Page 61 - TruthAboutLyingFinal

Nicholas Boothman
should have been, what must never be said, what could still be saved.”
Jinji looked away, but she was listening.
“The same gift that lets us lie also lets us forgive, hope, confess, comfort, write music, invent justice, and tell a dying person they are not alone.”
Henry thought of his mother’s funeral. The beautiful lies.
The cowardly ones.
The ones that had hurt Claire. Vincent continued.
“I’m not defending deception. Lies rot the soul. They protect the cruel. They bury the dead twice, first in the ground and then in language.”
Henry felt that one.
“But if you attack lying as if it is one thing, you will hurt people who are already surviving on almost nothing.”
Jinji said, “So we do nothing?”
“No,” Vincent said. “We count the cost before we call it justice.”
Henry looked at the patch. “What would you have us do?” Vincent’s answer came quickly. “Do not make truth automatic.” Jinji laughed once.
“That’s the whole point.”
61