White Lies Read Online Free Page A

to bring me back. “Matt?”
    A quiet rage sapped the blood away from my face and fingers, leaving them tingling. I almost asked Alex’s question myself, just to see Dad’s face change. See it melt.
    “Thirty-five years today,” I said, instead.
    Dad gave me a nod. Angela exhaled, as if suddenly aware she had been holding her breath. Sabine removed her hand from my arm and folded her napkin in her lap. Clare raised her glass of Coke with a toneless, “Happy birthday, Uncle Matt.”
    I let them relax for a second before clarifying: “Since my mum disappeared. Thirty-five years today.” I kept my eyes on my dad, and the relieved atmosphere promptly dissolved.
    “That’s thirty-five birthdays she’s missed then,” Dad said. “Well counted, Matthew.”
    “You had us though, Matt,” Angela said quietly.
    “And Lydia,” Sabine added. And by invoking her name, just like that, I lost my chance to reply. Alex would have had a field day.
    I could have pointed out that Lydia wasn’t my real mother, and they would have replied: but wasn’t I grateful that she raised me since I was three?
    I could have complained that my birthday was forever shadowed by my mother’s disappearance, and they would have replied: but you’re thirty-five now. Do birthdays really matter anymore?
    I could have asked why my dad never told me anything about my mother, and they would have replied softly: but couldn’t I see the man was still mourning, too? Couldn’t I just give him a break?
    My dad had returned to his spaghetti with new purpose, spinning his fork into the centre of his plate, creating a pasta vortex too large for a single mouthful, until flecks of tomato sauce began to slop over the edges and splatter against Angela’s cardigan.
    I took a breath to say something but Angela’s phone buzzed on the glass-top table. I raised my eyebrows to Sabine, waiting for the confirmation that Alex had stood us up.
    “He’s not going to make it,” Angela said, and I laughed and drummed a victorious rhythm on the table but no-one else thought it was funny. “He’s around all weekend though,” she continued, brushing the tomatoey specks from her sleeve.
    “Is he?” I said. “Is he really?”
    Sabine glared at me and Angela set her jaw. The waitress arrived and bounced on the balls of her feet behind my chair and said, “How’s everything for you all? Okay? All done?” She glanced at Dad but did not falter at the sight of his unwavering focus on his rotating food, or the plastic hand that clattered clumsily against his plate.
    “It’s fine, thank you,” Sabine replied, when it was obvious no-one else was going to.
    The waitress ceased her bobbing and stooped to retrieve a fallen napkin, catching sight of a silver-wrapped present poking out of Angela’s bag. “Ooh, someone’s birthday?” she asked, shrilly.
    I pulled my mouth into a brief smile and raised a guilty hand. Clare sank several inches lower in her seat.
    “Would you like to order some dessert, birthday boy?” The waitress grinned, and started stacking plates and wiping the tabletop. As she leaned across me, her blouse brushed my cheek and I blushed like an adolescent, then winced, feeling the coldness of Sabine’s sneer beside me.
    I passed the waitress my plate. “No. Shall we get the bill?”
    “I’ll have a coffee, please,” Sabine said mildly, though her ambivalent expression was a poor mask for what I knew lay beneath.
    Angela’s attention shifted from her stepfather to her daughter, who was chewing ice cubes noisily and kicking the central leg of the table.
    “You’ve hardly eaten anything.”
    Clare shrugged jerkily, “I’m not hungry.”
    Angela lowered her voice while the waitress jutted out a hip and fixed her smile, hand hovering above Clare’s barely touched plate. “What was the point of ordering if you’re not going to eat it?”
    “I’ve eaten breadsticks.”
    Angela sighed in exasperation. The waitress moved round to Dad’s side of