What Happened to My Sister Read online

  I wanted to put up signs about the sale in town but Momma said folks would find it without us having to say a word. She said the smell of us fixing to leave would reach them like how hot biscuits tell kids when to come in for supper. Sure enough, right when we put out the last of the chipped plates Gammy gave Momma and my real daddy when they got married, ever-body started up the dirt path like they’d been watching us the whole time which they probably were. I heard someone say they were gonna tear down our house after we left on account of no one wanting to live in a place where a man got murdered even if he did have it coming. We watched them pick through our stuff and somehow we knew no one wanted to buy a dang thing … they just wanted to look at us like we were zoo monkeys. They turned ever-thing inside out and upside down. Some tall string bean giant man I’d never seen before held up a glass pitcher and asked Momma how much she wanted for it and Momma said best you got and looked away. When she wiped her eye while she was fishing in her coin purse for change I couldn’t right tell if she got something caught up in there or if she was crying. I never seen Momma cry ever—even when her shoulder got popped out of its socket the time Richard came home and dinner wasn’t ready and he dragged her over to the stovetop to make sure she got it done. Momma always had dinner ready and waiting from then on.

  “Look how he’s holding the pitcher, Momma,” I whispered.

  I wanted him to get in trouble like me and Emma surely would have if we’d gone and held the pitcher that way. I wanted Momma to grab it back out of his hands. I wanted him to get skinned alive like we sure as hoot would’ve been. But she looked away.

  We watched the Jolly Green Giant carry away the pitcher, dangling it from his fingers. She’d brought it out from the kitchen hugging it to her chest and for a split second I thought maybe she was gonna change her mind about sellin’ it because she didn’t put it on the table right away. She held it gentle to her chest, like it was a hurt dog or something. I pretended I hadn’t seen her do that because something told me she’d want that un-seen. She never said so but I know Mr. White gave that pitcher to her and Daddy for their wedding. The three of them went to school together when they were kids growing up in Toast. Momma kept that pitcher high up on a shelf where no one could get at it. We never used it ever. It sparkled so clean and pretty like it just came from the store. The pitcher lasted longer than both Momma’s marriages.

  Momma never went into town because Richard used to say a woman’s place is in the home so she didn’t know half the people going through our things. I knew lots of them though. Mrs. Dilley was flipping through Daddy’s old Johnny Mathis records in between staring holes in Momma’s head. I guess Momma noticed it too ’cause she said take a picture it lasts longer under her breath on her way up the porch steps in the one dress she owned. When I asked her why she was in her Sunday best she told me we might be the talk of the town but we got our dignity. Momma’s the most beautiful woman I ever saw, even with her black eye and cracked lips and a huge bear-claw-like mark on her arm. If you saw her all done up like she used to get for Daddy, you’d swear you’d seen her in the movies. Her skin is smooth without a single solitary freckle. Her mouth looks like an ad on the TV for lipstick. But it’s really her eyes that make people stop and stare. They’re big and blue (extra-blue when she’s mad or been crying) and in school when we got to the chapter on Egypt it was like they’d gone and taken a picture of my momma even though it said Cleopatra was her name. Back in Toast, Mr. White used to say she’d been the belle of the ball in high school and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him a bell isn’t what anyone would rightly call beautiful so I just smiled and said yes, sir. Mr. White said you be sure to take care of your momma, y’hear, when I went to tell him Richard was moving us to Hendersonville. You’ll be fine out there, he said that day, but your mother needs someone looking out for her so you be sure to do that, understand? I said yes but I didn’t really understand. Momma had a husband looking out for her, didn’t she? That’s what I thought at the time. It didn’t take long for me to see what Mr. White meant but by then it was nearly too late.

  The people crowded at our things for sale like they were made of gold and found in a treasure chest. A man with a mustache curling up at the ends like a cartoon bad guy was at Momma to sell him the kitchen chairs with plastic seats for a good price. She waved him off and walked away but then he jingled change in his pocket and called to Momma that she drove a hard bargain like it was a compliment but she didn’t look like she took it that way. After he loaded the third chair into the back of his truck and drove off, Momma called him a cheap son of a bitch. Thing is, he was dressed fancier than I ever saw in person—he had spit-shined black shoes without a speck of dirt on them and pants ironed so hard they had a line down the middle—and there he was jawing at Momma to lower the price from three dollars a chair to two. His truck looked good as new—no mud on the tires even. Momma said he probably didn’t use it for work. It was just for show. If I had a car to drive for show it sure as heck wouldn’t be a truck.

  And then something real weird happened. It started when Mr. Wilson went and paid ten dollars for the three-legged table we had to prop up with a tree branch. Momma looked at him hard and I heard her say something about charity case but Mr. Wilson bought the table for ten dollars anyway, saying he’d be back later to pick it up. Momma watched him go and then looked over at me like I had something to do with it but before she could say why Mr. Wilson buying the kitchen table made her mouth go tight, Mr. Zebulon with no pinkie finger handed her a five-dollar bill for a beat-up cookbook that had Momma’s loopy handwriting all through it, like “a TBS more of butter” and “set oven to 375 not 350.” Mr. Zebulon walked away without taking any of the change Momma tried to hand back. Five dollars for one book! It made Momma madder, though. I could tell by the way she shoved the five dollars into her money pocket—she crumpled it like she was going to throw it in the trash bin then jammed it in all while she was shaking her head. She clicked her tongue to the roof of her mouth to make the tsk sound she does when she don’t like what’s what. Then the men who played guitars at Zebulon’s every Tuesday started coming up the hill, trudging along the dirt lines everyone’s car tires made into a driveway again.

  It was like the Civil War picture book Daddy’d kept by his bedside—they looked like those army men marching their bloody ripped-up selves home after the war. Mr. Harvey tipped his hat at Momma and put down two dollar bills for a Bic pen that was out on the table by mistake. Right behind him was Mr. Jim, who’s colored black and who never once opened his mouth to sing or talk but played his guitar so good at Zebulon’s the other men would stop and let him take long parts of songs, his hands flying up and down on the strings like they couldn’t make up their mind where to be. He was the best player of all them—I could tell by the way ever-body watched him play. One time I saw Richard in town on a day I’d thought he’d be at work at the mill—I didn’t yet know he went and got hisself laid off. He didn’t see me because he was across the street going into the Fish-N-Fowl where you could find fish bait or a wallet or a head of lettuce—ever-thing got sold at Olson’s Fish-N-Fowl. The sign out front said IF IT AIN’T HERE, IT AIN’T NEAR. I didn’t want him to see me so I crunched myself small between parked cars and waited for him to come back out and get gone. That’s how I came to see it clear as day: Richard punched the door open like he was a dang movie cowboy ready for a shoot-out. He was so mad he wasn’t paying attention and walked head-on into Mr. Jim. I held my breath, knowing nothing good was gonna come from that, and sure enough, Richard looked up, pulled his head back like a rattlesnake before it bites, and I wanted so bad to yell out for Mr. Jim to run away but it was too late. Richard spit right into Mr. Jim’s face and said get the f— out of my way, n—, you know what’s good for you boy so loud I could hear it from beside Mrs. Cleary’s station wagon where I was hiding. Richard used the f-word right out where anyone could hear! Normally he just used it hollering at Momma and me. Mr. Jim stepped a
side for Richard to pass and it wasn’t till I was halfway to home when it occurred to me Mr. Jim didn’t hurry to wipe the spittle off his face like I would’ve. But I guess Mr. Jim knew Richard right well by then and expected about as much as Richard gave him. Mr. Jim must’ve made a lot of money playing his guitar because there he was standing in front of Momma at our yard sale putting a ten-dollar bill on top of Mr. Harvey’s ones. I bet Mr. Jim’s the happiest of all that Richard’s dead.

  Momma wouldn’t say how much we made from the sale but I figured when she wasn’t looking I could count it. I knew she was hiding it in a rolled-up pair of socks held tight by a rubber band I used to flick at crickets. If I’d written the number down I’d remember but I didn’t so all I can say is that it’s so much money I could only get the band around twice, not three times like I wanted. While I was at it, I put the bills in order, all with presidents facing right-side up. Ones, then fives, then tens, then the one twenty-dollar bill we got. Momma’d call me crazy for doing that. She’d say my neatness is another sign I’m loony tunes and that I’ll end up talking in tongues and polishing the kitchen floor with a toothbrush at all hours. I say no I won’t but if I did, well what’s wrong with that? Wouldn’t you want polished floors? Not that I would polish them with a toothbrush a’course but if I did, wouldn’t that be a good thing?

  This morning, before leaving the house forever, Momma said:

  “If there’s anything you need to do before we go, you best go on and do it.”

  She went inside for one last check that we got ever-thing worth taking but I didn’t. Out front by the old tire Momma planted little daisies in is the rock I used to hide messages under when I pretend-played with Emma. It don’t look like all the other rocks around here—they’re all crummy brown, dusty and rough. In my head Emma called them ordinary. My favorite rock is smooth and when it’s wiped clean it’s almost snow-white with thin rivers of gray running all through it. It’s about the size of the ball we played Spud with at recess. I have no earthly idea how it ended up here but it’s plain to see it ain’t from here, no way. We had a system, me and Emma. If I was outside and Emma was inside, she’d put a note saying “Good” if the coast was clear to come on inside. “Bad” meant stay away long as you can. Usually that meant until the beer put Richard to sleep still setting upright in his chair, or like when he gave whippings. He always whipped with the buckle end of his belt because it was his goal in life to get me to cry and I never would even though it hurt real bad. You never saw girls as stubborn as me and Emma.

  From out by the rock I could hear Momma’s steps on the wood flooring coming back down from checking upstairs so I knew my days as a Hendersonvillian were fading away. One last time I lifted up the message rock and it’d been a while since we’d used it so I jumped a little in my skin when a million bugs skittered off to other rocks, looking up at me ripping the roof off their house. If I spoke bug I’d tell them I didn’t mean them no harm. After they ran for cover, I shook the dirt off the folded-up notepaper to find “Bad.” I snuck it to my pocket for what I don’t know and put the rock back exactly where it was but them bugs didn’t know they could come on home and maybe they never will and maybe little bitty baby bugs got lost from their mommas and they’ll crawl around forever, crying little bug tears, homesick for their old rock and the way it used to be, and then they’ll die alone with no family or they’ll be squished on account of them not having a rock-roof over their heads. I wished I could find them and shoo them back. I wanted to cry I got to feeling so bad. The screen door slammed behind Momma who hollered for me to make haste. She jingled the car keys and lowered her sunglasses from the top of her head.

  Then a miracle of gargantuan, ginormous proportions happened. I’m listing it as Miracle Number One.

  We’re about to get in the car when Momma squints at me over the peeling paint car hood and says:

  “Why you riding in back?”

  “I always ride in back,” I say.

  Sometimes out of nowhere she likes to test me, see if I’ll follow rules, and I didn’t want to fail like I always do. Because I’m dumb. It’s okay—ever-one knows I’m stupid. Once I heard Momma tell Gammy I wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. So I thought Momma was tricking me to see if I’d follow the rule to always set in back.

  “Best you get on up here with me,” Momma says.

  She says it like it isn’t the first time I ever rode in front. She says it like it isn’t my dream come true. I been wanting to ride up front forever. Soon as I come to my senses I say:

  “Really?”

  “Come on, now,” Momma says. “Let’s not make a federal case of it.”

  I hurry in case she decides to change her mind while she’s lighting her cigarette.

  Then, just before the tires push off the crunchy rocks onto the paved road, Momma turns in her seat to face me. She blows smoke out the side her mouth like Puff the Magic Dragon, points her cigarette in the V of her fingers at me, and lays down the law:

  “From here on out, soon as we pull out of this no-good godforsaken town, I don’t want to hear anything more about anything. I’m laying down the law. You understand me? I don’t want to take any of that old shit with me. You listening? Look at me—I’m serious as a heart attack. You understand? We’re leaving it all behind. You hear me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And by the way, you haven’t said it in a while,” she says—figuring rightly that I’d know what she was talking about.

  “Emma was made-up,” I say. I know the words by heart.

  “Keep going …”

  “I pretended I had a sister but I really didn’t. I made her up. Emma was made-up.”

  Like I said, I know the words by heart.

  “I don’t hear a lot of feeling behind those words—you’re sounding like a robot,” she says.

  “No, Momma, I know I made her up,” I say, not wanting her mood to go bad like it can do if you’re not real careful.

  “Promise?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I promise,” I say.

  Her eyes went to slits like they do when she’s making sure I’m not being smart with her, so I knew yes, ma’am, was definitely the answer she needed to hear. But I’m still not a hundred percent sure if anything about anything also means the murder. If that’s what she was talking about she would’ve said that instead of anything about anything, right? I’m trying to think up a list of what she wouldn’t want to take along with us but other than Richard (who’s dead anyway so he couldn’t come with us even if she wanted him to) and Emma, I got nothing to write down. So it’s not really a list, it’s more like two names taking up space in my notebook.

  Momma turns back to the steering wheel, puts the car in Drive, and says, “We’re turning the page, Caroline Parker.”

  And then Miracle Number Two comes along and near to blows my head clean off my neck.

  Completely out of nowhere and for the first time in the history of the world, Momma pats my knee. First she lets me sit in the front seat. Then she pats my knee. Momma doesn’t ever touch softly so I figure it’s best not to call attention to it in case it scares her from ever doing it again. I hold real still. I try to breathe through my nose so my body doesn’t move but you got to have a big nose to get enough air in and my nose is little. It’s a kid’s nose. I hope when it grows it’ll end up looking like Momma’s. I cain’t recall what Daddy’s nose looked like but I bet it wasn’t all that bad because people used to say he was a real catch. After a second or two, the pat on the knee ended even though I stayed as frozen as ice in Alaska.

  When she checked left-right-left to see if it was safe to pull out of our dirt driveway I looked over at her real quick and I swear on a stack of Bibles I caught her smiling big—showing her teeth even. Momma hasn’t smiled since … well, I cain’t remember the last time I saw Momma smile.

  “Here we go,” she said. And there it was again, Momma smiling bright as day right out in the open.

  That’s most certai
nly Miracle Number Three.