Free Sliver of Truth by Lisa Unger

“Thanks.”
    He moved to get some cups out of the cupboard. He tossed a look behind him as he took teabags out from a white ceramic canister. “I’m not gonna hurt you. You might as well sit.”
    I nodded and felt silly. I moved toward the kitchen’s round wood table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. It was wobbly and uncomfortable but I stayed seated just to be polite. He came to the table and sat across from me, bringing the tea with him. I took the cup he offered gratefully and warmed my hands on it.
    “This is a bad idea,” he said, shaking his head. My heart sank; it looked as if he might be clamming up on me. His face had gone still. He’d pressed his mouth back into a thin line. I gave him an understanding smile. I wasn’t sure what to say to convince him to talk, so I said nothing.
    “You seem like a nice girl,” he said, holding my eyes briefly. “I don’t want . . .” He let his voice trail off and didn’t pick up the sentence again. I closed my eyes for a second, drew in a breath, and said the only thing I could think of.
    “Please.”
    He looked at me sadly. Gave me a quick nod.
    “I haven’t thought about that night in a long time,” he told me, but for some reason I didn’t believe him. I suspected he’d thought about that night a lot, and maybe this was the first time in years he’d been able to talk about it. Maybe he needed to talk about it. Maybe that’s why he changed his mind.
    “’Course, it’s not the kind of thing you forget, either. It stays with you, even when it’s not on your mind directly. I busted an arm at work about five years ago, been on disability ever since. The arm healed but it’s never been the same. Some things are like that. After they happen, nothing’s right again.” I could definitely relate to that.
    He didn’t seem quite as menacing as he had on first glance. He seemed softer and kinder now, more beaten down than angry. He didn’t say anything else for a minute, just stared into his cup. I listened to the clock ticking above the sink and waited. Finally:
    “We’d been over there, at Race and Lana’s, for supper. We always spent the holidays together,” he said, looking at the tabletop. His voice seemed hoarse, as if it had been a while since he’d used it so much. I wondered if he’d feel unburdened by the telling of this. Or if it would be like exhuming a body, an unholy dredging of something better left to rest.
    It struck me again, as it had when I first read the article, that I had never heard of Nicholas Smiley or his family. Neither Max, my father, nor my grandparents had ever mentioned this cousin who’d apparently grown up with Max and Ben, living just down the street. I wondered if there was any end to the layers of secrets and lies.
    “It hadn’t been a very good night,” he said, looking at me shyly. “Race didn’t show up for dinner and Lana was drunk and mad as hell. Ranting about her shit life.”
    He looked down at his teacup again and I could see that his hand was shaking just slightly. For some reason, the sight of that made my heart rate rise.
    “Race was a bastard. Beat the crap out of Lana and Max, ran around on her. Everyone knew it.” He spoke in short, quick-fire sentences, as if he had to get the words out before a timer went off. But there was something rhythmic, almost metered, about the way he spoke. I felt hypnotized.
    He must have seen something on my face. Any good interviewer knows to keep judgment out of her voice, and I’d always been okay at that. It was keeping it off my face that gave me trouble.
    “I don’t know why no one ever did anything,” he said, as though I’d asked the question I’d been thinking. “Been plenty of years to regret that. I guess in those days you just didn’t interfere between a man and his family.”
    I nodded my understanding and he went on.
    “Anyway, we left early. Lana had, like I said, been ranting and Max had barely said a word the whole night. He got that