The Truth Commission (24 page)

A few weeks later, Neil directed me to one of the most vicious anti-Flounder sites, the one that had published my name, photo, and all publicly available information, including my old cell number and my parents' address. Someone had hacked the site and posted illustrations of the site's previously anonymous author, a guy in his twenties. He was shown in Flounder form. Turns out he didn't look good as a flounder, either.

No one at school took responsibility for the start of the Normandy Pale Defense Campaign, but I knew it was the work of Dusk and Neil, then of Aimee, Zinnia, Brian, and Prema. Later, I think a lot of the people in our school joined in. (And I'm told by Aimee, who monitors such things, that it has spread around the world. Team Keira vs. Team Normandy.) I was grateful, but I also know that I will never be totally free of my sister's stories. I can imagine her turning the whole saga into another Chronicle. And the whole controversy will flare up again when the movie is released.

But I'd come to terms with the situation, after a fashion. At risk of sounding like an extremely obvious self-help book, I have no control over what people say and think about me. I'd said my piece and been as honest as I could. I knew what was real and what was lies. Some people would love me and some would judge me based on false information. Life would go on. And, at the risk of sounding like another self-help book, I would take it one day at a time.

xxxxx

And what about the Truth Commission?

It won't surprise you to hear that, after everything that happened with my sister, Dusk, Neil, and I didn't have much appetite for formal truth seeking anymore. I feel like I should point out that a project like ours only worked because it took place in our particular school. In another environment, the truth would have been weaponized.

xxxxx

You know how in movies there's sometimes that part at the end when you learn about what happened to all the characters? I love that style of ending.

Here's what happened to our Truth Targets as of this writing:

• Aimee Danes continues to monitor her surgeries carefully. She has also begun to produce and star in an investigative webisode series. The first episode was about corruption in the skin products industry. It's already received 20,000 views. She's going to be a phenomenal TV reporter.
  
• Mrs. Dekker has a new dress to go with the yellow sundress. This one has long sleeves and is made of a purple knit material. She's still into ostriches.
  
• Zinnia McFarland continues to protest and make good art. She's going to art school in Berlin in September. Her relationship with her sister is improving. She remains an un-snazzy dresser.
  
• Prema Hardwick skis like the wind and has two boyfriends and doesn't care who knows it. We have high hopes for their Olympic prospects, especially Dr. Weintraub-Lee.
  
• Brian Forbes has disappeared. I hope he's in a long-term rehab, but I'm not sure. We all miss him. I might try to find him, if he wants to be found.
  
• Lisette DeVries has turned French, as in French Canadian, rather than Parisian French, as she is at pains to point out. She has joined the Parti Québécois and the school's French Club. She walks around with a baguette sticking out of her backpack most of the time.
  
• In April, Tyler Jones unveiled his Senior Year Major Project. Big three-dimensional copper, glass, and tin letters form the word
  TRUTH
  . Water pours into the top
  T
  , courses through an obstacle course, and then spills out of the
  H
  . There's a pond at the base of the
  H
  with some exotic plants growing out of it. Somehow, the water is propelled back up the installation and jets out the top and back over.
  

He calls the piece
Truthfiltration
. In spite of how it sounds, it's really quite beautiful. The water changes color as it moves through the letters.

No one knows whether he's gay or not. Almost everyone's still hoping he'll declare for their side. He's off to the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in the fall. Maybe someone there will get to find out.

• His uncle, Officer Jones, is apparently working on a series of gritty watercolors about Nanaimo-style crime and law enforcement. He never did get in touch with me about Keira, but Aimee, who hears everything, told me that my sister had been a nuisance caller to the police station. Apparently, Keira used to complain several times a night about her neighbors making noise. I guess they weren't as well trained as her family.
  

I know I presented my friends' families as being dysfunctional. Now that I'm living at Neil's house, I am pleased to report that it's not true. Admittedly, Mr. Sutton is not a tightly scheduled individual. He works about half an hour a day and makes more money than most people do in a month. This results in a lifestyle and fashion sense of alarming leisure.

Mr. Sutton, as it turns out, is also a devoted father. He checks Neil's homework with interest and gives feedback on Neil's paintings. He and Neil watch movies, mostly from the late 1960s and 1970s, constantly. At Mr. Sutton's suggestion, we've been watching Kurosawa's
Rashomon
. It's about the rape of a woman and the murder of her samurai husband and it's told from four different perspectives. It's about truth and how it's influenced by perception. It's also evidence that there's a piece of art to help a person understand any situation, no matter how strange or traumatic. Like I said, Mr. Sutton, though prone to loungewear, is an excellent father. There is a reason that Neil is the world's best boyfriend. Not long ago, Mr. Sutton helped me to understand some things about Neil's art.

“You know, Norm,” he said, spearing an olive out of his martini one afternoon when Neil was staying late at school to paint. “Neil's work is fascinating. But it's also sad to me.”

I waited for him to explain. Part of me was, in spite of everything, still a little jealous or at least curious about Neil's art. He still hadn't painted me.

“His mother was so beautiful. But she was always leaving. From the time I met her until the day she left for good, a few months after Neil was born, she was slipping away from us. It's why I've never remarried. It's bad enough I have a kid who can't stop painting disappearing women. No need to add another layer of complication to it.”

That's how Mr. Sutton talked. Openly, but not inappropriately.

It was interesting to watch him try to sort out how best to have me living with them. I basically had my own wing. My bedroom was located on the opposite side of the house from theirs. I had my own bathroom and sitting area and more space than I'd ever had before. I even had my own garden patio.

I had a walk-in closet. I kept my clothes in it.

Mr. Sutton handled my living with them by sitting us both down and telling us how he felt, and asking how we felt. And getting us to agree to a clearly outlined set of rules. Reality. What a breath of fresh air.

xxxxx

In December, I got a part-time job at the art supply store. I left Nancy at my parents' house and last month combined all my savings to buy my own car. It's a Pacer. We call him Ken. He's got his own kind of cachet and almost never stalls.

This spring we each finished our Special Projects.

Dusk finally taxidermied a shrew to her satisfaction. It died of natural causes and was found almost immediately. This is the key, apparently, to a successful mount, which is what taxidermists call preserving animals. Dusk dressed the shrew in a tiny acid-wash jumpsuit, gave it big hair, and installed it in a miniature single-wide mobile home.

Neil's paintings revealed themselves to be linked. The women got farther away in each one. The final painting was a close-up of Neil's face. If you looked, you could see a reflection of the same painting in his eye. There was no woman in it. I'm not completely sure what it means, and that's okay.

In addition to my embroideries, a version of this manuscript was displayed with a description written by Ms. Fowler. It was titled
Work of Creative Nonfiction by Normandy Pale
. No one was allowed to pick it up and read it. I wasn't quite ready for that.

Dusk's parents came to the end-of-year show. They were impressed with Neil's paintings, and apparently startled by the realism of my embroidery. Several times they commented how photographic it was. Most of all they were proud of
Taxiderming the Shrew
. Still, they couldn't stop themselves from pointing out several times that many accomplished artists are also doctors.

Dusk just shrugged.

My dad came to the show and looked proud and awkward. No one could say he doesn't try. He's giving Mr. Sutton money for my expenses, which Mr. Sutton is just putting away in a college fund for me.

My sister emailed a month or so ago and said she forgives me for telling those lies about her. I haven't written her back.

She's out of rehab and back in her town house. She splits her time between there and my parents' house. It makes me sad to realize that my talented sister has chosen to live such a small, mean life. I know how she's doing because my dad and I get together once a week for breakfast or lunch. We go to a different place every time, because I think it's good for him to try new things, and he agrees. We talk about real things, at least we try to. I know my dad didn't want any of this. He didn't go along with Keira's presentation of us so she would pay off the mortgage, or for some other selfish reason. He did it because, he says, he knows how she really feels.

“She loves us, Normandy. That's why she draws us.”

“Do you really believe that?” I asked.

“I'm her parent, Normandy. I have to believe that.”

I guess I can see how it would be too much to believe that your own kid sort of hates you.

The truth, especially for my father, is like an onion. You don't want to peel that sucker all at once or you might never stop crying.

My dad says he understands that I'm not ready to come home if Keira's going to be there. He says he appreciates my courage. He's thinking about taking an art class at night. Getting back into his model-making. I hope he does.

I haven't seen my mom, because she says it's too painful right now. She hasn't been going out much since she stopped working, which she stopped doing as soon as the mortgage got paid off. I asked my dad if Keira gave them any extra money. He said it wasn't important, which means she didn't. But my mom and I talk on the phone sometimes. If there were prizes awarded for awkward and depressing conversations, we'd need a special trophy case to hold our winnings.

xxxxx

So that's the story of the Truth Commission. Did the truth set me free? Hard to say. I'm struggling for a way to end this story that will sound profound. A sound bite or a memorable Wildean quote.
117
Nothing's coming. That's kind of the thing about the truth. It's never complete and it's rarely simple.
118

Oh, and I just realized I've never really explained my embroidery project. The series is called
The Corrections
.
119
It is made up of four separate pieces meant to be displayed together as a single picture. Each shows a section of a family photo taken of us before the first Chronicle was published. When you look at them all together, they still don't make sense. The pieces don't fit perfectly together and don't tell the whole story.

Only the viewer can say if I succeeded.

With love and respect,

Normandy Pale

I would like to thank the following people for helping me to finally tell the truth: Ms. Fowler, Dusk Weintraub-Lee, Neil Sutton, Mr. Rowan Sutton, Aimee Danes, Mrs. Blaire Dekker, Zinnia McFarland, Lisette DeVries, Brian Forbes, Prema Hardwick, Tyler Jones, Randy Thomas, Officer Edward Jones, Principal Manhas, and everyone at Green Pastures Academy of Art and Applied Design.

As for everyone else? Good effort.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

My undying thanks to:

My agent, Hilary McMahon, for everything and then some;

Honored test readers Andrew Gray, Bill Juby, Stephanie Dubinsky, and in the early stages, Jamie Sigmundson and Tai Deacon, for smart, funny, helpful feedback;

My colleague, Marni Stanley, for generously sharing her expertise and vast library of graphic novels;

Former student and current illustrator Trevor Cooper, for his astonishing artistic talent and general excellence;

Mat Snowie, for helping me make “promotional” videos and being a delightful mix of calm, creative, and competent;

My students at Vancouver Island University, who are more hilarious and interesting than your average;

VIU First Nations Studies professors Keith Smith, Laura Cranmer, and elder Ray Peters, for advice and suggestions;

All the fabulous folks at Penguin Canada, particularly my beloved Lynne Missen and Nicole Winstanley;

Everyone at Viking Children's Books, especially Ken Wright, Kim Ryan, Denise Cronin, Kate Renner, Janet Pascal, Abigail Powers, Susan Jeffers Cassel, Cara Petrus—

And super special mention to Sharyn November, only the best champion a writer could ask for. Her magnificent hair is the perfect accessory for such a startling and original mind;

My husband, James, and our puppy, Rodeo. I'm glad only one of you steals socks and barks, or this book would never have been completed;

And myself, for making these acknowledgments the most Academy Awards–ish ever.