Page 80 of This Beautiful Lie
“Alright,” Trisha cut in suddenly, waving her fork between us. “I think that’s enough interrogation for one evening. We don’t want to scare her off.”
A few laughs followed, and the moment eased as someone passed a platter full of desserts around the fire.
Mr. McHenry huffed, unbothered, as he jabbed a poker into the flames. Sparks burst upward, swirling briefly before fading.
He leaned back, the lines around his eyes softening.
“Now then,” he said, his tone lighter. “Your turn. What would you like to know about us?”
I smiled, buying myself a second. There was a long list of questions I could’ve asked—too many, really—but none that felt safe enough to say out loud. Instead, my gaze slid to Dean, the easy target.
“You don’t happen to have any stories about him, do you?”
Mr. McHenry’s face split into a grin that made him look years younger. “Do I ever?” He leaned forward, firelight flickering across his features. “Would you like the sweet ones—or the slightly embarrassing ones?”
“Now, Grandpa…” Dean muttered, shifting in his seat, half warning, half resigned.
Mr. McHenry only chuckled, mischief dancing in his eyes. He made a low, thoughtful sound, then tipped his head back, studying the stars as if sorting through a lifetime of memories.
“Ah,” he said at last, leaning forward again, firelight catching the curve of his smile. “I’ve got the perfect one.”
The air seemed to quiet. Conversations dimmed, bodies leaned in, and before I knew it, the entire circle was listening—just as eager as I was to hear what came next.
“You see, like your brother John, Dean has always been protective of Blair. When she was small, he never let her walk to school alone, cross a street, and if she so much as scraped a knee, he carried her home as if she'd broken her leg. And Blair—well,she had a way of finding trouble in every nook and cranny of our home.”
Blair, who’d been lounging off to the side, lifted her head with a groan. “Oh, please don’t bring me into this.”
Mr. McHenry chuckled, clearly pleased she was paying attention, and carried on as though she hadn’t spoken at all. “One day—I believe it was a Sunday—she decided to give her goldfish a little treat. An entire can of whipped cream, at that. By morning, those poor fish were floating belly-up in water that looked more milkshake than aquarium.”
The circle broke into laughter, but Mr. McHenry’s voice only softened as he went on. “Dean found the carnage first. He’d just gotten his license—sixteen years old, working afternoons filing papers at the firm—and instead of letting Blair wake up to the sight, he drove all the way into town, bought two new fish that matched the old ones, and was back before she ever knew.”
“That’s not the whole story,” Dean’s grandmother added gently, her voice laced with both warmth and a touch of sadness in her eyes. “Blair did notice—as women often do. She knew those fish weren’t hers the second she saw them. Eventually he was forced to confess.”
Blair dropped her gaze, a small, rueful smile curving her lips. “I cried and cried.”
“And do you know what Dean did?” Mr. McHenry said, not waiting for a response before he went on. “He went out to the backyard, dug two tiny graves, and held an entire funeral himself.”
“He dressed in a suit and everything,” his grandmother added softly.
The fire crackled and popped, sparks lifting into the night, and for a moment the whole circle seemed held by it—the warmth of the story settling around us.
I glanced over at Dean. He was turned slightly away from me now, his profile caught in the firelight—the faintest crease between his eyes as he listened. Emma had wandered up beside him at some point, a half-melted s’more clutched in her small, sticky fingers.
Dean paused, took it carefully from her hand, and thanked her softly.
Watching him like that—patient, attentive, instinctively gentle—I felt something shift.
I could see the parallels
Sixteen-year-old Dean, digging small graves in the backyard so his sister wouldn’t have to carry the weight of grief alone.
And the man beside me now—older, broader, but driven by that same quiet instinct to shield, to absorb the hurt before anyone else ever had to feel it.
Only this time, it wasn't the goldfish he was burying. It was pieces of himself.
A borrowed future. A carefully worn lie. A steady face meant to convince his grandfather that love wouldn’t be the thing he sacrificed if handed the reins.
The pattern was the same. The cost, too.
