What Happened to My Sister

by Elizabeth Flock

  She’s gonna kill me.

  I can hear Mr. Burdock calling after me something about how he was sorry and only wanted to help but I’m already out of sight and halfway over the fence. I skin my knee on the way down to the pool floor but I can barely feel it for the thumping in my chest. No way’ll Momma know to look for me here so I’m safe for now, heart, you can stop beating so fast and loud. I may be stupid but I’m not so stupid enough to lay in the middle of the pool floor like usual. I curl up like Birdie over in the deep end, where I’d kicked most of the trash into a pile when I first started laying down here. Good thing the trash is still here because I use some of it to cover me up. In the shadows, no one’ll find me and I can buy some time to put a plan together for what to do next.

  Mr. Burdock’s talking to himself from the maid’s closet where he’s fetching a broom I reckon. I feel bad—I should be up there doing that. He’s been nothing but nice to me, Mr. Burdock. And here I go making trouble for him. I arrange a couple more handfuls of trash over me so now I’m completely invisible in the dark. It’s not too smelly so that’s good news too. Laying still like this my head decides it’s time to start thumping from pain where it hit the railing. Thump. Thump.

  I hear Momma hollering for me. I hold my breath. She ain’t using the top of her lungs on account of it’s a motel not just our house so I can say I didn’t hear her. If she catches me, that is. Now her voice is mixing with Mr. Burdock’s. I can just … make … out … the … words …

  “I sure am sorry about that girl of mine, Mr. Burdock,” Momma’s saying. “I promise you she’ll make amends when I get ahold of her. You can take my word for it. Caroline? Caroline! You better march yourself on home right now, girl!”

  Thump. Thump. Boy my head hurts a little more than I thought it would.

  In the quiet following Momma’s calling for me, the sound of the broom pushing the tinkling glass into a pile carries across the air. I got good ears normally but tonight they’re not working so good because of the pop I got from Momma maybe. They’re still talking to each other, Mr. Burdock and Momma.

  “Like I said, it ain’t her fault,” Mr. Burdock’s telling Momma. “I offered to carry it all for her—she was struggling up them stairs and you can call me anything under the sun but you cain’t say I ain’t a gentleman. I ain’t gonna stand by watching a girl carry something I could take off her hands with ease. Hap Burdock’s a gentleman, through and through.”

  They say some things I cain’t make out, then Momma says: “I best get back to my room. Sorry again for the trouble. Caroline? Time to come on home now,” Momma calls out in her whiskey voice she’s putting on for Mr. Burdock. From the click of her shoes it sounds like she’s heading back upstairs.

  “I’ll keep an eye out for her and send her home, don’t you worry,” Mr. Burdock calls out to her. “I’ll send a replacement bottle of Jim Beam up in a minute. Right’s right, after all. I broke it, I bought it, you know.”

  Glass scrapes into the dustpan. Mr. Burdock mutters something I cain’t understand. A door closes hard. His boots carry him back home. Another door closes. Now it’s quiet but for the whoosh of cars passing. Headlights beam across the top of the pool, lighting up the side of the building, and it occurs to me we’d be up all night if our room faced the other direction ’cause more cars head into town than out of it and those headlights are pretty bright.

  I must’ve drifted off because next thing I hear is the slam of a car door. An engine revs loud twice then three times. I bet it’s Mr. Creepy Rock in a big old truck like a cowboy in an old Western movie. He peels out like Richard used to do on payday. If I time it right, Momma will be passed out when I come back in. ’Cept the door’ll be locked. Dangit. I better go on and get it over with now or I’ll be sleeping out here from now on.

  I’m not too dizzy standing up thank goodness. The moon has turned ever-thing the dark purple of a bruise.

  “Momma? It’s me, Momma, open up,” I say into the door. It’s hard to be night-quiet when you need to be heard through a door. “Momma? Please, Momma? I’m real sorry.”

  When I hear something moving in the room, I squinch up my lady parts real tight so I don’t have an accident all over myself like I usually do when I’m this scared. I been trying real hard to keep from it. But it’s too late—when I hear the sound of the metal latch turning, unlocking the door, I feel the warm wet down the insides of my legs.

  “I’m sorry, Momma, I’m real real sorry,” I say before I even set eyes on her.

  The door lies open to the room but since it’s pitch-dark in there I cain’t make out where exactly Momma is. She can move quick when she puts her mind to it. Sure enough, I never even saw her arm until it was attaching itself to a fistful of my hair. Then she’s dragging me into the room like I’m a sack of potatoes.

  “I’m—drowning—and you—are the—brick—in my—pocket,” Momma says in between pops. Her foot does the rest of the talking, until the wind is completely kicked out of me and the air is all yelled out of her. I covered my head with my arms this time but now I’m thinking I’d have been better off holding my sides instead. I cough if I take too deep a breath. It’s not so bad if I pant like a dog.

  I’m smart enough to know to stay put when she finishes with me. Until she gets into bed I’m best where I am here on the floor. Momma doesn’t like seeing me after I been punished. She doesn’t even like to breathe the same air as me. She feels bad, is why. If I could I’d tell her I’m gonna be so good from now on she won’t believe her eyes. I’m no brick in her pocket, she’ll see. It’ll be like magic. I’ll get Cricket to help me work on carrying stuff and not dropping it. And maybe they could loan me the money to pay back Mr. Rock for the Jim Beam so Momma ain’t beholden which she hates more than pickles. I’ll take such good care of her she won’t need Mr. Creepy Rock or anybody else but me. And if she needs me she surely won’t go off and leave me with the state of North Carolina. Or in the loony bin.

  In the morning light I realize I’m lucky: Momma mostly stuck to punishing my body and not my head so she didn’t leave many marks for me to have to cover up. I get out of bed without making a sound but the way Momma’s sleeping, I don’t think an alarm clock could get her to stir. I tiptoe over to her makeup kit and pat some Foundation for a Youthful Complexion on my forehead for good measure. As long as I don’t cough, I’m good. I just have to take care to move slow on account of my knee. I must have knocked it on something. The key to sneaking out of a hotel room your momma’s sleeping in is to turn the door handle before you pull. Then, once you get on the outside of the door, you’ve got to remember to turn the handle before you close it or you may as well forget about the whole thing to begin with. It sure is bright and sunny out today. The kind of sunny that makes the day feel clean. Going down the stairs is tough but by the time I’m out front of the Loveless I feel a hundred times better. I found the rest of the Baby Ruth in my pocket so I ain’t even that hungry. I make it last the whole of the time I wait for Mrs. Ford, sitting in the shade of the tree by the Loveless driveway.

  Oh goody! Here they are now. I check over my shoulder to make sure Mr. Burdock don’t see me getting into the minivan and sure enough, the coast is clear. Just seeing them waving at me through the car windows makes me know today is gonna be a great day. Ever-thing with Cricket and them is great.

  “Hey, Mrs. Ford! Hey, Cricket!” I say, reaching for the seat belt so they know I’m a fast learner. I’m gonna make them want to have me around all the time.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Honor

  What in the world?

  “Hey, Carrie, how are you, honey?” I ask, trying not to stare at her as she settles into the backseat next to Cricket. “You need help with that seat belt? Cricket, help Carrie out, will you?”

  “No no, I got it thanks,” Carrie says, waving her off.

  I guess in addition to letting children wear garish makeup, they refuse to practice basic vehicle safety up in Hendersonville because this
child cannot operate a seat belt to save her life. Ha—literally. Good one, Honor.

  “Well, don’t you look fancy,” I say, picking the word carefully, “with your face all made up. Did your mama help you apply it, honey?”

  “Ugh, no offense, but I never want to wear makeup,” Cricket says, as I had known she would. “Everyone wears makeup but me. I’m, like, the only one I know who doesn’t.”

  “All right, Cricket, I think we’ve heard enough from you on the subject. Some of us enjoy putting on some makeup from time to time. And I’m sure Carrie’s mother has parameters she hopes her daughter will keep to, isn’t that right, Carrie?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Your mother has rules about when you can wear makeup and how much?”

  I don’t know how else to say it: the girl looks like a clown with foundation gunked thick over her face. What could her mother be thinking, letting her go out in public looking like this?

  “Oh, my momma doesn’t care,” Carrie says.

  “Really?” Cricket asks her.

  “I mean, she cares—she cares about ever-thing I do of course,” Carrie says.

  “Of course she does,” I say. “Listen, honey, I’ve got to help Cricket’s grandmother with some important house stuff, so y’all are going to have to find something to do at home, okay?”

  “That’s fine,” Carrie says, shrugging while Cricket groans. “My momma? She doesn’t care if I put on some of her makeup ever once in a while. But, like, about my friends? She cares about all of that stuff. Just like a normal mom. She’s always asking me about all the mail I get, about all the phone calls and stuff. Who’s that on the phone? she asks me all the time. It’s hard, though, ’cause she cain’t keep my friends’ names straight. I got so many of them, that’s why.”

  “You’re so lucky,” Cricket says. And my heart breaks.

  “I don’t know. My momma just wants me to be happy,” Carrie says. “Just like all moms want their kids to be happy. She’s always saying that. I just want you to be happy, Caroline. It’s embarrassing how much she says it.”

  “We do want y’all to be happy! You’re absolutely right. You hear that, Cricket? You hear your friend saying that? Just remember that the next time you say I’m trying to ruin your life.”

  I don’t need to check the rearview mirror, I can feel Cricket rolling her eyes.

  “Oh-Em-Gee, that is so not true,” Cricket says, leaning over to tell Carrie about Layla Latrooce.

  “Here we go again,” I say. “When are we ever going to stop dredging up poor Layla Latrooce?”

  “What? Jeez! I’m telling her about something else,” Cricket says, faking an innocent face. “Quit spying.”

  I can just make out Carrie whispering to Cricket, “I cain’t believe you can talk to your momma like that. If I did that? Who-ee, I’d be skinned alive!”

  Layla Latrooce was in Cricket’s class last year. A preteen with a woman’s body and all the boys slack-jawed and nipping at her heels as a result. Which is not her fault of course but a girl like that has to be watched closely, something her parents never seemed to do. On the contrary, Layla’s mother clearly subscribed to the if-you-got-it-flaunt-it philosophy, dressing in the lowest-cut tops she could find. Pretty soon, word got out that Layla Latrooce was playing some online video-chat thing and hooked up with a seventeen-year-old boy. Like I told Ed when Cricket first brought her over after school: her parents sure did set the bar low when they chose to give her a name like Layla Latrooce. Sounds like a stripper’s name. The girl’s going to get really good at taking off her clothes, is all I’m saying. Why not go ahead and install a pole in your living room right now? Oh, we sure laughed over Layla Latrooce, Eddie and me. Say what you will about Ed Ford, the man’s got a great sense of humor. I’ll give him that. Certainly better than his parents’, who named their son Edsil but always appeared baffled by the laughter that broke out whenever Ed’s full name was revealed. Layla lost interest in Cricket pretty fast, but unfortunately for us we’d already gone on record banning Cricket from going over to the Latrooce house so we were the villains in Cricket’s eyes. Never mind that Layla flat-out ignored Cricket to her face. No. According to Cricket, Eddie and I were the Worst Parents in the World.

  “Hey, Mom, where did Ferrin Albee move to?” Cricket asks from the backseat.

  “Oh my goodness, Ferrin Albee,” I say. “Poor Ferrin Albee.”

  “Ferrin Albee had both boy and girl parts,” Cricket tells Carrie. “No one ever really knew if he was a boy like he said he was or if he was really a she.”

  “So sad,” I say. I can see Carrie’s eyes big as saucers, taking in all our stories. “I wonder where they ended up. The Albees. I think they went up North. New York probably. I hope that child’s all right.”

  If you ask me, there’s yet another example of parents not doing right by their children in name choice. I mean, Ferrin? When your child clearly has some gender issues? Ferrin? Couldn’t they have made it a tad bit easier and gone with, say, Charlotte. Or Catherine. Or James. Michael. Oh, well.

  “So, was Ferrin a boy or a girl, Mom?” Cricket asks.

  This is where it’s helpful to have a child with attention deficit disorder. All I have to do to avoid answering a difficult question that, let’s face it, will only lead to more difficult questions is wait about four seconds and Cricket is onto the next topic.

  “Hey, Carrie, can you do this?” Cricket asks, rubber-banding her mouth into an ugly position not many can imitate. Her top lip curls to the left while the bottom heads in the opposite direction.

  Ladies and gentlemen, my daughter the Subject Changer. The girls proceed to a timeless competition that is as annoying as it is humorous. In the rearview mirror I watch Carrie unsuccessfully try to copy Cricket’s snarl.

  “No, but can you do this?” Carrie asks, touching her nose with the tip of her tongue.

  “Wow! That’s really something,” I say, smiling back at the two of them.

  “Wait, can you do this?” Cricket says. “Wait wait, no, look. Wait, don’t make me laugh. Okay now.”

  “Cricket, don’t fold your eyelids up like that,” I tell her, but it’s too late.

  “Ew, that’s so scary looking,” Carrie says, clearly charmed. “I wish I could do that.”

  “Oh wait, I’ve got a good one. Here, squeeze my hand for thirty seconds,” Cricket says. “Mom, can you time us? Okay starting … now!”

  “Girls, are you hungry?”

  “Mom! Time us! Thirty seconds!”

  “I’m about to pass the grocery store,” I say. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

  “Mom!”

  “Cricket, I’ll time you in a second. Just tell me: are you hungry now or can y’all hang on until we get home? Carrie, honey, are you hungry?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I mean, no, ma’am,” the little voice says.

  I can tell she is checking with her new best friend to see if she should be hungry or not.

  “Y’all wait in the car, I’m just going to run in for two seconds. I’ll be right back. I’m leaving the car running so you have the air-conditioning on. Cricket, are you listening to me?”

  “Mom, I’m paralyzing Carrie’s hand. Watch! Wait, Carrie. Don’t move your fingers until I say. Keep squeezing my hand. Keep going. That’s good …”

  “Hannah Chaplin Ford, do you hear me?”

  “On the count of three try to wiggle them, okay? Not yet. Not … yet …” Cricket directs Carrie.

  “Cricket! I’m getting out of the car now. Wait here with Carrie, okay?”

  “One … two … three! Okay now, try to move your fingers.”

  I unbuckle my seat belt and turn to watch Cricket beam at her triumph. Carrie is holding her still-clenched fist out, mentally willing her own fingers to move, clearly horrified that she cannot make the connection.

  “I cain’t move my fingers! Help! I cain’t move them,” she says, bursting into tears.

  I had no idea this would lead to cry
ing. I’m so glad I didn’t leave them right then. Thank goodness I have a fresh packet of Kleenex right in the glove compartment for emergencies.

  “Aw, honey, shhhhh, it’s okay.” I try to reach Carrie to console her from the front seat, but the headrest is in the way so I settle on her leg. “Cricket, what did I tell you about these stupid human tricks. See what happens?”

  “Carrie, look, it’s just a trick, see?”

  Cricket gently takes Carrie’s hand and opens it flat.

  “See?” Cricket says, looking worried and, if I’m not mistaken, kind of sisterly. “It’s okay. I’m sorry. It’s okay.”

  “Cricket, don’t do any more of those silly things,” I say. “How many times have I told you to slow down and don’t overwhelm people. Here, let me get you some more tissue, sweetheart.”

  “I wasn’t trying to overwhelm her, Mom, jeez! Carrie, was I overwhelming you? I didn’t mean to.”

  “Don’t be silly, of course she’s not going to say yes to that,” I say. We talk at once, Cricket and I do, and I realize it can be a lot to take in. Especially for a lost little girl. “Let’s just … let’s just be quiet here for a minute, can we? Honey, let me wipe your face a little.”

  Carrie flinches at first, but I’m determined. The caked makeup comes off with each swipe of the Kleenex, revealing an angry bruise above her right eye. Cricket and I both gasp.

  “Oh my Lord, what happened?” I ask Carrie.

  Now I know why she had so much makeup on.

  “Answer me, honey,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking in fury. “What happened?”

  I stroke Carrie’s knee until her tears come to a hiccuping end.

  “Carrie, I hate that silly trick too,” I say, waiting on her to tell me about the bruise. One thing at a time. “Cricket did that to my hand a long time ago—I remember how scary it felt. I’m so sorry, honey. Does it hurt? Your hand? You all right, sweetie?”