Mendacium

Deborah Hernshaw was late to her sister’s wake. 

Not that she wanted to be. Not that she planned to be. It’s just how time operated for the Hernshaw family. Things bubbled over, priorities shifted, stuff happened. Like, realizing you were supposed to pick up your little brother a half hour ago, just as you drove into the parlor’s parking lot. Deborah had slammed a hand on the steering wheel of her car so hard, she had popped off a fake nail. It projectiled into the back seat somewhere. She spent the drive wondering if she could somehow stick it back on before having to walk in to see her sister’s dead body. 

“Jesus Christ, Deb, that was your third red light,” Rhys scolded from the passenger seat, looking down at her bare foot on the gas pedal. He white-knuckled the side of her car, only to be pushed back into his seat as she hit a pot-hole dead-on. 

“Remind me again how your license got suspended?” Deborah spat back, silencing him. Her brother had gotten his third DUI this past April; his license should’ve been revoked, but their father tugged at a few strings to avoid scandal. A fourth offense, however, and he’d go to jail—the bribes only went so far. 

Deb’s blue m-series beamer screeched around the bend; Rhy’s head smacked against the window. Just five more minutes to the parlor, and they’d only be forty-five minutes late. Deborah hunched forward in the driver’s seat, determined, occasionally lifting her fingers to examine her dull nail with a pout. 

The funeral parlor appeared before them in the windshield, a starchy white building with pillars. Large bushes of purple and blue hydrangeas dotted the front. A black sign with a white trim and lettering stood in the center of the lawn, Requiem Funeral Home. 

Deborah pulled into the cracked lot, parking at angle over the lines near a car she didn’t recognize. Rhys got out with shaky legs while Deborah reached back for her purse and heels before exiting the vehicle. 

“Let’s get this shit over with,” she huffed, hopping as she affixed the right heel to her foot. Deborah stomped through the grass and met Rhys at the double-doors; he was an outright skeletal figure in black. His brown hair was abnormally gelled back, which put his face in full view—sunken, willowy in structure. Dark circles colored the space below his eyes. It was a wonder he wasn’t the one in the casket. 

Instead, it was Marion. Gutsy, stupid Marion. 

Together they opened the double doors and shuffled quickly through the foyer and into a drab, albeit open room with dining chairs layered in rows, with an aisle down the middle. You’d think it was set up for a chintzy wedding if it weren’t for the mahogany casket on the other side of the room. 

Even from this distance, Rhys could see the point of his sister’s nose just peak out over the wood and white, pillowed interior of the casket. He half-expected to see her nose wrinkle, in the way it had whenever she grew displeased. But her body was still, heavily powdered, and uncharacteristically quiet. He didn’t like it and took a quick shot of vodka; a pocket-sized bottle stuffed into the inside of his jacket. What his sponsor didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

Deborah had pushed past him to their parents and their eldest sibling. They were congregating in the space near the coffin, but kept a reasonable distance away. Henrietta, their mother, was having a furious conversation on the phone, heels burning into the carpet. Their father, Joseph I, merely sat in one of the dining chairs at an angle, hands resting on top of his wooden cane, staring at the corner of the wall. His expression was one of impatience. A fat ring hung loosely from his pinky. Joseph Hernshaw II was talking to the only non-blood relative in the room—a young looking fellow in a worn sweater vest with a manila envelope held tight between knobby fingers, nails bitten down to nothing. His eyebrows perked up when he saw the last of the Hernshaws enter the room. 

Joseph II was the first to turn to the stragglers, his eyes severe, his lips pursed. 

“God, you couldn’t believe the traffic,” Deborah said, making a laugh. She reached her mother first, kissed her on the cheek. Their father only nodded in acknowledgement of her presence, then looked through Rhys entirely, who slithered up behind them all. 

Deborah looked to the casket and swallowed. Her sister looked horrid.

The strange man cleared his throat and they all turned to him in unison. 

“As you know, it was Marion’s wish to call you all here on a private summons before the start of the wake,” he said, gesturing with the manila envelope. “Marion asked that I read her will and testament to you all, now that you’re all here.”

“Are you her lawyer or something?” Rhys asked, he could practically smell the righteousness of the kid. She must’ve plucked him right out of a classroom. 

“Or something,” he said, looking around at them with unwavering eyes. 

“But a will?” asked Henrietta, lowering her phone to her chest. “Our daughter has nothing to give us. Don’t you think it’s a bit silly, darling?” She turned briefly to her husband, the phone returning to her ear. 

“Ridiculous child, still wasting my time,” scoffed Joseph I, banging his cane to the carpet. It sent a soft reverb throughout the sparse establishment. 

Deborah picked at the glue still attached to her bare nail, now sitting in one of the chairs, slumped down with legs crossed. Joseph II merely peered down at the casket, his own body just as still. “She’s dead. We ought to hear her out.” 

Their father merely grunted. 

The young lawyer (or, what they assumed to be one), cleared his throat again. “May I begin?” 

Five pairs of eyes turned to him in unison. 

“Alrighty, then,” he said with an awkward smile, fingers folding open the silver metal pin that enclosed the manila envelope. Carefully, he pulled out several pages of a thin, blue loose leaf. Deborah could see the pages with Marion’s lush, black cursive, and imagined her scribbling this testament from her bland hospice room, a cigarette, nearly burnt to the nub, tight between her lips, ashes all around her. 

Lung cancer only increased her smoking habits ten-fold, and the hospice never complained; Marion promised to keep the window open and pay for a new wing with what remained of her savings. She hadn’t touched a lick of it in the fifteen years she’d left the family in a cursed storm.

Rhys had been too young at the time to remember why she left. When he had asked her, during his final visit to the hospice, she had only responded, “Because it was all a lie.” She was standing that day, hopped up on medicated ice chips. Her forehead was pressed against the window as she spoke, taking in deep, wheezy breaths. She didn’t divulge more on the subject, only started to laugh; the sound was awful. Rhys had gone to get a nurse. 

“The Last Testament of Marion Amelia Hernshaw,” began the man at the front of the room, pulling Rhys from the memory. “She’s crossed out the word will.” Henrietta’s phone conversation went to a whisper. 

Atrox Melior Dulcissima Veritas Medaciis. The bitter truth is better than the sweetest lies. 

My dearest blood, I write to you all today in the hopes that I’m lying dead in a casket, and that all of you are seated miserably before me, struggling to discern why this once inconsiderate child has decided to summon you all to a penniless reading. 

I can assure you, this reading will be worth all its weight in gold. All I ask is that you listen. And listen closely. 

In our nearly fifteen years apart, I’ve become somewhat of a sleuth. It never sat well with me, our family’s history. Father knows this well. And on a desperate, mindless hunch, I set to find out why. 

You’re welcome. 

Now we all know the story of how our great-great (however many ‘greats’ there are) grandfather became the sole inheritor of the Chauncey estate, Blackwell Manor, and all that came with it—a regular old rags to riches tale. Alexander Hernshaw started from nothing, a mere assistant to a very rich, very childless Xavier Chauncey. A man with a fortune, and no one to give it to. 

But there was Alex, open-handed and cunning. Who, in the several years that he’d worked under Chauncey’s guidance, became more than just an assistant. He became a confidante, and a key strategist. A business partner. He possessed a silver tongue, a keen eye; to the point where no decision was made without Chauncey first consulting with him behind closed doors. Chauncey groomed our dear relative like the son he never had. And that’s just what Alex wanted. Without an heir in sight, Chauncey would have no choice but to grant his legacy to a boy from nowhere and nothing. How delicious, to manipulate a rich old bastard to hand over his purse, right between his legs. 

But wait, you’re all thinking, is Marion accusing our dear Alexander of unlawful manipulation? The underdog who worked so hard to achieve this life for us now? Blasphemy! 

But I did, and I am. And I promise you our dear ancestor was guilty of more than just greed and manipulation. 

You see, Alex and I had somewhat of a thing in common: we had a habit of digging our noses where they didn’t belong. Only, our great-great grandfather decided to take more drastic measures in response to his most profound discoveries. 

It was no mystery that Mrs. Amelia Chauncey (for whom I take my middle name) was barren. Not an egg in sight. They were married in a wink, much to Alex’s chagrin, but the happy couple hadn’t discovered this until after months of trying. You can imagine how this tore at them both. Chauncey was without an heir at forty-five. And Amelia, a small, young creature, felt defective, denied the natural progression of our species. (Such evolutionary standards never appealed to me, but I digress. After all, it was a different time.)

Still, Chauncey was a businessman and liked options. Amelia felt broken, but still wanted to be a mother. And so they adopted. Or, at least, they tried to. 

Their inquiries and pleas into the newly forming foster care systems fell on deaf ears. With little time to venture to these institutions themselves—Chauncey drowning in work and Amelia slowly deteriorating on a mental plane—they sent our very own Alex Hernshaw to conduct a search for their child. And to no avail. 

How curious to think that a man, richer than God, would be denied the chance to care for one child, any child, in need of a home—especially at a time when there were so few standards for child-placing. Does it make sense to you? 

In case you’re seeing where I’m going with this and you think it’s a bunch of hullabaloo, I will note here that I’d gathered all of this information from Chauncey’s and Amelia’s letters, which had been donated to an archive at a nearby university. I poured over boxes of memories behind glass-walled study rooms. Spent hours analyzing a man’s pain. A pain that radiated from our own blood, who was driven by nothing more than greed. Emotionless, pitiful greed. And it is from that seed that we have grown; nothing more than a patch of tangled weeds pretending to be flowers. 

There came a time when Amelia and Chauncey gave up completely. Amelia retreated into herself, drinking up varying concoctions supplied by her doctors to ease her splintering mind, only to have it crack completely; one time Chauncey found her tearing beaded eyes from the stuffed animals in their empty nursery, sobbing madly into their fur. Weeks later, she drowned herself in the pool. It was Alex who found her. 

Chauncey, in contrast, strove to stay alive and dove deep into an unending schedule of work and sex and roaring parties with champagne lakes; a blip, careless bout of satisfaction, just to feel something amidst misery. And Alex stood by in the shadows, the gentlest push, much like a summer breeze, watching and waiting for his future to slowly and surely spiral into the palms of his outstretched hands. 

But with all things, there came a snag. A woman by the name of Mary Carter, a young widower and frequent visitor to Chauncey’s bed. He’d confided with Alex at one point that he loved this woman. Alex advised that this had been and should only be treated as nothing more than fool’s fantasy. But the letters between Chauncey and Carter had shown otherwise; and, for once, Chauncey defied Alex’s suggestions. 

I can only wonder the panic that surged through Alex when he discovered Mary Carter was pregnant. What horror had he felt when he knew, without a shred of doubt, that this thing would take everything away from him. 

Though it took me years to unearth the thing, I found that our great-great grandfather loved to write about his triumphs. His leather-bound schemes had been tucked away rather nicely in the basement of Blackwell Manor, behind wooden slats. Was it Alex who had hidden it there? Or someone else, someone who saw the gravity of his damning words and would save the family generations of trouble, should they ever go public?

Do you remember, father? When I showed you that book, fifteen years ago? How you slammed it out of my hands, and refused to answer to its filth? Your actions told me all the truth I needed to hear. A family of liars, us all. And I wanted no part of it. 

It’s hard to believe, but there is luck out there for the wicked. And our dear Alex had gobs of it. 

News of Mary’s pregnancy never reached Chauncey. She had come to the manor late in the evening, to speak of this to her lover, only to meet Alex at the door. Chauncey, conveniently, was at a dinner party and would remain there until the early morning. Though Mary had wanted to wait for Chauncey to come home, Alex managed to coax the truth from her lips. 

Four weeks late. The doctors confirmed. Would Chauncey be happy? 

The small smile on her lips must’ve killed Alex. I’ve thought about the portrait of him in our foyer; can only imagine the severity behind those dark irises in that moment. 

It was then that a plan went into place. Quickly stitched together, but not without efficiency. 

Alex filled her mind with scandal. Though she cared not of her own reputation, she did care about Chauncey’s. What would news of this child bring to his circle, when they weren’t even married? And how could Mary be so sure that Chauncey would even want it? That he even wanted her? Did she truly believe the letters? They were nothing more than frivolous musings. She was nothing but a body.

The poor thing believed him, and heeded his advice. She left the city, then the state, and then the whole damn country. And Chauncey never saw her again. 

He sent her letters, but they were always sent back to him. No forwarding address. Alex was all he had left, and he told him so; Chauncey thanked him for being the only person who hadn’t left him in all these years. 

Chauncey was a fractured man from that point on; his schedules became busier, the parties louder, the drinks heavier. Until his heart couldn’t take it anymore. Until he didn’t wake up.

A will was produced that left it all to Alexander Hernshaw, and thus here we all stand. 

But I’m here to tell you, as our father and mother well know, that this will was a fraud. And that the real will, glued into the binding of our great-great grandfather’s journal, spelled out something very different. I had cut it out of that journal, all of those years ago, and I’ve brought it here with us today. 

Please enter, Miss Evelyn Carter. 

A woman in plain black clothing stepped into the room, rounded glasses sliding down her nose. Deborah noted her rounded nails, completely bare, and the cheap pearl necklace that hung too low from her neck. Her hands clutched yellowed, folded paper with a broken wax seal. Rhys could hear his father breathing hard; his face was a bright red, blue eyes frantic and crystalline. Henrietta was pale, her arms at her sides, phone slipping from her fingers and onto the carpet. Joseph II only stared down at his dead sister, head hung low, as if he knew this were coming. His fingers trailed slowly to her neck. 

You might recognize the last name. I’ll give you all a moment to let it sink in. 

That folded paper in her hands is Xavier Chauncey’s last will and testament. And he didn’t give a penny to Alex Hernshaw. 

Indeed, Chauncey had his own secrets. He had decided to give everything to Mary, regardless of an heir; regardless of whether or not he’d ever see her again. I guess the guy really loved her. 

With the help of old Stewie here, who’s graciously reading my words, I tracked down Carter’s legacy and took a crash course in legal matters I don’t remember (let’s blame the whole dying thing). 

Evelyn Carter, who stands before you now, is the great granddaughter of Chauncey and Mary Carter’s kid (confusing, I know), and is legally the heir of the Chauncey fortune. 

So, to make a long story short... our family is fucked. 

Have fun.