The Lie
I was four years old when I told my first deliberate lie.
My best friend was a boy my age who lived next door named Billy Matthews. Billy was the first boy to show me his private parts, offering it as a bonus when he went to relieve himself in the weeds behind their garage. But that was not the incident that prompted the lie.
I was playing at Billy’s house one morning when his mother, whom I liked because she was young and pretty and never scolded us, appeared at the doorway to the playroom.
“I’m going to make Billy’s lunch now,” she said. “Would you like to stay and have peanut butter and jelly and chocolate milk with Billy?”
In my house, jelly was a rarity and chocolate milk was non-existent. Nothing on earth was going to stop me from fulfilling the desire that swept over me, blotting out all else.
“Run along home and ask your mother if you can have lunch with us,” Mrs. Matthews said.
Instantly I was on my feet and out the door. I remember holding a vision of the sandwich and chocolate milk in my head as I flew down the sidewalk to my family’s small Cape Cod.
My mother was in the bathroom when I bounded in, shouting her name. “What do you want?” she called from behind the closed door.
“Can I stay for lunch at Billy’s?”
“No, dear. I’ve already made your lunch,” came my mother’s voice. “Run back over to Billy’s and tell his mother, ‘Thank you for inviting me but I have to go home for lunch.’”
Clearly, my mother did not understand. As I heard the toilet flush behind the bathroom door, I made my decision. I don’t recall a moment of guilt or hesitation before I took off for Billy’s.
“I can stay,” I told Mrs. Matthews, my chest heaving with breathless excitement.
True to her word, she placed before me a lunch I can see in my mind’s eye to this day. I was full-bellied, finishing the last swallows of the rich chocolaty milk, when my mother appeared at the Matthews’s kitchen door. Both she and Billy’s mother had odd looks on their faces — reproving but with a hint of suppressed laughter. Even then, I had no remorse. I knew full well I had done something bad. The wild in me had called, and I had answered. There was nothing to explain.
Back at home, my mother delivered a lecture about the importance of honesty and obedience and what I should have done instead. The bonds on my freedom would be cinched a little tighter from now on. I understood that. A four-year-old version of the words “worth it” flickered through my mind.
I’ve often looked back on that naked courage of my convictions. My boldness so surprised my mother that I escaped punishment. Sometimes, in my complex, guilt-ridden adulthood, I still long for that purity.