What Happened to My Sister: A Novel (12 page)

“I better call nine-one-one,” I say. “Hon, I’m going to make a quick phone call so we can get to the bottom of this and get you back to where you need to be.”

Her sobbing stops as abruptly as it started, and her eyes get pie-wide when I stand up to stop an employee.

“Sir? Are you the manager?” I ask a man in a Wendy’s visor and shirt. As the words are leaving my mouth I catch sight of the little girl, who looks both betrayed and stricken, probably thinking I’m turning her in for using her hands at the salad bar. She’s frozen, paralyzed with fear apparently.

“No, but I can get him,” the Wendy’s man says.

I see her looking up at me with eyes too old to be a child’s, and something weird happens. It sounds crazy and maybe I’ll regret saying this, but in that moment we recognize one another. I’ve decided to trust my mother’s intuition on this one. Turning her over to a Wendy’s employee isn’t going to do this child any good. All right, God. I get the message. I’ll take it from here.

“Actually, ah, no, thank you,” I tell the Wendy’s employee. “I’ve got it covered. Sorry to bother you.”

He looks relieved not to have to exert the energy and goes back to jamming more napkins into the dispenser, and I look back down at this dirty little girl in clothes a size too small. My Lord, I think I may be looking at a runaway. I just saw something on runaways the other night on cable. On MSNBC I think.

“Why don’t you come on over here and have a bite to eat with my daughter and me,” I say, signaling with my head to where we’re sitting. “We’d be happy to have you join us. What’d you say your name was, honey?”

Here comes Cricket. Oh God, should I stop her from getting a look at the girl? It’ll give her such a start. But maybe I’m reading too much into this. What if I’m not, though? Cricket will be so … Too late …

“Mom, I’m
starving
,” Cricket says, standing with her hands on her hips. “Seriously, can I start—you’re taking, like, for
ever
. The food’s getting cold.”

Then Cricket looks at the girl and her mouth drops open. Her hands fall involuntarily from her hips to dangling by her sides. Her skin drains of all color, like a reverse Polaroid.

“Oh my
God
, Mom.”

“This is,” I say, pausing, hoping the little girl will fill in the blank. “This is my new friend … Honey, what’s your name?”

I put my arm around Cricket to steady her.

“So it’s not just me,” I say to Cricket, both of us staring at the little girl. “You see it too.”

Cricket says what I’ve been thinking. She murmurs it, actually. Without taking her eyes off the girl, Cricket says, “It’s Caroline.”

It’s not like we don’t say her name—we do. I made sure of it from the beginning. The day we buried Caroline I told Eddie and Cricket and my mother that I didn’t want to be one of those families that tiptoed around her name. I thought—I still think—it keeps a person alive to talk about them. And I want Cricket to always remember who her older sister was. So the name isn’t a bombshell of any kind. Still,
nothing
could have prepared us for what happened next.

“How’d y’all know my name?” the little girl asks.

If we were stunned before it was hardly noticeable compared to our shock now.

“Wait, what?” Cricket reacts first, her head cartoonishly whipping from the little girl’s face to mine then back again. “Are you saying your name is
Caroline
? C-A-R-O-L-I-N-E?”

“You can call me Carrie, though, if you want,” the girl, nodding, says to Cricket. “Lots of people call me Carrie.”

“Honey, I’m sorry we’re both being so rude staring at you like this,” I say, trying to get back on course. “It’s just that you remind us of someone … of …”

“You look just like my big sister,” Cricket says. “Like, if y’all were standing next to each other we would barely know the difference. Except for the height. And you’re younger.”

“Oh, really?” The girl looks mildly interested, but of course how could she understand the impact she is having on both of us.

“You’re like her
spitting image
,” Cricket says. “It’s like someone made a clone of her or something, Mom, right? It’s freaky, right?”

“I can’t say it’s not bizarre,” I say, “but poor thing—you look like
you’ve had just about enough of these crazy people staring at you, talking about someone you don’t know. Let’s go over and sit ourselves down for a minute, can we? I need to catch my breath here.”

Without coordinating it, Cricket and I step aside to let little Caroline walk ahead of us, mainly because I think we both want to take her in. She is breakably thin with spindly legs and arms, the kind you’d draw on a stick figure. Our Caroline got real thin like that from the chemo. Then they put her on prednisone and she bloated into a person we barely recognized.

“Caroline,” I say, “we need to fatten you up, honey.”

She’s a flight risk, this one, I can just tell. Still behind her, Cricket and I exchange looks and I try to pantomime to her that we should act cool about this little girl. Casual.

“Mom. Seriously. Can I start or what? It’s been like an
hour
practically,” Cricket says, picking up on my silent directive.

“Oh, it most certainly has not been an hour, Cricket, for goodness’ sake. Oh my—we forgot to introduce ourselves. Carrie, what must you think of us! My name is Mrs. Ford. And that’s Cricket, as you now know. Cricket Chaplin Ford. Come sit down with us, honey. It’s okay.”

Without taking her eyes off Cricket, Caroline—Carrie—lowers herself into a seat at our table.

“Ugh! It’s practically frozen it’s been sitting here so long,” Cricket whines as she takes a huge bite of her chicken sandwich. She sizes Caroline up as she chews. “Hey, Caroline. I mean, Carrie. You want a French fry?”

“Cricket! Good Lord, don’t talk with your mouth full,” I say. I find it as tempting to use the name Caroline as Cricket clearly does. “Carrie, where’s your mama, honey? She’s not here, I know that much.”

The French fries are spilling over onto the plastic tray, which Cricket pushes toward Carrie.

“Seriously, have some,” Cricket says. “I’m not going to eat all of them.”

“No, ma’am, she’s not here,” Carrie says, tearing her eyes off Cricket only to look down in wonder at the French fries. I can see she is practically salivating.

“Can I give her a call maybe? Go on and help yourself to the fries, honey.”

“Are you sure?” Carrie asks, looking from me to Cricket then back down at the fries. Her arm shoots out when I nod to say
it’s okay, go ahead
. Cricket catches my eye, looking just as worried as I am when Carrie’s eating. It becomes clear as day to me that Carrie is coming home with us while I try to figure out what to do.

“Why don’t I call your mother and let her know where you are so she knows you’re okay?” I say.

“Oh, wow. What happened to your arm?” Cricket asks Carrie, using a voice I seldom hear. She’s acting, by golly. My daughter has figured out the perfect way to deal with this emergency—act like everything’s completely normal so Carrie will feel more comfortable opening up. Less scrutinized. Well played, I blink across to Cricket. Good girl.

“Oh my word, Cricket, do you wait until you have food in your mouth to talk? Because that’s sure what it seems like,” I say, clearing my throat to let her know it’s mock reproach. “Carrie, don’t mind my daughter here with her
lumberjack manners
. Please wait to talk until you’ve finished your bite, young lady. Evidently I’ve raised a wolf.”

Then I see the marks on Carrie’s arm Cricket is asking about.

“Oh, my goodness.” Without thinking, I reach out to feel the marks but she flinches and pulls at her sleeve to try to cover them so I take my hand back. “What happened there, honey?”

On the underside of her forearm are a number of scars, all perfect circles but not in any particular design or formation. I
have a sickening thought: they’re the size and shape of cigarette burns.

“Nothing,” she says, still tugging at her sleeve. She stands up, clutching to her chest the plastic grocery sack filled with stolen food. I’ve scared her off. “Well, I better go now. Thank you so much for the French fries. That was real nice of y’all.”

“Oh, honey, wait just a second,” I hurry to say.
Casual. Stay casual
, I tell myself. “I mean, why don’t you keep us company a little while longer and I can take you home. I can drop you wherever you need to go. How about that?”

I can tell she’s reluctant to leave Cricket and the French fries—but I also see she’s on more of a hair trigger than I realized.

“I’m sure Cricket would love to talk with you some more, wouldn’t you, honey?”

The fake cough I threw in at the end may have been over the top but there is no way I am letting this child slip through my fingers. It’s like God has sent Caroline back to us in another form, and I simply won’t blow this chance to spend time with her.

“Yeah, stay,” Cricket says to Carrie. Casual comes easy to her. She throws in a shrug for good measure, and Carrie tentatively lowers herself back into the chair. “So how old are you?”

“Nine,” Carrie says.

“You’re
nine years old
?”

She looks seven. Then again, a seven-year-old wouldn’t be at Wendy’s all by herself, so that couldn’t have been right. Well, a nine-year-old alone at Wendy’s isn’t much better. This is getting worse by the minute.

“Do y’all live nearby, Carrie?” I ask.

“Um, well,” she says, “kind of. I mean, we’re new. Here in Hartsville, I mean. So we’re just, um, staying up the road, at the …”

“Don’t worry, it’s not a quiz,” Cricket says to her. “My mom
likes to ask a lot of questions so it feels like it sometimes,
doesn’t it, Mother
?”

“Well, excuse me,” I say, relishing our little act, Cricket’s and mine, even as my worry escalates. “But I’d like to get to the bottom of this, thank you very much. Carrie, where are your people from—I can’t place the accent.”

“Hendersonville? In the mountains?” Her voice is soft, her accent thick. “It’s a real small place. I never even saw a traffic light before we came here. We never had one in Hendersonville. Or in Toast. That’s where I was born—Toast, North Carolina. My daddy—I mean, um, we had to move to Hendersonville, but then we had to leave and … here we are.”

“Who’s we?” Cricket asks. Thank goodness for Cricket.

“Um, we? Um.” Carrie seems to struggle with an answer. “
We
is me and my momma. It’s just her and me. Just the two of us. No sister or anything.”

“Where’s your mom right now?” Cricket asks.

“Um, I don’t know.” Carrie looks increasingly uncomfortable with the questions but answers them because Cricket’s doing the asking. “She’s job interviewing somewhere she took a bus to get to. I like your shirt.”

Cricket and I both look at Cricket’s shirt, a V-neck T-shirt from Abercrombie. Nothing special about it at all except that it’s on Cricket. From the look of it, Cricket could be wearing a burka and little Carrie would fawn over it.

“Thanks,” Cricket says. “I see you like flip-flops like me—I wear them all summer till they’re so paper-thin it’s pretty much like being barefoot.”

“She’s not kidding,” I say. “They are vile by Labor Day—I think even the trash men wish they could steer clear of them.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” Cricket says. She pops the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth and slurps the dregs of her Coke.

“Oh my,” I say, looking at my watch, “we’ve got to get going. Listen, Carrie? Honey, I noticed you didn’t get a whole lot to eat, so let’s get you something to have on the road—I’m giving you a ride. What’ll it be?”

Maybe she’s developmentally challenged. She waits a little too long before responding. Cricket must sense it too, because she gives it a try:

“Do you like hamburgers or chicken sandwiches?”

“Um, oh, either one is more than fine, thank you,” she says, barely tearing her attention from Cricket. “I might could pay y’all back later, but I don’t have any money right now.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, it’s on me,” I tell her. Poor thing.

By the time I come back with a hamburger sacked up, they have become thick as thieves, Cricket and Carrie. Cricket and Caroline—Lord, give me strength. Just thinking about those two names coupled together gives me a start.

“Now girls, how about we keep this conversation going in the car?”
Casual. Stay casual
. “I’ve got about a million things I need to get done.”

They’re not hearing a word I’m saying, which is just as well.

“Let’s move it, girls.”

“Back home? In the mountains? Up there we stay barefoot from June to September.” Carrie is chattering away to Cricket and squeezing in close to fit through the doorway, reluctant to part ways even for a moment of single-file exiting. “By the time the cold comes our feet are so hard with them callousness or whatever they’re called, they’re tougher than any shoe you could put on. Plus, it’s better being out of flip-flops if you want to balance on something. Like a fence. Or if you want to bounce on the moss floors in the holler. It’s cool in the holler, even on the hottest days.”

“I like the way you talk,” Cricket says. “The words sound better coming from you than from any of us. What else? Say what else it’s like.”

“The doors are unlocked, girls, come on,” I say. “Hop in.”

Carrie pauses and peers into the minivan before stepping up onto the running board and into the backseat, as if she’s looking for signs of stranger danger.

“You’re right to be careful, Carrie honey,” I tell her. “Your mother and daddy taught you right. I promise you, though, it’s okay to come in with us.”

“Ma’am?” she says, climbing into the back. “Oh, no. It’s just that I never saw a car like this before. Those doors open like that? On their own and all? How’d they do that?”

“Ugh, it’s such a mess back there. Cricket, throw that empty box into the way-back, honey, will you? It’s a button I push here on my key chain, Carrie, see? They open and close, depending on which button I push. Now buckle up back there. Cricket, help Carrie with her seat belt, will you? It’s okay, Carrie, she’s just strapping you in. Great. Okay, girls, we’re off!”