What Happened to My Sister Read online

  We walk and walk, resting every now and then to give our arms a break. It’s hard to keep up with Momma—for every one of her steps I have to take two, sometimes three. For a long time, not a single word is said out loud. And since all the cars seemed to disappear once ours died, this road might as well be a graveyard, it’s so quiet. And then I have to go open my mouth.

  “Momma, I got a blister on my heel and it’s bleeding.”

  She slows down but she don’t look back at me. You could park two cars between us—that’s how far ahead she is.

  “I’m sorry Momma. It’s bleeding though.”

  “I hate to break it to you but I don’t have a first aid kit handy at the moment,” she finally says, over her shoulder.

  “It’s hard to walk with it,” I say, hoping this don’t count as complaining.

  She quiet-curses. I hear it on account of there being no cars, no wind, nothing making sound anywhere. Two steps later she puts down her bags, reaches into her shirt, and pulls an old kerchief out of her bra to mop the sweat from the back of her neck. Momma keeps lots of things in her bra. Things she might need handy. A dollar bill. Or a scrap of paper with something written on it. A recipe. You never know what’s gonna come out when she reaches into her shirt. It’s like hocus-pocus tricks.

  I said sweat and that reminds me of Miss Ueland who made us call it perspiration. She said the word sweat ain’t proper. Tally Washington always forgot how to say the new word—she called it per-sip-a-don or something. Tally Washington said her people came over on the first boat to America. She said Washington was her name because of George Washington. But Tally Washington’s a liar and that’s a fact. Anyway, Miss Ueland gave us a list of twenty words we weren’t ever to say and the boys made it their number one mission to make up sentences using as many of them as they could fit. Billy Bud Moore made it to fourteen words but Miss Ueland turned the corner right when he got to sweaty stupid-ass fart face. He was sent home with a note from the principal which I thought would be the worst thing that could ever happen to you in your entire life, but Billy Bud Moore just shrugged his shoulders and grinned like a mule eating briars.

  “We hardly got a spoon to cook with much less a Band-Aid,” Momma says. She takes the edge of the kerchief in her teeth to start a rip she finishes with just her hands. And guess what: no scissors and it’s still straight as an arrow. You cain’t question Momma too much and anyway she always makes sense in the end so I’m waiting on that to happen. For her to make sense.

  “Here,” she says, holding out the smaller half of the kerchief for me. “Well? Get over here and take it. We ain’t got all day.”

  Momma said ain’t and she hates that word more than life itself. More than pork rinds even. Momma says ain’t is low class, something only hillbillies say.

  I limp over but don’t want her calling me a drama queen like usual so I stand straight thinking it will help me walk normal. It don’t though. She’s standing there shaking the piece at me and when I take it from her I figure she’ll tell me what it’s for. I squeeze it in my fist waiting to find out what all I’m supposed to do with half a wet kerchief ripped by teeth and hands.

  “We haven’t got all day. Get going, little Miss Drama Queen,” she says. Dang it all she called me a drama queen after all. She rubs the bottom of her back and bends down to pick up the bags again, hiking the first bag over to her hip like a mother with a baby.

  “What’re you waiting on?” she says. Then she starts walking, but slow, saying stuff to me even though she ain’t looking my way.

  “You’ve driven me crazy since the day you were born into this godforsaken world, you know that? I tell you what,” she says, more to herself than me. Then she’s talking more than I heard her talk in my whole life.

  “Cried all the time, like a cicada with food, and why’re you always underfoot like you are? And then the other thing—don’t you dare say anything—you know what I’m talking about without me having to say the words I never want to hear again. For the life of me I don’t know why I didn’t leave you back there with your guns and your Mr. Whatever-his-name-is. I should have my head examined. You’re not worth the gunpowder it’d take to blow you away.”

  “Wilson. His name’s Mr. Wilson,” I say. Me, I’d want to know the right name. Who wouldn’t? I didn’t count on it coming out sounding like it did.

  “Listen to her,” she says like there’s someone else to talk to. “His name’s Mr. Wilson, she says. Well I got some news for you: I don’t care if his name is Jesus H. Christmas, he’s got some nerve wrecking my life like he did. I should’ve left you with him, see how you like that. His name’s Mr. Wilson.”

  I don’t sound like she’s making me out to sound with her voice up high, but it doesn’t hurt my feelings. I used to think Momma was serious when she said stuff about throwing me out with the trash or about putting her out of her misery by me getting gone forever but I know she don’t mean it. It’s just how Momma is. It’s her nature. What I’m really wondering about is how come I never knew Jesus’s whole name is Jesus H. Christmas? Sheesh. I wish I could add that to the list of things to check in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, but Momma’s back to picking up the pace and I’m still standing in the same spot holding her rag.

  “Fold that into a square and put it between your heel and shoe, keep them from rubbing up against each other,” she hollers over her shoulder on account of her being so far ahead by now.

  Then all the sudden Momma drops the bags real quick like they’re on fire, whips around, and hollers so loud I cain’t hardly understand her. She’s louder than I ever heard her fight with Richard even.

  “No. You know what?” she yells. “I’ll tell you what. That goddamn Wilson ruined me, you know that? You think he gave any thought to me when he showed you how to shoot that goddamn gun? Huh? If he thought Richard was so rotten and if he couldn’t keep his nose out of our family business he should’ve straightened Richard out himself, man to man. But noooo. He goes and teaches a crazy half-wit girl how to shoot a gun. That’s his big solution. And what about food? He think we have money coming out our ears, me with no job? He think we can afford to eat goddamn steak every night?

  “How we gonna live? Tell me that. Tell me how you figure we’re gonna live, huh? I’d like to hear it. Are you a magician? You Houdini come back from the dead? Answer me! How’re we gonna eat? I bet you didn’t think of that when you pulled the trigger, did you? Huh? Answer me, you goddamn crazy murderer!”

  “I ain’t crazy, Momma, I swear!”

  Stupid me. Now she’s charging at me. I drop the bag without meaning to—my arms got scared. Be brave. Be brave. I tell myself this over and over because I used to get so fearful of her I’d wet my panties. But that was when I was little and I’m brave now. Be brave.

  “Sorry, Momma. Momma, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Momma,” forgetting altogether that Momma hates it when I say it fast just to get out of a whipping. She says I sound like a whiny baby.

  Normally her fingernails would hurt my arm but they’re short today so it’s not too bad this time. When they’re long that’s another story. Plus the good news is this time I stay standing up when she shakes me. I used to flop to the ground like a rag doll some kid don’t want to play with anymore.

  “You with your crazy brain.” Shake. “It probably didn’t even cross your crazy-ass mind that killing Richard was a nail in our coffin too. Did you think of that, you half-wit piece of shit?” Shake.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I can’t hear you! Did you even think of me and what I’d do without that man?” Shake.

  “No, ma’am.”

  What I really want to say is: That’s all I was thinking of, Momma. He nearly beat you dead. He was about to kill us. I wanted to protect you, Momma. That’s what I want to say but that ain’t what Momma wants to hear, I know that even though I’m nine years old.

  So I say “No, ma’am,” instead.

  “No you didn’t. That’s exactly right. You didn�
��t think about how we’re gonna have to pick through trash for supper from here on out. You learn how to pull a trigger all right but you didn’t near think of me being flat broke. You know what I did at the truck stop back there? When I went to the washroom? I stole a stack of paper towels, is what I did.”

  She lets go of my arm and I make sure not to rub it even though I really and truly want to. She gets so her face is right up in mine and she spit-says:

  “You know what those paper towels are gonna be for, smarty? Little Miss Smarty Pants. Huh? They’re for that time of the month. I’ve got to use what little money we have to put a roof over our heads so I don’t have the luxury of lady products anymore. Did your Mr. Wilson think about any of all this? Did he?”

  “No, ma’am,” I say.

  It’s best not to look at her when she’s mad like this. You have to stay scarecrow-still or she’ll say something like you better clamp shut that fast-talking, excuse-making, tear-jerking jaw of yours right this very minute or I’ll do it for you. And you do not want her to do it for you. My jaw hurt for days after she walloped me in the mouth when I was five.

  But like I said, Momma don’t mean anything by it. She might get mad a lot but she keeps me around. Mothers who don’t want to be mothers give their kids away. She has a short fuse is all. And it’s been stored up ’cause she couldn’t exactly cut loose when Richard was alive. I figure she’s just getting it all out from years of being quiet as a feather on a cloud.

  Here on the road to nowhere she stops hollering mostly on account of her being out of breath. A big ole crow caws from the high wire. Momma straightens herself up and smooths her dress but it don’t do much good—she still looks like a week-old birthday balloon. A pretty one, though.

  I shove the half a hankie down in my shoe and we start walking again and I pretend like Momma and me are the only people on the whole planet. Like ever-body got a secret note telling them to hide real good but they forgot to pass the note to us. Or like the movies where someone says it’s too quiet right before something scary happens. Or maybe a spaceship landed and we’re the only ones who escaped them kidnapping us like they did all the people in the world. Ever-one knows aliens kidnap humans onto their spaceships. Aliens with huge heads on top of stick bodies. Some people don’t think they’re real but Emma and me always believed they are.

  Let’s pick up the pace is pretty much all Momma says for the rest of the day. She don’t even say ow when she trips and skins her knee on the gravel right after a huge truck goes by us, whipping up wind that feels real good but almost sucks me into the road. We’ve had three trucks, four cars, and an old pickup pass us since we started. Two of the trucks honked the loudest horns I ever heard but they still kept on going. Momma said cusswords to their taillights.

  It takes a million hours for someone to pull over to give us a ride. In the dark it’s hard to see his face. All I know is his name is Eldin. Eldin Fisk, at your service, he said when we climbed in. I never been so happy to get in a car as I am to get into Eldin Fisk’s. My legs had started turning into concrete blocks. Momma sets in the backseat with me which is weird but good and Eldin didn’t seem to care where we were setting, so long as we let the quiet keep going. He said that a few minutes into the ride. I hope y’all let the quiet keep going. When Momma asks if he’d mind if she smoked he said yes. I never did meet someone who said yes to that question. Somewhere after a sign pointing to a place called Hockabee I must’ve fallen asleep ’cause the next thing I know Momma’s shaking me awake.

  “Where we at?” I ask her.

  “Shhh,” she says. “Carry that one. No the other one—it’s lighter.”

  It feels like we’re in a hurry and I’m trying to get my eyes to stay wide awake but they’re fighting me on it. All I hear are bits and pieces of words between Momma and Eldin Fisk. Thank you so much. And All righty then. And Oh you’re so kind to lift that out of the trunk. Please don’t trouble yourself, we’re just fine. Momma’s talking in the voice she uses with grown-ups. It’s fake but they don’t know any better.

  “Caroline, say thank you to the nice man,” she says.

  That’s the other thing: when grown-ups are around Momma uses her phony voice and she calls me Caroline. Caroline sounds more proper. I don’t like it, though. I wish I had any name in the world other than Caroline.

  “Thank you, sir,” I say.

  “Pleasure,” says Eldin Fisk.

  He slides back into his car and we watch him until his taillights are two teensy dots.

  “Where are we, Momma?”

  “We’re on the outskirts of town,” she says, staring at something in the distance. I turn to see what she’s looking at—bright lights all clumped together way up ahead.

  “What town?”

  “What is this, Twenty Questions?” she says. “Grab hold of your sack and let’s get this show on the road. Here, hike it up like this …”

  Miracle Number Four:

  Momma’s helping me with stuff she never used to help me with. And she’s being sweet as honey on a pretty girl’s finger. Miss Mary back in Toast used to say that about me. That I was sweet as honey on a pretty girl’s finger. She said it to Emma too. She was always real good that way, never wanting Emma to feel left out.

  We stand where Eldin Fisk left us, at a corner with street signs making a V on a light post so thick I couldn’t hug it all the way around if I wanted to. I never saw a light this big and tall. Pasted up on it is a peeling sign for a weight loss program guaranteed to melt the pounds off or your money back. The only sign I saw up like that was in Hendersonville and it was for a missing cat named Otis who was probably hungry. The sign stayed up awhile, until Ally Bell (who got to skip gym on account of her curvy spine and back brace), until Ally Bell’s daddy came and ripped it off saying it was high time we stopped littering our town. Ever-one said he was just doing it because he didn’t have any say-so at home on account of his being henpecked. Thing is I knew for a fact Ally Bell’s family didn’t have hens. Not a one.

  Momma and me look out at all the lights up ahead and then, at the exact same second, we look at each other. Right before she blinks, just for a teensy tiny second, she looks like a little girl. Like she’s my age. It’s like Momma and me both wish someone would come along and say ever-thing will be okay, just you wait and see.

  Even I can tell we’re about to do something big and important. And scary. I feel like saying Momma, I don’t want to turn the page anymore. Momma, I’m scared. I wish Emma were here. She wouldn’t have a lick of scared in her. She’d probably be the one to say ever-thing will be okay just you wait and see and we’d all know she was lying but hearing the words said out loud sure would be nice right about now.

  “Momma?”

  We’re both still looking up ahead.

  “What?”

  “Momma, um, I’m …”

  Right when I’m about to tell her I’m too scared to move, Momma says:

  “You can talk and walk at the same time, can’t you? Let’s go.”

  “But …”

  “Your butt is what’s gonna get whipped if you don’t get in gear,” she says.

  “Momma, what if it’s bad up there?”

  She waits a second like she’s really thinking on an answer for my question and then Momma says, “If it’s bad at least it’ll be a different kind than we’re used to and anyway we’ve already been through the worst. I got a feeling our luck’s about to change.”

  Miracle Number Five:

  Momma smiles. Again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Honor Chaplin Ford

  My mother never met a conversation she didn’t like. Nor does she miss an opportunity to act strange. Which she has been doing all morning in spades. It’s not even noon and she’s asked me three times how I’m feeling—as if I had just come down with scarlet fever or something. And now, assured that I am perfectly fine thank you very much, she is having a little too much fun at my expense.

  “You’ve been quiet
so long it must be some kind of miracle,” I say.

  Look at her. Ruth Chaplin. Smiling like the cat that ate the canary, arms crossed, waiting on me to admit she’s right, which she is. But if I say so she will gloat from here to high heaven so I’m trying not to look at her, which is a difficult undertaking since she takes up the whole doorway to the kitchen.

  “Well?” Mother says, trying to force the smile off her face.

  “You know, most mothers would be happy their daughters wanted to keep them alive and safe,” I say. “But you? I guess you want me to ignore you and let you starve to death when …”

  Uh-oh. I slipped up.

  “When what?” She pounces on it.

  “When, um … I mean when …”

  She lets the smile stretch back across her face, turns and waddles into the kitchen.

  “Just say it: you’re talking about the Armageddon thing again,” she says, reaching into the icebox with some effort, bringing out a Styrofoam container—one of many packed in so tight it’s a real trick to pull something out without everything tumbling onto the kitchen floor.

  “How long does chicken salad keep?” she asks, her nose crinkling up. “This smells funny but didn’t I just make it three days ago? You going south on me already, chicken salad? Come smell this and tell me what you think.”