Family of Lies by Mary Monroe

behind. I got enough bill collectors coming after me for my own bills. I ain’t got no money, so I ain’t about to pay nobody else’s debts. Not even my daughter’s.”
    “Your daughter didn’t owe me any money, ma’am,” I said quickly. “But the sooner we can discuss our business, the better.”
    “Well, you need to tell me what business you need to discuss with me and you need to tell me now.”
    I exhaled loudly and looked around some more. More people had entered the dining area. There were now almost twice as many mourners present as the number who had actually attended the service. Apparently the latecomers had come to get a plate and, I hoped, to offer their condolences to Lois’s family.
    Lois’s daughter, Sarah, had joined some other young people near the exit. For a brief moment, she glanced at me. There was a puzzled expression on her face.
    “This is about your granddaughter,” I finally said, still looking around the room. “Ma’am, this is kind of sensitive. If you really need to talk about it now, I suggest we go to a more private location.”
    Mrs. Cooper shook her head. “I ain’t going no place with no strange man. Now, either you tell me right here and now what you need to talk to me about and what it’s got to do with my granddaughter, or you can get up out of my face.”
    It didn’t take long for me to realize that I didn’t have a choice, so I took a deep breath and formed the words in my head before they slowly rolled out of my mouth. “I think I’m Sarah’s father.”
    Mrs. Cooper’s mouth dropped open and she looked at me like I had just insulted her. “It was you? You the one that done it?” she asked, rotating her neck.
    “Ma’am?”
    “Some horny devil drugged my child and took advantage of her at a party one night. She passed out and when she woke up the next morning she was naked to the world. A few weeks later, she found out she was pregnant. Did you do it?”
    Hearing the news that someone had drugged Lois and raped her horrified me. For one thing, it made me angry to think that someone would commit such a vile act. “Ma’am, I didn’t drug your daughter and I didn’t take advantage of her. She was over eighteen and more than willing to have a relationship with me.”
    Mrs. Cooper blinked and looked me up and down, frowning and shaking her head. “You look old enough to be her daddy. What in the world did she see in a geezer like you? Why did you fire her?”
    “Ma’am, I told you I didn’t fire Lois. One day she didn’t show up for work and she didn’t call to say why. I tried to call her, but the number she’d listed on her application had been disconnected or changed. I don’t know which. She called my personnel office and had the clerk mail her last check to a post office box, and I never heard from her again. I never did find out why she suddenly quit her job without giving me any notice. I didn’t even know she was still living in the Bay Area. I didn’t know she was married, and I didn’t know she’d had a daughter. Now, your granddaughter looks exactly like my late brother’s daughter. Because of that, my affair with Lois, and the time frame, well, what else can I think?”
    “You telling me that my daughter lied to me? She lied to me all these years?”
    I nodded. “I’m afraid so, ma’am.”
    “Why should I believe you? Where you been all this time? How come you never paid a dime to help support Sarah? You just another nigger to me, so why should I believe anything you say?”
    “Ma’am, I swear to God I didn’t know about Sarah until I saw her picture in the newspaper. Had I known about her before now and even suspected that I was her father, I would have taken care of her.”
    Before Mrs. Cooper could respond, Sarah returned. “Grandma Lilly, you all right? You look upset,” she asked, a scowl on her beautiful cinnamon brown face as she looked at me. She reminded me of a doll with her big brown eyes and pert nose. Her thick