Mad Honey: A Novel (40 page)

Because if Braden rubbed off on Asher during those visits, that is exactly the kind of thing he’d say.

“But then,” Asher continues, “this happened.”

Lily’s death. His arrest. Jail.

“I should have told you,” Asher says.

If he had, would I have intervened? Prevented him from going? Did I fear that Braden would tell Asher lies about me?

Or that Braden would tell Asher the truth?

Asher and I do not talk about the fact that I was physically abused by his father. “Do you remember a lot about him?” I ask carefully. “Before we left?”

I hold my breath, waiting for his answer. I don’t know if he can recall what it was like in that household; what his father did to me; what he saw. Or what happened the night before we left for good.

“No,” Asher says quietly. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to meet him. I can only remember one conversation I had with him, when I was little.
One
. How can you be six years old when your parents split up and not remember more than one conversation?”

Because you bury them so deep so they don’t come out to hurt you,
I think.

“It was Christmas, and he took me outside,” Asher says. “I was really little—so little he was carrying me. He pointed to the sky and he said, ‘Right there—there’s Santa. Can’t you see it?’ And I looked and I looked and then, I swear, I totally saw a sleigh and reindeer.” He shakes his head. “Stupid, right?”

“Your father could be pretty persuasive,” I reply, but I think:
Maybe that’s when it happened. When he taught you how to lie.

THERE IS ONE
type of honey you should avoid at all costs.

Mad honey comes from bees that forage on rhododendrons and mountain laurel, and it’s full of poisonous grayanotoxins. It causes dizziness, nausea and vomiting, convulsions, cardiac disorders, and
more. Symptoms last for twenty-four hours, and although rarely, if left untreated, can be fatal. It has been used in biological warfare as far back as 399
b.c.
, to make Xenophon and the Greek army retreat from Persia. During the Third Mithridatic War in 65
b.c
., citizens of Pontus placed mad honey on the route taken by soldiers from Pompeii, and when the enemy helped themselves to the treat, they were easily conquered.

The secret weapon of mad honey, of course, is that you expect it to be sweet, not deadly. You’re deliberately attracted to it. By the time it messes with your head, with your heart, it’s too late.

A WOMAN’S HEART
beats a little faster than a man’s,
Braden told me the first night we went out to dinner.

Mine is hammering like the wings of a hummingbird.

As I place my hand over the Bible, as I swear to tell the truth, I look into the gallery. Mike Newcomb is sitting on the aisle, his eyes fixed on me. He offers me an encouraging smile.

Braden stands along the back wall of the courtroom, his arms folded across his chest.

I would never be called to testify against Braden if we were still married. There is spousal immunity in the American legal system.

But here I am, being called to testify against Asher.

No, no.
For
Asher.

Well. It will not be the first time I’ve lied to protect someone I love.

THE NIGHT OF
the 1999 Mass General Cardiothoracic Department Christmas party was foul—a cold, sleety rain was falling, as if the weather couldn’t make up its mind to segue into snow. Braden had picked out my dress—formfitting to show my figure, but below the knee, so it wasn’t tacky—and I’d picked my way through puddles in my heels. It was important to him that I look the part of the surgeon’s wife; therefore, it was important to me.

Braden and I were standing in a pocket of conversation about
Y2K and whether in a week’s time every computer system in the hospital would crash. Braden had had too much to drink, and he interrupted the attending who was talking about the Y2K bug and how to protect patient records.
I suppose you have a Doomsday bunker, too,
Braden sneered.

He didn’t see the look the doctor gave him, but I did. To keep him from doing or saying something else he’d later regret, I reached for his arm, to pull him away. Instead, my gesture made him spill his wine—all over the front of his shirt. He laughed, making fun of my clumsiness, and dabbed himself dry with his napkin.

An hour later, just before I was about to get into the car, Braden grabbed my wrist.
Don’t you ever fucking embarrass me again,
he said, and he shoved me so hard that I fell to my knees. He got into the car, locked the doors, and peeled away, leaving me behind.

This was, of course, before Uber. I didn’t have any cash; I hadn’t even carried a purse, since I was traveling with Braden. I started walking home in the sleet, in my heels and my too-thin coat. Ice settled on my shoulders, in my hair. I couldn’t feel my feet.

I didn’t realize that a police car had stopped beside me until the officer called out.
You all right, ma’am?

For just a heartbeat, I thought about telling the truth. But doing so would ruin Braden’s life, and I loved him too much to destroy him.

Instead, I started babbling lies. My husband had been called in to perform an emergency surgery, leaving me to get home on my own from a party we were attending. The policeman offered to drive me, but I realized that if Braden saw me arrive in a cop car, there would be hell to pay. So I gave him the address of a house I passed sometimes when I went for a run—a small pink Colonial with a sunroom and a little ivy-covered screen porch that led to the front door. Once, I’d seen the couple that lived there. The woman was kissing the man at the screen door before she left for work.

As the police car pulled over, I prayed that the owners of the house were already asleep. I waved to the officer just before I cracked the screen door and stepped into the strangers’ enclosed porch. Aware of the police car with its headlights on, waiting, I fumbled for a light
switch, and with shaking hands pretended to insert a key into the front door.

I waved and turned off the light in the porch, as if I’d unlocked the front door and was all set. After the car pulled away, I slipped out the screen door. In the shadows and the sleet, I walked the rest of the way.

WHEN I WAS
a little girl, Jordan used to take me to the bus stop. My kindergarten bus came before his middle school one, and as it lumbered up the hill, groaned to a halt, and flipped out its little Stop paddle, he’d hoist my backpack onto my shoulders, pull my pigtails, and say,
Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.
It became more than a routine; it bordered on superstition. If Jordan was sick and we couldn’t have this exchange, inevitably something bad happened at school: I would be picked last in gym class; my favorite teacher would be absent; the cafeteria would run out of chocolate milk.

Now, Jordan approaches me to begin the testimony we have practiced a hundred times in my kitchen. But he angles his body in a way that allows me to see his face, without revealing it to the jury or the judge.
Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,
he mouths silently.

“Please state your name for the record,” Jordan says.

“Olivia McAfee.”

“How are you connected to Asher?”

I look at my son’s face, a ghost of my own. The expression in his eyes is the one he used to have when he was a toddler and I picked him up after a fall—total faith I could make things right. “I’m his mother,” I say.

“Tell us a little about Asher in elementary school,” Jordan begins.

“He was obsessed with hockey from the time he started playing at seven,” I reply. “We have a pond on our property, and he’d skate there when it froze over in the winter. He joined a Peewee league, and on weekends, I’d drive him all around the state for games.”

“When did he start volunteering with younger kids?”

“When he was fifteen,” I say.

“As the person who knows him best,” Jordan asks, “can you tell us about some of the qualities Asher has that make him want to help people?”

My gaze is drawn to Braden. When we were out in social situations and someone asked him why he became a surgeon, he always said he wanted to help people. He would talk about his grandfather, dying in front of him of a heart attack, and how he couldn’t turn back time but decided to do the next best thing by making sure someone
else’s
grandfather didn’t die.

I was married for a year before I learned that he had never met his grandfather, who’d been a traveling sales rep who had a secret second family he went to live with before Braden was born.

When I asked Braden why he didn’t just tell the truth, he shrugged.
No one wants to admit they became a cardiac surgeon for the money. I’m only telling people what they want to hear.

I think about Asher, meeting Braden for breakfast once a month in secret. I remember Asher looking Mike in the eye and stating he wasn’t in Lily’s bedroom. I think about the cheating scandal Asher swore he hadn’t set in motion.

Jordan steps closer to me. “Ms. McAfee?” he prompts.

“Sorry.” I look at him. “Asher’s compassionate. Empathetic. He’s always looking out for someone weaker than he is.”

So was Braden,
I think.
And I qualified
.

The first time Braden and I slept together, he kissed my temple when he thought I was asleep.
I think I love you,
he whispered. Back then, I melted at the thought of him confessing something so monumental only when he thought I couldn’t hear it. Now I wonder if he knew, all along, that I was awake. If, even then, he was that manipulative.

I clear my throat. “I wasn’t surprised to learn that Asher stayed in touch with the campers even after summer ended. And I wasn’t surprised to hear that he rescued Lily from a boy who was pushing her to go out with him. That’s just who he is,” I say.

“You’re a single parent, aren’t you?” Jordan asks.

“Yes. For twelve years.”

“What has Asher had to do to adapt?”

“Well, for a really long time, it’s just been the two of us. Asher had to grow up fast. I make a living as a beekeeper, and once he was big enough and old enough, he had to help me with the bees, sometimes when other kids were out having fun. He had to fend for himself on days when I was selling honey at farmers’ markets. We’ve learned together how to be carpenters, electricians, plumbers, handymen—because things break on a farm, and we don’t make a lot of money. I rely on my son.” My gaze softens as I turn to Asher. “His first instinct has always been to take care of me.”

Just like that, twelve years have spooled backward. Braden grabs me by my ponytail. I feel hair ripping at the roots as I cower. I wait for the blow.

But there he is: my tiny savior, Asher. His body makes a wedge between us. His small hands beat against Braden. An act of defense.

And also an act of violence.

“Did you witness the relationship between your son and Lily developing, from September through November?”

“Yes.”

“How did Asher behave with Lily?”

“He loved her,” I say flatly. “He took care of her. He protected her.”

If you had asked a witness to describe my marriage from the outside looking in, they would have said the same about Braden.

“He would never have laid a hand on her,” I say woodenly.

That same witness to my marriage would have staked everything on this fact, too.

“Thank you, Ms. McAfee—” Jordan says, because when we have practiced my testimony, this is where it ends.

Except I’m not finished.

“—and this is how I know: because Asher’s been protecting me since he was six.”

Jordan freezes. I can see the warring expressions on his face—he doesn’t want to cut off his own witness, but he also wants to keep me from revealing something personal that I might later regret.

My mother, my brother, and my therapist are the only people I’ve ever told about the abuse. But I am so, so tired of hiding.

And I’m terrified that maybe Lily was, too.

“It’s okay, Jordan,” I say softly. “I want to do this.” I turn to the jury. “When Asher was six years old, he stepped in front of me before his father could hit me. His father had been beating me for years. It wasn’t until that day—when I realized Asher could wind up hurt, too—that I got enough courage to leave.”

A hushed shock falls over the gallery. The jurors look as if they’ve been carved of stone.

“I have known abusive men,” I say. “I have
loved
abusive men. I have lived with abuse.” Beneath my thigh, I cross my fingers.

“I know an abuser when I see one. And I can tell you without a doubt,” I lie, “that Asher is not abusive.”

THE STORM THAT
darkens Braden’s face is one I remember well:
You’re going to pay for this.
It whisks me back to being a victim, to knowing that when I least expect it, I will suffer for my actions.

I burst into tears. I start crying so hard that I cannot catch my breath. Jordan pushes a box of Kleenex into my hands and puts his hand on my shoulder. The warm weight of it is the only thing holding me together. “Let’s take ten minutes,” Judge Byers says, and I wipe my eyes. When I look up, Braden is gone.

DURING THE BREAK,
after Asher walks into the conference room, Jordan holds me back at the threshold. “You didn’t have to do that,” he says.

“I was trying to save my son,” I answer. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

He grimaces. “Not if it meant sacrificing yourself.” He hands me my Moleskine notebook, which he’s been keeping for me while I’m on the witness stand. “I’ll give you two a minute,” he says, and he leaves me to face Asher alone.

I close the door behind me. Asher is sitting at the table, but he looks up when I enter. “I knew,” he says quietly.

“I figured.” I sit down beside him.

“This makes me even more of a dick for wanting to meet with him, doesn’t it?”

“Well,” I say carefully, “given how difficult it was for me to get you away from your father, it’s kind of hard for me to wrap my head around.”