The Comfort of Lies Read Online Free PDF

Tia had never known any other kind.
    Nathan also introduced her to unrequited love. Some men bruised your heart, but when they left, the damage healed. Nathan had bitten chunks clean off, and Tia feared she’d search forever for the missing pieces. She’d never be safe from him. If there were an inoculation, she’d shoot the vaccine straight up.
    Holding the bagel away from the table so no crumbs fell on the photos, Tia studied the top image. Her daughter looked a lifetime older at five than she had at four, but how could Tia judge? She possessed only a vague knowledge of children.
    Everything her mother had predicted about losing Honor had come true.
    The thought made whiskey a perfect companion for her bagel.
    Her mother had died just days before Honor was born. Tia last saw Nathan the day she’d shared the news of her—their—pregnancy. The losses braided tighter each year, until today when Tia couldn’t think of anything except how stupid she’d been to ignoreher mother’s wisdom and how much she wished she could somehow tell her how sorry she was for not telling the whole truth.
     • • • 
    The moment Tia arrived at her office Monday morning, she opened the windows, knowing that when Katie arrived, her coworker would wrap her cardigan tight and stare at Tia as if they worked in Antarctica, when, in fact, whispers of spring blew over the chipped windowsill.
    Good scents were rare at the Jamaica Plain Senior Advocate Center, where Tia worked. Hope was not in bountiful supply. Each day, Tia fought a battle against caving in to her clients’ sadness. The greatest gift she offered them was the strength and invincibility of her youth—she knew that—but she feared that if she wasn’t careful, instead of inspiring her clients, she’d become a geriatric twenty-nine-year-old, groaning when she rose from a chair and moaning from self-pity. Perhaps this was Katie’s problem also: only thirty-six, and already she shivered when the temperature went lower than seventy degrees.
    Katie entered, shuddering. “Brr.”
    “Should I put the heat on?” Tia dreaded Katie’s disapproving clucks.
    “I’ll be okay.” Katie shook as if coming in from a blizzard. “What did you do this weekend?”
    “Not much.” Tia closed the window.
    “We took the kids to the Cape.” Katie exhaled as though she usually spent her weekends building homes with Habitat for Humanity.
    Tia knew how to make Katie happy. “You deserved a break,” she said as she sat at her battered metal desk.
    “Thanks for taking the messages.” Katie gave a delicate shiver and reached for the pink paper Tia offered. They were equals at the agency, both counselors for the elderly clients, but Katie made it clear that with her master’s degree in social work, she considered herself superior to Tia and her bachelor’s in psychology. Katie’s palatial Beacon Hill home dwarfed Tia’s one-bedroom apartment inJamaica Plain. Katie thanked Tia for assistance as though Tia were her receptionist.
    “Whose picture?” Katie plucked at the shiny photo sticking out from Tia’s worn address book.
    “My cousin’s baby.” Tia grabbed at the photo, but Katie held it out of reach.
    Katie peered at the picture. “Cute. Pretty eyes. A little pudgy, though.”
    Tia snatched Honor from Katie’s hand. “What’s wrong with you? She’s just a little kid.”
    “Obesity’s a huge issue. You’ve never worried about weight, I bet. You’re thin. Like me.” Katie ran her hands down her sides. “I watch my kids like crazy. Jerry’s family runs chunky.”
    Tia tightened her lips and tossed the picture in the trash, anxious to remove Honor from sight and out of conversation.
    “What are you doing?” Katie stepped forward as though ready to rescue the photograph.
    “I have too much clutter.” Tia’s stomach clutched as the picture fell.
    Her daughter was only twenty miles away in the suburb of Dover, but it might as well be millions. Millions of dollars and