What Happened to My Sister

by Elizabeth Flock

  What Happened to My Sister is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Ballantine Books eBook Edition

  Copyright © 2012 by Elizabeth Flock

  Random House reading group guide copyright © 2012 by Random House, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of

  The Random House Publishing Group, a division of

  Random House, Inc., New York.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  RANDOM HOUSE READER’S CIRCLE & Design is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Flock, Elizabeth.

  What happened to my sister: a novel / Elizabeth Flock.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-52444-7

  1. Sisters—Fiction. 2. Domestic fiction. I. Title.

  PS3606.L58W43 2012

  813′.6—dc23 2012004410

  www.randomhousereaderscircle.com

  Cover design: Laura Klynstra

  Cover image: Trevillion / © Doreen Kilfeather

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  A Reader’s Guide

  Like a bolt out of the blue

  Fate steps in and sees you through.

  — JIMINY CRICKET

  (Ned Washington, “When You Wish Upon a Star”)

  CHAPTER ONE

  Carrie Parker

  If you’re reading this, I must be dead and maybe you’re going through this notebook hunting for clues. It always bugs me when I’m looking real hard for something and after a long time it turns up right under my nose where it was the whole time, so I’m going to tell you right here in the beginning all I know for certain. It may or may not make sense right now but who knows, maybe it will later on.

  The first certain thing I know is that Richard’s not ever gonna hurt Momma again. The second thing is that I had a sister named Emma. Here’s what else I know: we were moving to my grandmother’s house but now we’re not. Momma says in the river of life I’m a brick in her pocket, and I’m not sure what that has to do with her changing her mind, but Momma is most assuredly not driving in the direction of Gammy’s house. So until I figure it all out, the number one most important thing you need to know so you can tell ever-body is that I, Caroline Parker, am not crazy.

  I don’t care what anybody says—I’m not. I swear. People think I cain’t hear them say things when I’m in town like shh, shh, shh—there goes that Parker girl bless her crazy little heart but I’m not deaf, y’all. I’m just a kid. I’m not peculiar or crazy as an outhouse rat. And I’m gonna prove it once and for all. You wait and see. They’ll be lining up to say sorry and they’ll ask for a hug or something embarrassing like that but the best part’ll be when ever-body finally admits they’re wrong about me. I’m gonna do ever-thing right from now on. I’m gonna be like the other kids. I’m gonna be the best daughter in the whole wide universe—so good Momma’s not going to believe it. Just you wait and see.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Carrie

  Right now Momma and me are riding in our old beat-up station wagon with all we got to our names stuffed into Hefty sacks in the way-back. Momma has an old-fashioned square little bitty suitcase she calls her travel case locked up next to her in the front seat. I never saw it before in my life. Heck, I never knew it existed till we lit out of town. She must have thought I’d go breaking into it if I’d found it back at the house and truth to tell I probably would have because I love little bitty things of any kind. What I dearly love more than anything in the universe is little bitty animals. We don’t have any pets but I’m hoping that’ll change in our new life because I want a dog so bad and I’m thinking if I’m real good and I never say the name Emma and I do ever-thing Momma wants she’ll give in and we’ll get a puppy. I promised Momma she wouldn’t have to do a dang thing because I’d take care of it but ever-time I bring it up she says I’d probably kill it along with ever-thing else. But I swear I wouldn’t. I’d take perfect care of her. I’d name her Pip. Short for Pipsqueak.

  Along with boring stuff like clothes, I own this notebook I like to draw and write in. My favorite thing is making lists. I can make a list out of anything really. You name it and I’ll make a list out of it. It’s something else. That’s what Mr. Wilson our old neighbor says about my list-making abilities. That’s something else, he said when I showed him how I was making a list of his guns and bullets and holsters. But that was before I used his gun to shoot Richard and now I ain’t allowed to mention Mr. Wilson or guns anymore.

  What I Own Personally

  1. Two pairs of shoes if you count flip-flops, which I do.

  2. One polka-dot dress I hate because it’s a polka-dot dress for goodness’ sake and it’s a dress and no one wears dresses to school if they can help it. I cain’t recall when I ever wore it outside of church, back when we used to go to church.

  3. A button-down shirt Momma calls a blouse that I’ve hardly ever worn on account of it being fancy and I haven’t ever done anything even close to fancy because we’re dirt-poor.

  4. A book of words with the title Vocabulary 101.

  5. Two pairs of shorts and one pair of blue jeans that don’t fit no more.

  6. Five old T-shirts from the Goodwill truck that used to come a couple times a year to sell things in the lot out back of Zebulon’s.

  I just turned nine. One year from double digits. One more year till I’m a young lady—that’s what my teacher in my old town, Toast, where we lived before moving to Hendersonville with Richard, used to call the older kids in school. The little ones—the single digits—she just called them kids. I wish I could be ten back in Toast just to hear Miss Ueland call me young lady.

  My birthday must have slipped Momma’s mind because the first thing she said to me two days ago was “Go on get dressed I need you to run to the post office and get a change of address form.”

  I waited a second just in case she remembered what day it was but when she told me to quit lollygagging and move my lazy behind I knew it’d just be another regular day. I walked to town and when I was sure no car was coming in either direction I sang myself the Happy Birthday song real low. I doubled up and sang the “smell like a monkey” version too.

  But our plans changed yesterday, after Momma went to use the pay phone in town. When she left the house the plan was to go stay with my momma’s momma, Gammy, but when Momma came back home, all the sudden we weren’t. Just like that. She said she wouldn’t go where she wasn’t wanted. Even though I didn’t say so, I know just what she meant. That’s how come I know the outside of our hou
se better than the inside. With my eyes closed I could find the little hole behind the lichen and vines that grow over the mossy old tree stump out back in the holler. I know which rocks to step on if you want to cross the creek and which ones only look like they’ll hold steady. I could draw from memory the dead tree trunk crossing the path between Mr. Wilson’s and our house. To me it always looked like the thicket’s taking that tree back to where it came from, with moss over most all of it, vines choking it to crumbling in parts, and a big opening where a gnome would live if gnomes were real and lived in piney woods. I liked it better outside anyway. I pretended little bitty forest creatures were watching, looking out for me and Emma. Whoops. I mean, looking out for me. I figured they liked for me to be there because they knew I’d never let anything hurt them, no sirree I wouldn’t and that’s a fact. Whenever I went back inside the house, when the screen door slammed and Momma looked up from whatever she was doing, she’d see it was me and the air would go out of her like a day-old birthday balloon. Then she’d say oh, it’s you and turn back to her chores. I don’t know who else she thought was gonna be coming through our door.

  “Trouble,” Emma would say. “Momma looks scared ever-time the door opens because she’s used to Trouble coming through it.”

  I’d tell her, “But we come through it all the time and we ain’t Trouble.”

  “You and me are small,” Emma’d say, looking up from playing with the dirty old Barbie doll who lost her hair before we found her, “we’re small but as far as Momma’s concerned we’re Trouble.”

  That’s Emma for you—always knowing more than me about pretty much ever-thing that matters. If she were here I bet she’d probably even know where Momma and me are moving to. All I know for certain is it’ll be a place we’ll be wanted.

  What with us fixing to leave town for good there just wasn’t time for a birthday fuss anyway. I don’t mind. Really I don’t. Emma would have remembered, though. I know, I know—like Momma said, she ain’t real. She was made-up, I’m supposed to say. But if she’d been real—if I’d really had a sister named Emma—I bet she’d have made me a real nice daisy-chain necklace with White Rain hair spray all over it so it’d last forever. Hair spray makes things last to infinity, just so you know. I’m not kidding.

  We’re starting fresh. That’s what Momma says. To get ready for our drive Momma even cleaned out the crumbs, empty RC Cola cans, and chew-tobacco tins left over from Richard so the inside of the car would look spiffy. When she’s in a good mood Momma says words like that. Spiffy. Or Jeez Louise. Jiminy Cricket. And when something surprises her, she says well I’ll be. I helped her get the old car ready and when I opened the ashtray up front and asked what all I should do with the cigarette butts crammed in on top of one another she said well I’ll be, that sure is one full ashtray in need of emptying all right. Once I even heard her say jeepers. That was when there was a long line of ants marching into our kitchen from outside. Momma’s mostly been in a good mood getting ready to start fresh. That’s also on account of her feeling loads better, I bet. Today Momma’s neck bruise is about as wide as the rope Mr. Wilson tied his dog Brownie to the tree with. It’s been fading pretty slow but at least it’s thinner now. Last week it was wide as a hand, the exact shape of Richard’s hand. In back, where his fingers dug in good and hard, it’s red mixed with black but the blue is turning the same yellow ringing the mark on her left cheek. When a bruise gets yellow that’s good news. It means your skin’s trying to be normal again.

  Momma hates it when I watch her closely. She says I been doing it all my life but I’m good at pretending I don’t do it no more because I once overheard her telling Richard I study her like I was gonna be quizzed. She said to him it makes my skin crawl, her looking at me like that. So ever since I make myself think about other things when I’m around her so I won’t make her skin crawl. That’s where my vocabulary book comes in handy. I found that the best way to memorize a new word is to squeeze your eyes closed and picture it being spelled out on a chalkboard. Now, if Momma looks like I’m making her skin crawl I shut my eyes and pretend I’m working on vocabulary. It’s worked real good so far because I usually end up leafing through the book (to make it look real) and landing on words I really truly do want to learn. Peculiar. Plethora. My mind wanders real easy, though, so before long I find myself wondering if Momma smiled much when she was a kid. Penultimate. I wonder if she knew how to dance. If she liked candy. Palatial. Did she love my real daddy when they got married? Puny. Did he carry her in through the front door after their wedding? Were they happy when they found out they were gonna have me? Plebeian. Does she know who killed my daddy? Why’d she have to go and marry Richard? I watch her close in case any of it comes out and if it does I write about it so I won’t forget. You never know: she might do or say something that will be a clue about her life. I’ve gotten good at watching from the corner of my eye so it looks like I’m staring straight ahead but I’m really not. Like right now, for instance. Right now it’s easy because Momma’s got to keep her eyes fixed on the road to starting fresh.

  But to start fresh we’ve first got to pass through Hendersonville to get to the interstate.

  People I See on Our Way out of Town for Good

  1. Mr. Zebulon is standing with his arms crossed in front of the hardware store. I looked straight at him and he looked away.

  2. Miss Lettie who cuts ladies’ hair in her kitchen is about to get in her car when she sees us and freezes, still holding her key out, like the game Red Light, Green Light.

  3. Mr. Willie Harding from the lumber mill watches our car closely then spits chew tobacco on the ground, showing off he can make a big gob of spit, I guess.

  Not a one of them waves goodbye. I guess it figures. Ever-one stopped smiling at me after I went and killed Richard and I cain’t blame them no sirree—who smiles at a murderer? That’s what they call me behind my back. Murderer. They whisper the word but it still reaches my hearing and part of me thinks they know it. Psycho murderer. Now, as we’re driving down Main Street this one last time, they stand there blinking at us, watching our car move along like we’re in a slow-motion movie.

  I should’ve brushed my hair. Momma calls it a rat’s nest. I close my eyes and make believe I have silky long pretty hair and we’re in a parade like they have on Fourth of July and I’m in a dress that has a bow and sparkles and I’m sitting high up on a chair tied good and tight in the back of a shiny red pickup truck and there’s tons of people from all over waving little flags, waiting to get a look at me and when our truck comes in sight ever-body cheers and claps because I just won a contest that makes me Miss Hendersonville, Queen of North Carolina.

  So even though when I open my eyes and I see that I’m not in a parade, I got a rat’s nest in my hair, and not a one person’s cheering or clapping in real life, I smile and wave anyway. They’ll remember me all right: to them I’ll always be the child who shot her stepdaddy and smiled good and wide about it.

  Momma says there’s nothing but cold stares and loose lips in Hendersonville. I’m writing down what it’s like there in case I read this when I’m in an old folks’ home and I cain’t remember anything about anything. Maybe my grandkids’ll ask me about it and I don’t want to be the kind of granny who cain’t answer even easy questions like What was Hendersonville like? so I’m making a record of it.

  In Hendersonville they don’t honk at you but for waving. A little toot on the horn and your name’s hollered out like you been lost to the world even if you just saw the person five minutes before. If a dog runs away in Hendersonville ever-one’ll know where he belongs and how to get him there. When someone’s sick, ladies bring food till the sick person’s back on their feet. Ever-one talks ever-thing to death in Hendersonville. Trouble is, most times there isn’t much to talk about so when Mrs. Ferson’s hiccups didn’t stop for three weeks it was big news.

  Ever-body had an idea of how to get rid of them. She drank water backwards; she hopped ten times on her r
ight foot, ten times on her left, then swallowed whiskey real quick; she even tried to stand on her head (Mr. Ferson drew the line at that which was too bad because we’d placed penny bets on whether a headstand would do the trick and plus who wouldn’t want to see Mrs. Ferson standing on her head?). Nothing worked until out of nowhere Levon the knife sharpener knocked on her door one day and told her to drink quinine holding the glass in her left hand while her right arm was up like she was waving at someone a long ways away. Sure enough Mrs. Ferson’s hiccups stopped right then and there. I wrote the whole thing down in case I ever got hiccups lasting three weeks.

  Levon’s Hiccup Remedy

  1. Get quinine

  2. Pour it in a glass

  3. Hold it in left hand

  4. Put right arm up in the air

  5. Drink

  Anyway, ever-one in town also knew about Mr. Zebulon’s missing right pinkie and how the stump itched if it was going to rain. And ever-one—I’m not kidding—ever-one knew about Richard, my stepdaddy. Funny thing is, Richard was one of those people ever-one wishes they didn’t know. So when he got killed last month the whole place near exploded like firecrackers in a dry barn. Then, when word spread that Sheriff had Momma and me in for questioning, it was almost like birds were flying stories about us from house to home same way they did in Snow White when they flew her clothes to her in their little beaks. The talk never stopped. Talk talk talk talk. Momma’s beatin’ marks were real bright, like someone used black and blue markers to paint her cheek and draw a ring around her neck.

  After I shot Richard dead, Momma made me stop going to town for supplies. She said we had enough in the cupboard and icebox anyway. People drove real slow past the path leading from the blacktop to our front porch. With us not driving anywhere the grass started growing back in the two lines of dirt the tires used to make. One night two boys from the next county over burnt a cross on the dirt in front of our house because someone told them a white man’d been killed by a black woman. Momma called that the final straw. She couldn’t take it anymore, said we had to leave. I hope you’re happy, she said to me more than once after that but I don’t know what I’m supposed to be happy about so I don’t answer her but to say yes, ma’am, under my breath in case that’s the answer she’s looking for. We packed up sacks of what we were keeping but it was so boring and Momma was crabby the whole time saying things like pitch it and don’t even think of sneaking that into the keep pile, so every once in a while I would sneak out the back door to the creek on the far edge of the holler. The creek is what made Emma real for me. I been real good about not saying her name too often so far. But I cain’t not say it when I’m talking about our creek. The two are tied together in my mind like peas and carrots. Emma loved that creek more than anything and I do believe it loved her back. It’s where I could always find her if she went missing. She’d set on the big smooth rock on the far side and poke at underwater things with a switch, her lips moving like she was telling secrets to the water. If you held a gun to my head right now on this very day I would still swear she was real. I’d be whupped bloody if Momma knew I thought that but dangit, this is my notebook and I need to write the truth. And that’s the truth. Momma says that Emma was just an imaginary sister I made up after my real daddy died, but Emma was real, I could swear it. It got confusing on account of Mr. White at the drugstore back in Toast asking me how’s Emma doing? And Miss Mary working the cash register always inviting Emma to come and visit with her even though Momma’d say she was sick of humoring me about Emma ’cause Emma’s something not very humorous. Anyway, I take care not to mention Emma’s name in front of Momma since Richard died, and even in my pretend world Emma mostly stays outside, out of Momma’s sight line much as possible so they won’t overlap in my brain. Like when we hauled out all our stuff for a yard sale on one of our last days.