A History of Deception

"I have been giving it much consideration, and..."

"What?"  Her mother prodded.  "You and I have always been able to talk.  We are honest and open with each other.  Tell me what is on your mind."

"Boys," she finally said with difficulty, then immediately modified her response.  "Men."

Antoinette smiled but quickly squashed her desire to chuckle.  She kept her amusement pressed inside and asked her daughter to sit in the chair next to her.  Maybe she had been dreading the day she would have to talk to Marie about boys, men, or maybe she had been looking forward to the day.  It was impossible to determine; she was hiding all of her emotions behind a sober, tight lipped smirk.  "What you must understand, and this is the foundation.  This is where it all begins."

"What is that mother?"

"The crux of our discussion will be centered around..."

"Mother, you are stalling.  If you do not want to talk about this, it is fine with me."

"No, dear.  We must talk about this."

"No, maybe I should not have asked."

"I just was not prepared.  Forgive me.  Let us start again."

Marie moved her chair closer to her mother.  "I do want to know, and I do respect your opinion," she said.

"What we are talking about is the difference between men and boys."

"I know that much, Mother.  That is why I changed my original question."

"I know you do, Dear."

"This makes you nervous," she astutely observed.

"No, really.  I am fine.  As I said, I was just unprepared."

"Well, it makes me nervous."

Antoinette collected her thoughts and then began. "Boys are truth with dirt on their faces."  The tone of her voice changed, and Marie suddenly gave her all of her attention.  Antoinette watched her daughter scoot her chair even closer and listened intently.  "They may be mischievous.  You may think they are mean, and they may be stranded between the innocence of a baby and the nobility of manhood, but they are truthful.  A man on the other hand, may or may not be totally honest with you."

Her insightful daughter must have detected something in her voice.  "Are you talking about Papa?"

"No, No," she insisted.  "There is a difference between a man who is trying to attract a woman and a man who has already married one.  That is a totally different distinction and a totally different discussion.  What we are talking about now is the difference between men and boys.  And to answer your question, when your father and I first met, I did wonder about his truthfulness.  It is so easy for a person to be guarded and different, and then relax once they are married.  Sometimes the true person does not really surface until after the exchange of vows."

"But what is a woman to do?"

"Be careful," she warned without considering her daughter''''s choice of the word: woman.  "See, boys can be found climbing on, under, inside of, and around things, and jumping and swinging, but men can be found climbing on, under, inside of and around the truth.  Your father once told me that deception was a beast, and I have often wondered what he was hiding from me when we first got married.  However, that does not matter now.  We are happily married, and there is no room for the beast in our relationship."

"Men are evil."

"No, not at all.  That is not what I mean.  I just mean that they put on airs and pretend to be someone they are not just to impress you and make you fall in love with them.  I am not implying that they are doing this to be evil; in fact, I am not even sure they realize they are doing it.  That is why it is important for you to realize what they are doing."

"Mother, you have taken something that I was very excited about and caused me to worry."

"Yes," Antoinette concluded.  "That is exactly right.  You have figured it out quite nicely.  You must enjoy men and be excited by them, but you must always, and I mean always, worry about them.  Worry about what they are up to and worry about who they really are.  Guarded excitement.  That is exactly right."

Marie''''s face explained that she had