If You Find Me (7 page)

“I still can’t get over it. Two peas in a pod, those two,” my father says, shaking his head.
“The only animals we had were for dinner,” I tell him, and he stares at me, his grin receding like the mountains during some of the worst storms, the ones where the roof leaked into rusty metal pots while we huddled together on the cot for warmth, our toes and lips blue.
Jenessa reappears and tugs on my father’s hand, pulling him out the door. I note the emotions that play across his face—happiness, sadness, shock, regret— before he tears his eyes from mine.
Gravel crunches under the tires as we bounce down the driveway. Nessa kneels backward on the seat, waving at Melissa on the porch until we can no longer see her.
“Turn around, Ness, so I can do the seat belt.”
First, I plop each of her feet on my thigh and tie her shoes— the laces are always coming loose—making bunny ears with the laces.
“Where did you learn to do that?” my father asks, astonishment in his voice.
“You,” I say quietly as another memory slips into place, like a puzzle piece that knows where it belongs even before I do.
I see myself, a little girl from another world, riding in the truck with her daddy.
“Oh no. My soos are bwoken.”
I pout, wavin’ my feet in the air from my car seat in the back. “Want me to make you bunny ears?”
“Bunny eawrs! Bunny eawrs!”
My father keeps his eyes on the road, his knuckles yellow-white as he grips the wheel.
Mama’s voice scratches through my mind, too.
“That son of a bitch left us to fend for ourselves.”
“But you said we left him.”
Her swift backhand knocks me off my feet.
“Don’t you sass me.”
“Sorry, Mama.”
My nine-year-old voice is tinier than a chipmunk’s chirp as I clutch my cheek, tears stingin’ my eyes.
“Damn right we left him. I had to save my girl.”
“I know, Mama.”
“And don’t you be tellin’ no strangers our b’ness. Family b’ness don’t leave this family.”
I nod vigorously, her viselike grip dentin’ my upper arm.
“If you see anyone in these woods,” she says, lettin’ go only to cup my cheeks so tightly, my eyes bug out, “hide. Don’t let yourself be seen, girl, and what ever you do, don’t give your name.”
“What would happen, Mama?” I ask, my face achin’.
Nessa wails, wantin’ me to go to her. But Mama won’t let go.
“They’ll take you away from me and make you live with him. And then I won’t be there to protect you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Now go see to your sister, before I slap that cryin’ right outta her.”

The Children’s Services parking lot teems with cars, thick as ants on spilled beans. My father has to circle around back to find an empty parking space.
“Take your sister’s hand,” he says as we jump out.
I lift our arms into a V, sister fingers entwined. “I’ve already got

it, sir.”
“Of course you do. I keep forgetting—”
“It’s okay, sir.”
“Maybe it’s good I keep forgetting, huh?”
I know what he means.
I’m a girl, just a girl, who never should’ve had to be in charge in the

Jenessa tilts her head back. Her large eyes worry me with questions.
“Melissa said it’s just some puzzles or something, remember? You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.”
Nessa’s grip relaxes. I wouldn’t tell her something that wasn’t so. I lean in and gather her backpack from the seat, a gift from Melissa before we left the house. It contains two sandwiches, a clean pair of underpants, and a few children’s magazines.
“That’s Snow White on the back,” Melissa says, turning the backpack over.
We look at her blankly.
“Don’t you know Snow White? She’s a princess. You know, the Disney princesses?”
“She knows Cinderella, ma’am. From her shirt.”
“Right! Cinderella is one of the princesses. I’ll have to dig out Delly’s princess books for you, Jenessa.”
Nessa claps her hands and does a silly dance.
We smile, Cinderella building a bridge between our woods and civilization. For a moment, we all stand on it equally, comfortably. For a moment, we belong.
Ness reaches for my father’s hand, and we make an awkward train, zigging up the building’s steps and zagging down the polished hallways. I picture him in my mind, pushing open the beige door with the mrs. haskell nameplate glued to the front, discussing the letter and our case while I cooked beans and washed clothes in the creek and smushed cochroaches scurrying across the tiny countertop, oblivious to the coming end of our world.
Mrs. Haskell looks awfully happy to see us.
“Awww,” she says as Ness flies into her arms.
Familiar faces are priceless for my sister. In a sea of trees turned into a sea of total strangers, familiar means everything.
“Hi there, sweetie. Hi, Carey. Won’t you come in?”
My father motions me in front of him with a sweep of his hand. We all settle into chairs opposite Mrs. Haskell.
“How’s it working out so far, Mr. Benskin?”
Folders are piled high on every surface but her desk. Even an empty chair boasts a rising tower of paperwork stretching toward the ceiling, steadied by the wall the chair leans against.
“We’re doing well, I think. Right, girls?”
Jenessa leaves Mrs. Haskell’s arms and sidles over to my father, climbing into his lap. Mrs. Haskell turns to me, waiting.
“Yes, ma’am. We’re doing right fine,” I say, forcing a smile.
“That’s good to hear. I dare say we may have a happy ending in the making. ‘And they lived happily ever after.’ Who doesn’t love a happy ending?”
I think of Jenessa. We have to stay together. That’s our happy ending.
“Let’s get down to business. I’ll be working with Jenessa today, and you’ll be in a room on your own,” she says, motioning toward a few loose pages on her desk. “These are written tests. Answer what you can.”
She hesitates, and I wait, watching the struggle play across her face.
“Excuse me for asking, but you can read and write, can’t you?” My cheeks burn.
“Yes, ma’am. We both can. I taught Ness through books. I also taught her her sums. Mama found a chalkboard at a yard sale, and we used that. We had some old schoolbooks, lots of Winnie-the- Pooh books, and the poetry of Mr. Hopkins, Mr. Wordsworth, Lord Tennyson, Mr. Tagore, and Miss Dickinson, to name a few.”
Mrs. Haskell exhales, looking relieved.
“That’s really good, Carey. Jenessa’s lucky to have a sister like you. It’s much easier to teach reading, writing, and numbers to children when they’re younger.”
Nessa grins, like she’s so smart and it’s all her own doing.
“All I ask,” I say, the mama bear rising, “is that you don’t make her talk if she doesn’t want to.”
“Are you sure she can talk?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she talks to me.”
I shift in my seat, feeling like I’m betraying Nessa’s trust. But the fact of the matter is, her choice to remain mute concerns me, too. As if it isn’t bad enough we’re poor, backward folk; Jenessa’s lack of speech is enough to cast her as a freak. She’s so trusting, so innocent. That’s what worries me the most.
“She talks to you? When was the last time?”
I look over at Jenessa, who’s thumbing through a Highlights magazine fished from her backpack. She stares at the page, transfixed by a dog that bears a clear resemblance to Shorty.
“Yesterday.”
My father looks from me to Jenessa. Surprise and relief flood his eyes. He exhales loudly as he fiddles with the ball cap on his head.
He doesn’t want her to be a freak, either.
“What did she say?”
I look over at Nessa again, who seems relaxed, paying no nevermind.
“She said Shorty was hers.”
My father laughs until his eyes tear up and his face turns kidney-bean red. When he finally gets hold of himself, he sputters out the words.
“That’s right, honey. That old hound dog was half-dead when we found him in the woods. I bet she’d understand the feeling more than most. He’s hers all right.”
And that’s the thing about little kids. Even when they’re not listening, they’re listening.
Nessa flies to my father and weaves her arms around his neck. She looks like a twig that’d snap on the first bend, wrapped up in his tree-trunk arms.
I’m overcome by a feeling I don’t know how to hold. It’s the opposite of hardship and worry. The opposite of cigarette burns, dwindling camp supplies, and creek-cold bones.
Mrs. Haskell, her eyes bright, clears her throat. “Okay, folks. Carey, you can see yourself to the room next door. That’s right, the one to the right. Mr. Benskin, you can sit in the waiting room. I’ll be working with Jenessa at the table here. Carey, take these with you.”
She holds out pages. I lean forward in my chair and take them from her hand.
“Please print your name and age on the top right, and answer as many questions as you can. There’s no passing or failing—we just want to see where you are.”
“Yes, ma’am.” My palms sweat and my jeans stick to my legs. “I’ll do my best.”
“Good. Now, Jenessa, your tests are like games. Do you like games?”
Nessa’s eyes grow wide and she nods.
“Good. You sit in the chair right there.”
We drag ourselves out the door, both of us hesitant about leaving her.
“Jenessa will be fine with me. I promise. Now, shoo, you two.”
My father makes his way toward the waiting room, but I linger.
“It’s okay, Carey. Really.” Mrs. Haskell looks me straight in the eye. “She’ll have fun.”
“If she needs me, you’ll send her right next door, ma’am?”
“I will. And I almost forgot.”
Her heels click over to me, and she holds out a long yellow stick with a sharp black tip on one end and a brownish orange cylinder on the other.
“This is a pencil. I know you know what a pen is, right? I saw some in the camper.”
I nod. Black ink, called a Bic. My mom hoarded them in an empty tea can.
“Well, a pencil is the same sort of thing— a writing instrument. You write with the sharp end, and see this hard, spongy thing here? That’s an eraser. If you make a mistake, you can erase the markings you made with the eraser.”
I marvel at it. “We could’ve used one of those when Jenessa was learning to write.” I take it from her outstretched hand.
“Well, you can keep it, if you want. See what it says on the side?”
I read it out loud. “ ‘Children and Family Services of TN.’ ”
“TN is the abbreviation for Tennessee.”
“Where we live,” I say softly.
“Right. Now, off you go.”
Me and my pencil enter the assigned room, and I lay out the pages on the long table. I can’t see tables now without thinking of a plate of bacon. I wish there was bacon, too.
The first part is easy:
Carey Violet Blackburn
Age: 15
It could be worse, I tell myself as I struggle over the first few questions. You could not know how to read or write. You could’ve had no books, no schoolbooks, or, even worse, no motivation to teach Ness or yourself.
To my surprise, once I get started, I know most of the answers, and the math is even easier. I think of the algebra and trigonometry texts Mama brought home from the yard sale, and those endless hours we filled with history and science, poetry and Pooh.
I won’t lie. There were times I daydreamed about what it’d be like to get out of the woods, go to college, and play in the symphony, when Jenessa was older and didn’t need me so much. No way I’d turn into Mama. My moods are steady, dependable. I’m not bipolar; I’m sure of it. I won’t do drugs. I took care of myself and a baby. I kept us safe, kept us fed, kept us smart.
I finish the pages in no time, in under two hours, according to the wristwatch Melissa gave me before we left.
“Carey, honey, wait.”
I slide my shirt on quickly before she opens my bedroom door.
“Yes, ma’am? Do you need help with Nessa?”
“No, she’s downstairs, ready to go. It’s just that I have something for you. For luck.”
I stiffen, not sure what to do. “For me, ma’am?”
“This was mine when I was in college. It was a high school graduation gift from my father.”
Delaney, passing by, stops to listen.
“Hold out your arm.”
I do. Melissa buckles on the thin straps of a wristwatch. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe she’s giving it to me.
“Mom!” Delaney squeals.
“You have my watch from college graduation. You have plenty of watches, Delly,” she calls out as Delaney stomps down the hallway.
“Don’t worry about Delly, She can have one of my other ones, if she wants another that badly.”
Now, I stare at the tiny hands, no thicker than a strand of Nessa’s hair, as they tick tick tick around the face. The watch is delicate, with a golden rectangular frame and a creamy mother- of-pearl face, with blond leather straps and a tiny gold buckle to hold it in place.
It’s fine—right fine. I’ve never owned anything so fine before.
I fill in the last question and put down my pencil. I decide I love pencils. Such a convenient invention, if ever there was one. Stretching my legs, I peer out the windows on the back wall. The glass is rectangle-shaped, and the consecutive panels stretch from waist height to high above my five feet, seven inches.
I survey a courtyard filled with children Nessa’s age and younger, swinging on swings and hanging from bars and climbing a roundshaped cage with ladder rungs.
Women dressed like Mrs. Haskell cart folders in their arms and talk to grown folk who watch the children from benches. Some of the women remind me of Mama—worn-out clothes and hair askew, puffing on cigarettes like no one’s business, and, even from my perch, quite obviously putting on the dog, plain as a slice of moldy muskrat meat.
A river of feelings courses through me when I think of Mama. Her memory snaps around me like a cheap bear trap that’ll never let go.
Where is she? Why did she leave us? She could’ve at least said good- bye to Nessa.
I jump at the sound of the door opening. A shiny-headed man peeks through.
“I’m looking for an empty room.”
“You can have this one, sir.”
“Don’t forget your papers,” he says, pointing.
Tripping over my feet, I gather up the sheets and slide past him through the doorway, careful not to touch.
Feeling sneaky, I peer through the tiny glass window in Mrs. Haskell’s office door. True to her word, she and Jenessa are bent over some sort of puzzle made out of yellow, blue, red, and green wood pieces.
I watch them for a moment. Nessa is smiling. That’s all I need to know. I continue toward the waiting room.
My father sits in a chair in the corner, sunlight pouring in from a window above as he reads a newspaper. He folds it and drops it on his lap when he sees me.
“How did the test go?”
“Fine, sir.”
I sit in the chair farthest from him, swinging my feet.
“Glad to hear it. Do you mind if I take a look?”
I walk over and reluctantly hand him the pages. The place where my hand held the paper is wrinkled and damp. It’s impossible to miss the look on his face as he scrutinizes the top sheet, looking up at me and then back at the page.
I lean forward to see what he’s stuck on, following his line of vision. It’s just my name at the top, like Mrs. Haskell told me to write.
My father looks up again, his brow furrowed.
“What’s wrong, sir?”
“You were supposed to put your age on here—”
“I did. See there—” I motion at the page, uncomprehending. “It’s right under my name.”
“But you put down fifteen.”
“Yes, sir.”
My stomach does a wobbly cartwheel, realizing something I haven’t yet. It did the same when I saw him in the woods.
He lets out a long, slow breath, which smells like toothpaste and cigarettes.
“You were born fourteen years ago, Carey.”
Blood beats in my brain like a drum.
“Fifteen, sir.”
My father looks away, squinting into the afternoon light. He shakes his head no. The room shrinks around me, like I’m Alice and I ate the tiny cake. My eyes refocus, and my mind uses all its energy to wrap around his words.
“Fifteen,” I say again, emphasizing the fi f , as if I can make it true by repeating it.
“Fourteen. I’m sorry, Carey.”
The hallway is a blur as I run down it, out the front door, and through the parking lot. Can’t breathe. I squat behind his truck, panting, my T-shirt sticking to my back.
No! I can’t be fourteen when I was fourteen already! Mama couldn’t have been that screwed-up!
My mind fills with the whooshing and crashing of the Obed River. The whispering trees, calling for me, wondering why I’ve left them. I’m just like Mama.
I want to go home! MY home!
The eaglets. I concentrate on the eaglets. Ness and I watched them every day after they’d hatched. She was still talking then.
“Oh no!” Nessa cries. “The ea glet’s nest is fallin’ apart. Look, Carey. It’s bwoken!”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes it is. Look at it!”
I gather her onto my lap, her cheeks slick with tears.
“No, Ness. Over time, the mama ea gle pulls away the straws one by one until the babies are left balancin’ on the branches.”
“You’re lyin’, Carey Blackburn! Why would she be that mean?”
“It’s not mean. It’s love. If the mama kept bringin’ them food and they stayed in their comfy little nest, they’d never be brave enough to learn how to fly or to venture out into the world.”
Jenessa takes in a ragged breath, thinkin’ it over. I play with her hair, waitin’.
“The baby birds are just like us. Right, Carey?”
“How do you mean?”
“Brave, like us. Our mama isn’t here. Does that mean we’re flyin’, too?”
I give her a squeeze. She doesn’t know it, but she’s my wings.
“You bet we are, baby. In our own way, we’re flyin’, too.”
I wonder if the chipped water jug is still there, and the kettle. I  think of the key in the hollow hickory. What if someone else fi n d s i t ?
I hate Mama. HATE her. What kind of mother forgets the age of her child? What kind of mother can’t even keep a birthday straight?
“Hey, you.”
My father stands above me, blocking the sun. He nudges my cowboy boot with his work boot.