The way a life can turn on a single moment

Of course if you set up your life in such a way that it's precarious and don't safeguard yourself then one little thing can do a lot of damage.

The lesson I should have learned perhaps is that even those you think are your closest can be the most dangerous. I learned that a single phone call to the cops is enough to change it all. But that isn't exactly true. If I had been cautious. If I had been less trusting. If I had been abiding by rules. If I had been good.

But I was none of those things. I am not a liar. I've been called a liar and a fabulist and a prevaricator. But I'm a writer and I play with words. But the lies I've told I've always called 'sport lies.' I'm an amateur. I like for the sake of entertainment, to spin myself a yarn. My lies have never been for any kind of personal gain. My lies have been the kind of thing you do in a bar when a guy asked you what you do for a living and you tell him you train racing armadillos. Or when you pretend to be married to someone you don't know and the both of you go along with it. Harmless.

And so I've never expected that others would lie to me. When I was seven my sister told my mother I had lied about something. She told my mother that I had told the neighbor girl that she was forbidden to walk on our driveway. I got called upon the carpet for that by my mother. And I don't believe I ever said anything of the sort. It was a minor matter but one that I remember with outrage these many many decades later. I lied to boyfriends I think. One in particular who I loved like I had never loved before and like I would never love again. I lied to save the love desperate because I knew that nothing would save the love and that he knew I was lying. I lied to the husband but only after he had lied to me over and over. I lied to him knowing full well he knew I was lying but I didn't care. I didn't want to be believed. I just wanted to refuse to tell the truth. I wasn't going to confess. I wasn't going to ask for absolution.

It was eight years later that he got me back for that. I don't think he spent eight years plotting. I don't think he had the attention span or the motivation for that kind of thing. But I do think of him as an opportunist. And I do think that he spent one year setting the stage for my downfall.