From the Kitchen of Half Truth Read Online Free

the meeting, just as my mother had always described it to me, while they hung on my every word, clutching their hearts.
    â€œ Où est l’hôtel de ville ,” they would repeat dreamily at the end of the story. “That’s sooo romantic.”
    ***
    To truly embrace my cultural heritage, I occasionally wore a red beret to school.
    â€œParis is the most beautiful and romantic city in the world,” I would tell my friends, “and as soon as I’m old enough I’m going to go and study there. I’ll probably find my father’s family and live with them. They will be so excited to meet me!”
    I had a map of France pinned over my bed, with a little flag stuck right in the heart of Paris. I would imagine my father—young, strong, and handsome—in a stripy T-shirt and a beret like mine, cycling through the Parisian streets on his way to work at the most prestigious bakery in France. I didn’t like to think too much about the tragic pastry-mixing incident, but I had a sense that his death had been heroic. He had died in his quest to create the finest cherry tart and name it after my mother, and that was as heroic a death as I could imagine. Somewhere I had heard a phrase about the brave dying young, and I imagined whoever said it must have been talking about my father.
    My mother said that my father was always there with me in spirit, and that was comforting, but also scary.
    â€œWill he be there when I’m on the toilet?” I asked her.
    â€œNo, darling, he won’t be with you then.”
    â€œWill he be there when I’m taking a bath?”
    â€œNo, darling, not if you don’t want him there.”
    â€œWill he be there when I’m doing something naughty?”
    â€œYes, he certainly will. So you’d better behave yourself.”
    I would often talk to him. Seeing as he was always there (apart from when I was on the toilet or in the bath) it seemed rude not to, and I would imagine I could hear him talking back to me. No, he didn’t think Tracey Pratt was as pretty as me, or that Mrs. Partridge was right for making me sit next to smelly Scott Warner in assembly. And, yes, he did agree that my mother should let me stay up until past nine o’clock. He always agreed with everything I said, which was very endearing and made me love him all the more.
    And I did love him, I think, in the idolizing, dreamy way that makes it possible to love someone you have never met. He might not have been there in person, but he was part of me, and I was part of him, and somehow that gave me strength and a sense of belonging. I would look in the mirror and see a small nose and pointy chin that—because they definitely hadn’t come from my mother—must have come from him. He was there in my beret, my map of France, my love of cheese triangles, and he was there in the mirror’s reflection, looking right back at me.
    One day, inevitably, the mirror broke. Smashed into a thousand tiny, painful splinters. If I hadn’t loved him so much, perhaps it wouldn’t have been so hard, but losing the respect of my peers was nothing compared to losing my father.
    ***
    It happened in my first week at Millbrook Comprehensive, in Madame Emily’s French class. I had never had the opportunity to learn French before, but I knew I was bound to be a natural. After all, it was in my blood.
    â€œRight, class, who already knows some French?”
    My hand shot up. I did! I did!
    Finally away from the rest of Red Class, I had the opportunity to make new friends, to impress people with my knowledge instead of spouting ridiculous stories. It had been some time since I had turned my back on fiction in the pursuit of all that was good and true, but my reputation had followed me around Elmbrook Primary like a bad smell until the very end. I heard the words they whispered about me: liar , fibber , tittle-tattle . Now I had the chance to start again. After an