I didn’t say she did. I’m asking when she plans to get up.”

My mother’s fingers tightened, and Daphne stood up right away. “I’ll move. Nora is the real daughter. I never should have been sitting here.”

Her eyes were red when she pushed the chair back, and the chair legs screeched across the floor. She got two steps away before my mother went after her and caught her arm.

“Daphne, that isn’t what I meant. You aren’t well. Don’t let your head run away with you.”

My second brother, Miles, stepped in front of her, and my third brother, Eli, looked straight at me. “Happy now?”

I looked at all of them. “She took my seat, I asked when she was giving it back, and somehow I’m the one bullying her?”

Eli’s face darkened. “You know how much being pushed out of this family scares her, and you went straight for the real-daughter thing.”

“She said it, not me. So why do her words count as me hurting her?”

Eli opened his mouth, and nothing came out.

Daphne pressed a hand to her chest, looking shaken. “I’m sorry. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have come tonight. You’re the family. I’ll go.”

She turned and ran for the door, and my mother and all three of my brothers went after her.

My father, Richard, stayed at the head of the table, and his face was tight. “Nora, you’ve been back three years. How have you still not learned to get along with your own family?”

I looked at the four empty chairs. “Tonight was for me, wasn’t it?”

“Of course it was.”

“Then why did every one of them leave?”

He rubbed the space between his eyebrows. “Daphne wasn’t feeling well.”

“Miles is a doctor. He was enough.”

“Your mother was worried about her.”

“And Adrian and Eli?”

He didn’t answer, so I waited a moment and asked something else. “At my own welcome dinner, your real daughter and the girl you raised got into it, and the whole family ran out after the girl you raised. So which one of us were you welcoming tonight?”

He slammed his hand down on the table. “Enough!”

I nodded. “All right.”

My father’s mouth closed. Three years ago, in that house, it was the first time I had let a question drop.