Concealed in the Shadows

by Gabrielle Arrowsmith

  What? Instantly the anxiety and qualms that have enslaved me since I heard Evvie’s voicemail are freed. I found my mother. The few people who cared always emphasized that. “I heard she was the one to find her,” one of my classmates wrote in a message not meant for me. She was mortified, and I was trying to figure out if I was supposed to be after having found her that way.

  Dead. I have many uncertainties about my mother, but whether she is still living is certainly not one of them. I often wonder if she was always crazy—even before my father died. I question whether she could have really loved Evvie and me because of the way she neglected our needs. I speculate on those things, but I’ve never wondered about her death. I am certain of the cold, hard truth that my mother is dead.

  Evvie and I aren’t here, beyond Miles, because of my doubts. She was clearly shocked and rattled by something or someone that made her think that our mother could be alive. I need to hear her out instead of cutting her off for how silly this sounds to me.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “On Thursday afternoon, I stopped in the court to see if I could make my typed statement about the case instead of waiting until Friday. I felt like I would need more time crafting it than it would take for you and Merideth to make your testimonies.” I bet my sister is regretting that decision now. If it was a long enough case to merit a recess, it was plenty long for Evvie to craft a brief statement. Then again, she does have difficulty abbreviating her thoughts and feelings.

  Until she mentioned it, I had forgotten that Evvie wasn’t technically allowed to orally testify in the court on her own behalf since she isn’t fifteen. Like thirteen and eighteen, fifteen is another staple age where things are first allowed. Since teenagers can begin driving and working at this age, fields of life that often produce lawsuits, they also have to be allowed to testify in court. Evvie is only fourteen, and so, she was permitted only a lightly weighed, typed statement to assert her wish to live with me.

  “So I took the light rail into the city while Merideth was at work,” Evvie continues. “After going through security, a secretary gave me a laminated card with directions for how to get into the statement program of the computer in the soundproof station where she said I would be able to speech-to-text in private. The secretary told me she would sign as my witness when I was finished.”

  I nod, but my patience for her extra babble is wearing thin. You’re straying, Evelette. Get to the point. She has a tendency to do this when she’s nervous.

  “The secretary told me to scan my wrist first, and then follow the directions on the card. When I scanned my wrist, my Miles public record came up. I was supposed to click on the Court Cases tab to get started, but I noticed a guardian list section toward the bottom of the biographic tab that was automatically open. I waved this part of the screen up because I couldn’t remember Trista’s last name and thought that I might need it for part of my statement.”

  Evvie was only ten when we lived with Trista and had already learned every adult in her life was temporary. What need did she have for remembering some irresponsible caretaker’s last name when the lowlife lush did no good for either of us? I couldn’t fault Evvie for forgetting.

  “You know when you’re scrolling on a touch screen and your finger accidentally sticks to the screen or your wave across the interface is misread and you end up opening something you didn’t mean to open?”

  “Yeah,” I answer, wondering where this is leading. Did Evvie open something that she wasn’t supposed to see? How did it suggest to her that our mother could possibly be alive? Most importantly, if something in her records was indeed amiss—why is it that way and who might know what my sister has mistakenly seen?

  “Well, I opened a link attached to Mom’s name. And I honestly don’t even understand why her name was part of my file because I wasn’t listed as a biological child or a non-biological child. It only listed you as her biological child.”

  I know I was little then, but I remember my mother. I remember her growing tummy, as she explained it to me. Unlike earlier times in history, there were no such things as baby mix-ups by 2020, the year that Evvie was born. The chips protected against that by verifying DNA upon implantation. Evvie was our mother’s biological child, and is my biological sister. Nothing else is possible.

  “Your name probably wasn’t listed with Mom’s information since you had to scan into this account, right?” Evvie looks displeased that I am pointing out plausible causes for the situation. “I’m guessing the program is designed to show the family members of its user, but not the user itself.”

  “Sydney, I opened Dad’s too,” Evvie explains. Her shoulders droop with the gravity of this information. “I was listed right after your name under Dad’s biological children, but I wasn’t listed under Mom’s.” My sister’s words scrape through her tightening throat.

  The inconsistency does take me by surprise. I’m glad she risked snooping around on the system to rule out the justification that I tried to offer. Every detail is going to be helpful in sorting this out. “Are you positive?” I ask intently, even though I’m sure she is since she specifically looked into this.

  “Yes, Sydney,” she answers with frustration.

  “Okay. I believe you,” I assure her, but I’m too late. Tears that have been summoned are too stubborn to change their mind. “Evvie, you are my biological sister and our mom’s biological daughter.” She wipes at an eye ashamedly. “I am one-hundred percent sure of that.”

  “I know. It’s not that.” Evvie pauses and exhales in effort to release some of the tension tangled inside of her. “I’m just frustrated.”

  The tears are my fault. I’ve been stopping her and questioning her like she’s incapable of differentiating improbable coincidences from frivolous mistakes. I raised my sister to be a conscientious, shrewd girl. Now isn’t the time to forget that. “What made you think Mom might still be alive?”

  “There were, or are, two people listed under non-biological children for Mom, both from 2027 through the present. Their names are Tuli and Tigonee Braves. I didn’t look into that at all. I got really freaked out about what I saw, and paranoid that the secretary was watching me. I started following the directions on the card she gave me, but I was too upset to think straight. I just said your name and three words to describe you.”

  Protective, smart, and loving. I think I’ll always remember and hold close to me the words she chose. “Ev, you did the right thing by looking into Dad’s link after what you saw on Mom’s. It sounds like you played it safe with the secretary too. That was smart.”

  “Who cares, Sydney?” she groans as she rises to her feet. “I don’t. I want to know why the hell our mom is being the guardian of other kids if she’s alive!”

  “She’s not alive, Evvie!” I find myself yelling. “She’s dead! Our mom is dead.” Evvie stares at me blankly. If she can be frustrated that I didn’t believe her outright than I can be just as angry with her for having not listened when I said it the first time. Our mother is long dead. I calm down when I unintentionally realize a difference between Evvie’s frustration and mine. She provided me with evidence for why she thinks that our mom might be alive, but I haven’t given her the proof for how I know that our mother is dead.

  It’s time to tell her the truth about our mother’s death. This may very well settle her disbelief. “Mom didn’t die from an accidental medication overdose,” I divulge quietly, Evvie’s gaze still fixed on me.

  “What?”

  “I lied to you, Evvie. You were just a little girl then. I should have told you the truth before now. I’m sorry.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asks, but I can see in her fiery eyes that she knows the answer. “You lied to me?” Her accusatory tone scours deep into my heart, searching for something to burden with the guilt of betrayal. “How did she die? She took the pills, didn’t she? It was never the nurse’s fault—it was hers! She killed herself and left us.”

  I a
cknowledge her assumption and accept her anger, even that which is misplaced. The tears roll uncontrollably down both of our cheeks now, but from different emotions.

  Evvie sits down away from me and buries her head in her knees. I waited way too long to do this. The truth is—I don’t know when I would have told her. The whole truth has to be told today if I want any chance of reconciling with my sister.

  “I found her,” I choke out. Evvie doesn’t ignore me, but she refuses to meet my eyes. “I told you that I went there and that a nurse sat me down and told me that my mother had died, and that she loved us both very much, but that’s not how it happened. That happened afterward.”

  My sister raises her disheveled face to look at me. She shakes her head slightly, willing this to be the lie. I look away this time, because I can’t look at her while I recall the horrific memory. “They buzzed me through to her hall. I knocked on the door and turned the knob when no one came.” I dispel the sorrowfulness from me, and get on with the unsightly tragedy, choosing not to shadow a bit of the truth from Evvie. “Mom was lying on the floor, and it was evident that she was dead. It wasn’t an overdose.”

  As my eyes timidly meet my sister’s, I see that the anger and betrayal have been replaced by the deepest kind of hurt, which is now shared with me rather than directed toward me. “The nurse helped me come up with something to tell you. I’m sorry that I lied, but I was so sad and scared to tell you, Evvie. As the years have passed and you’ve gotten older, I’ve felt more and more guilty but never less sad. I just—”

  “It’s okay,” Evvie cuts in. “I forgive you.”

  This time it’s me who buries my head into her arms as she come back over to my side. I had little issue relaying the account to the judge yesterday, but it’s very different with Evvie today. I’m shaking and crying because it simply breaks my heart to have to kill another small part of my poor little sister by revealing our mother’s suicide.

  I imagined I would feel disgusting and just as guilt-ridden for telling the secret and causing her pain as for keeping it, but Evvie’s graceful forgiveness lifts an immense burden from me that I’ve been carrying for years. Still, it troubles me to know that her soul is dimmed as mine is lightened, but it can’t be another way. Against my wishes, she has had no greater fortune in her life than I have had in mine.

  “I’m sorry, Syd,” Evvie moans, regretting her earlier upheaval. Here we both are being sorry to each other for something to which we were both powerless. Our mother is the one who should be sorry. She is the one who could have prevented all of this pain and sorrow.

  “So she’s dead then?” Evvie says after a minute.

  “Yeah. She is.” My feelings even out to the emptiness that I’m accustomed to feeling in replacement of other emotions. “I remember first noticing the unnatural way she laid on the floor, second the pools of blood spreading from her body, and third the cut that was gouged up the arm that was visible to me.”

  Pinkish rays dance through the forest of evergreens before our eyes and elegantly lighten the haven Evvie and I now share.

  “Why do you think those kids’ names were listed as Mom’s children?” Evvie asks, as if to rid us of these evils before the majesty of the dawn breaks.

  “I don’t know, Evvie. Maybe the database has someone mixed up. Maybe there’s another Loretta Harter who has adopted those two girls. It was probably added to Mom’s information by mistake.”

  “Does that happen?”

  “Sometimes,” I guess. Actually, the databases rarely have errors that substantial, but it is true that an error is possible, and the most probable explanation I can gather for what she saw.

  “Why do you think my name wasn’t listed as a biological child and yours was?”

  “I’m not sure, Evvie,” I answer honestly. It was also quite ironic that the account showed that Loretta Harter began parenting these children in 2027, the same year that she died. Ironic, yes, but I saw my mother’s lifeless body. I experienced the frantic nurses ushering me out of the room after they heard my cries. They paid their attention to a crying kid and not the bleeding woman because they knew from a glance that she was beyond revival. So did I. I didn’t cry for help, I just cried.

  The kind nurse who sat me on her lap sincerely tried to calm my shattered heart. It’s been almost six years since I’ve allowed anyone other than Evvie see me cry. That nurse was the last. I didn’t know her name, and couldn’t remember her face for very long, but after we were placed back in the orphanage, I used to pray that she would come find Evvie and me and take us home to live with her. If she had children, they were very lucky.

  “I’m going to keep thinking about this stuff, but I don’t want you to burden yourself by any of it, okay?” Evvie nods and thanks me with a smile for reliving her of all of this. “I’m really glad you told me,” I say as I rub her back affectionately.

  “You too, Syd.”

  I stand up before the sorrow can seep in again. “I think you set a record with that jump today,” I congratulate much for the sake of changing the subject. Evvie smiles. “Really, Ev. I’m proud of how brave you have become. The stuff you just told me, the case yesterday, making the jump, all of it. You’re growing up fast. Stop it.”

  “Yeah, to be just like you,” Evvie laughs. I swear I can actually feel the atmosphere lighten.

  “I hope so! Nothing wrong with that!” I jest. “Let’s strip our stuff off to dry and I’ll show you around this little slice of heaven.”

  “I can’t wait until the sunrise. It’s beautiful out here,” Evvie says, seeming to notice only now that her weight has been lifted.

  “I know the perfect spot, but we’ve got to hustle,” I say, dragging my things off as Evvie struggles. “And you have no idea how beautiful yet,” I say as much to myself as to her. Evvie shrieks wildly and both of us giggle as I lead her in a race through the changing forest. Our path was rough getting here, but everything feels perfect in this moment. I’m certain that I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.