Once Upon a Lie Read Free

game called for formal attire,” he said, pulling a cloth diaper from his back pocket and wiping the baby’s mouth.
    “Sean’s wake.”
    “Oh, right.” Cal focused on the game while continuing the conversation. “How was that?”
    Maeve pulled a pair of sunglasses out of her purse and put them on. “The usual. A bunch of old biddies from the neighborhood, Father Madden…”
    “He’s still around?”
    Father Madden had married them a long, long time ago and had been very disappointed to learn that the vows hadn’t “taken.” “He is. He’s doing the funeral in the morning.”
    “You going?”
    Maeve jumped to her feet as Rebecca launched one toward the goal, hitting the goalpost. A collective groan spread through the crowd. “To the funeral?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Probably not.”
    The baby started fussing and Cal pulled a bottle out of his cargo shorts. He handed it to Maeve. “Hold this?” He unstrapped the baby and took him out of the contraption on his chest, sitting him upright in his lap, still facing forward. The baby was obviously a soccer fan; he was more animated than Maeve had ever seen him. Cal put the bottle in the baby’s mouth and he sucked greedily. “There was never any love lost between the two of you.”
    “Me and Sean?” she asked. “You think?”
    Cal watched the game until the ref blew the whistle, signaling the end of the first quarter. “I could never figure it out. He seemed like an amiable sort.”
    They always do, Maeve thought. Instead, she shrugged in response.
    “Jack doesn’t want to go? Granted, he was your mother’s nephew, but still…”
    “Jack isn’t entirely sure who died or why. I think he’ll be fine with not attending.”
    The baby finished the bottle in record time, and Maeve braced herself for the inevitable projection of undigested formula that was bound to come her way. Cal threw the baby over his shoulder to burp him. “How’s business?”
    “Great,” Maeve lied.
    Cal gave her a sideways glance. “Still making your fortune one cupcake at a time?”
    “Something like that.”
    “You’ll let me know if you need help? Especially with the wholesale thing? That’s where the money is.” The baby let out a burp that sounded as if it had started at his toes; Maeve put a little distance between herself and the baby, but the burp was unproductive. “Let me know,” he repeated.
    Never. “Of course. We’re doing great, Cal. No worries.” It was typical of most of her conversations with Cal: he knew just enough and not really enough. As a result, he was low on the list of people from whom she sought advice. She went to him only if she had to and could count on one hand how many times that had been.
    He finally got caught up enough in the game to leave her alone. Although he was now a stay-at-home father, the attorney in him had never completely disappeared. Once, she was used to his interrogations, but now she was out of practice and had to stay on her toes so that she didn’t let on the things she didn’t want him to know. The wholesale deal was done, gone the way of a larger manufacturer in Brooklyn who could produce cookies at an alarming speed and for far less money than Maeve’s two-person operation.
    She was able to cheer when Rebecca scored a goal early in the third quarter, and feel dismay when the game became a runaway for the other team in the final minutes of the fourth. Her mind was still in the Bronx, though, and back at the funeral home. She wondered just how much damage the bullet had done to Sean’s brain. Was death instant or had he lingered even a few seconds before dying? Did he know what was coming—not him, obviously—when the passenger-side door of the car had opened and someone had slid into the seat? Did he know it was the end or did he think he deserved one more chance? Did he have any regrets at all?
    She wondered about all of this, not noticing that Cal was talking to her. “Huh?”
    “A hobby,” he said, taking the