What Happened to My Sister: A Novel (20 page)

I start to thank Miss Chaplin for showing me around but she
holds up her hand and shushes me, cocking her head toward the sound of Mrs. Ford’s voice. She floats—if an incredibly fat person can float—to the doorway and turns to hold her finger in front of her mouth to let me know I need to keep quiet too.

From the other room we can both hear Mrs. Ford’s part of the conversation:

“I know, I know …”

Silence.

“I feel the same way too, Ed …”

Silence. Then she says some stuff in a low voice no one could make out even if they had super-duper hearing. More silence.

“Well, I guess that’d be all right …”

Miss Chaplin cups a hand to my ear and whispers, “Why don’t you run on up to Cricket’s room and keep her company for a bit, ’kay?” and even though she didn’t say to I tiptoe across the living room, through the front hall where we first came in, and then up the staircase. I know how it is when you’re trying to listen in on someone—you got to be careful nothing around you makes a sound.

Cricket’s door is open. She’s at her desk typing on her computer thing. When I say “hey” from the doorway she turns and smiles at me
like finally now ever-thing is great. Now that
you’re
here
. That’s what her smile says to me.

“Sorry you got stuck with Grandma,” she says. “I was going to give it another five minutes then I was going to save you, don’t worry.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “She’s so nice. Your momma too.”

“Yeah, well, they’re okay I guess,” she says, twirling in her chair. “They’re always worrying about me and stuff. You know. Because of my sister. And, um, well, I guess they worry I’m going to turn into a loner who shoots up people because my friends kind of dumped me when Caroline died because they didn’t know what to do and … oh, forget it. I sound like a loser and no one wants
to hang out with a loser so whatever. Hey, weren’t we going to Google something? When we got called downstairs?”

Without waiting for an answer she turns back to the computer.

“Huh,” she says, “I thought we started on something, but it’s not in my history.”

I don’t know what that means but I do know she said we could find out anything about anyone so I remind her. “You said maybe we could check out my momma?”

She lights up and gets her fingers ready over the letter buttons.

“Okay, spell your mom’s name for me,” she says, and I do.

“Hey, why’d you move here, anyway?” Cricket half-turns from her desk so the question can reach me better on the bed, where I’m flipping through the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
.

And that’s how it starts.

I didn’t plan on lying. I don’t even want to do it. But like it sometimes does, my mouth starts moving without checking with my brain first, and before I know it, the lie is told and there is nothing I can do to change it. Taking it back would be the end of being friends with Cricket. She’s probably got hundreds of friends, I don’t believe they all dumped her like she said. She’d throw me back like a caught fish too small to keep.

She isn’t even really paying me close mind, tapping on the computer keys like she is. I could say anything. There are about a hundred and one things I could do that would make much more sense, but instead, I lie. I cain’t say I even give the words much thought before they come tumbling out.

“My daddy finally got my momma to say yes to marrying him again,” I say, “and he’s here so we came on to be with him.”

I think this will be the end of it, I really and truly do. I figure that will answer her question and we’ll talk about something else. I hadn’t counted on her swiveling her head to me with her eyes all huge and bluer than ever, saying, “That’s so romantic! That’s like
a movie! Start from the beginning. Tell me everything, leave nothing out.”

And that’s how come it keeps going, my lying I mean.

Cricket folds her legs under her in the desk chair, Indian-style, and shimmies deeper into her seat the way you do when you want to get comfy for a long spell.

“How long were they apart?” she asks.

She keeps prodding me to keep talking so that’s what I do.

In the beginning I felt bad lying to her like that. My stomach felt like it did when Richard punched me in the gut, all twisted up and knotted with no room for air to get in. I know I shouldn’t tell a lie but I also know that I cain’t tell her the truth because she’d tell her momma and her momma’d never let her be friends with a girl who’s a murderer.

“I was little when they split up but I remember what they were like together,” I start slowly, my mind racing to try to come up with details I know she’s wanting. Lucky for me, I have some real-life stuff to use—that really helps when you’re telling tales. “Daddy used to swing Momma around the living room, dancing to the music on the radio, and Momma’d try to get him to stop but there’s no getting Daddy to stop dancing when he starts. He’s a real good dancer.”

“Yeah?” Cricket says, leaning into my words, smiling and nodding like she can picture exactly what I am saying.

“Momma always gets real pretty for him—so when he twirled her around the room, her dress would fan out like a ballerina tutu. He’d say
pea-pop
—that’s what he calls me. I know it’s stupid but he calls me
pea-pop—
”

“That’s not stupid,” Cricket hurries to say, “it’s cute! Go on. What’d he say?
Pea-pop
 …”

“He’d say, ‘pea-pop, your momma’s the prettiest thing I ever laid eyes on,’ and Momma would holler for him to stop spinning her around and for me to turn down the radio but Daddy’d wink at
me to stay put and I’d watch him move her to the music, one hand on her waist, the other holding one of her hands arching up high enough for her to twirl underneath and out from him then back in close to his chest.

“He’s got this laugh—he’d laugh and holler real loud over the music things like ‘I love this woman!’ and Momma’d get all mad and tell him to hush up but he’d keep going. ‘Libby-Lou I love you’ he’d call out sometimes. Momma’s given name’s Libby, but he likes to make things rhyme so he’d say ‘Libby-Lou.’ Momma’d get spittin’ mad when he used that name and that’s usually when I knew the dancing was over. She’d yank herself away, smooth her dress, and fix her hair if it was out of place and tell him to start acting his age. But she still loved him and all.”

“Why’d they break up?” Cricket asks.

“Why’d they break up?” I say her question out loud.

Why’d they break up? Why’d they break up?

“Um, I don’t know.”

Again, my mind races to come up with something that makes sense but turns out
I don’t know
is enough of an answer for Cricket.

“Don’t worry, my parents are apart now and I have no clue why because as far as anyone can see they still love each other but it’s like they’re the only ones who don’t know it. They’re totally getting back together. I don’t know when but they have to. Anyway, go ahead,” she says.

Go ahead. Go ahead
. Oh Lordy …

“Um, well, I don’t know.” I try that again, thinking it will cover the middle part of the story. I squinch up my shoulders and act real casual. “Then we moved here.”

“Wait!” she says. “How’d they get back together? What happened?”

“Daddy left for a while,” I say, picking at my thumbnail like I do when I’m thinking hard on something, “I guess for work. Yeah, he was away for work a lot of the time. But he’d always bring
Momma flowers and presents whenever he’d come back to town. When they were apart, I mean. Even when they were apart he brought her all kinds of things. And me too. He’s always giving me stuff.”

Cricket says “That’s
so
romantic” again.

I don’t know what happens, but somehow it starts getting easy. The more I talk about Daddy trying to win Momma back, the more I can see it. Like I’m watching a movie. I picture Daddy and Momma kissing hello when he comes in the door from being gone—even though in real life back when he was alive Momma’d always turn her head so Daddy’s kiss would land on her cheek instead of her lips. My stomach stops knotting up the more I come up with scenes of my movie parents. Daddy and Momma getting all dressed up for going out just the two of them. Movie Momma tying a scarf over her hair to keep it from flying around in the convertible sports car Movie Daddy drives. Momma smiling and feeding him a bite of her supper because it was
so good it melts in your mouth
. My movie parents laughing at me playing with the new movie puppy they surprised me with on Christmas.

None of it happened in real life but it could have. If things were different I bet it could have.

Then, when it gets to where I’m good to keep going with the story, Cricket decides she’s heard enough and starts fiddling with a little musical jewelry box.

“It used to play this really sweet lullaby when you opened it,” she says. She holds it open for me to see. “And this ballet dancer would twirl and twirl. So cute. My dad gave it to me when I was little.”

“Hey, is Cricket your real name?” I ask her.

“Nah, it’s a nickname I got when I was a kid,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Daddy says I talk so much I’m like a chirping cricket and they started calling me Cricket and it stuck.”

“So what’s your real name then?” I ask her.

“My real name is Hannah,” she says. “After my great-great-aunt Hannah Chaplin, Charlie’s mother.”

I been fiddling with this tiny flashlight of Cricket’s. It looks like a thin ruler, but when you pinch it in the middle a point of light shoots out the end.

“This is so cool,” I say, pinching the light on and off.

“You can have it,” Cricket says. “I already have something just like it and anyway it was free, so.”

“Oh no, I cain’t take it,” I say.
Is she serious?

“It’s yours,” she says, shrugging and turning back to the computer.

“Thank you
so
much!” I tell her. “The is the best present I ever got
ever
.”

She laughs but it is.

I wish I had something to give Cricket in return but it looks like she’s got ever-thing anyone could need and then some.

But I bet she doesn’t have Gideon’s Bible.

“Here we go,” Cricket says, tapping buttons. “We can start here. Wow, so pretty!”

She slides her chair over to make room for me alongside her at the desk. And there, smiling at me from the computer screen, is a picture of my momma when she was young.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Carrie

I stand outside the Loveless office and watch them drive away until I cain’t catch sight of the taillights no more. After being in air-conditioning it feels good to get warm standing here in the sun. I rub the freezing out of my right shoulder, which was where the air in the car hit for the whole entire drive.

“Hey, Mr. Burdock. Hey, Birdie.” I come in the door and pet Birdie the cat laying on the front desk right on top of the book Mr. Burdock writes in when people come and go.

“Here she comes, Miss A-mer-i-ca,” he sings to me, why I don’t know. He always breaks out into some song when he sees me. Then he musses my hair even more than it’s already mussed.

I wish just once he’d fetch the key from the cubbyhole, hand it over, and let me be on my way right quick but that never happens. Mostly I don’t mind but today I need to be up there to make it look like I been up there all along. The last thing I need is Momma coming in for the key right now, catching me sneaking back in when I was supposed to be here all along.

“Can I have the key, please?” I ask nicely and all but he’s smiling in the way he does when he’s settling in for a long talk. Orla Mae called long talks
gabfests
.

“Why don’t you start by telling me how you came to be best friends with that rich Chaplin lady,” he says. “I’d be real curious to know ’bout that. You know who they are, right? The Chaplins?”

“Um, I know they’re real nice but I ain’t—I’m not—best friends with them and anyhow I only just met them and I really need to get up to the room, so—”

“You think your momma would like knowing her baby girl’s climbing into cars with strangers? Because me? Well, personally that ain’t something
I’d
cotton to. Not at all. And don’t even get me started on
Missus
Burdock. You got to take care not to just get in a car with anyone offering you a ride. The world’s a scary place sometimes. Now, it just so happens the Chaplins are good people, but
you
didn’t know that when you got in the car. You’ve got to be more careful than that, girlie.”

“Please don’t say anything to my momma! I mean, I only just met them and I don’t think I’ll probably ever see them again and if my momma finds out I’ll never see the light of day so please don’t tell her, please, Mr. Burdock.”

Sometimes it’s okay to stretch the truth if it’s helping you keep the peace or if you don’t mean any harm to anyone. That’s what Mr. Wilson told me. I know I’ll see Cricket and them again tomorrow, but for all Mr. Burdock knows they hated me and don’t want to lay sight on me ever again. He doesn’t know that already Cricket feels like a sister to me. I knew I could tell Emma any secret and she’d keep it and already I know I could do that with Cricket too. I knew Emma’d never hurt me
ever
and I know Cricket wouldn’t either. But for all Mr. Burdock knows, Cricket doesn’t want to have anything more to do with me.

“Um, could I please have the key to our room?” I ask again.

“You mind my words, girl. Oh, and you don’t need a key,” he
says, tipping his head up toward the second floor, “your momma got home a bit ago.”

I holler “bye” and “thank you, sir” over my shoulder but the door closes on the words. I take the stairs fast as I can, two at a time up until the final four, when I get out of breath.

Please, dear Lord, if you can hear this coming from my brain, please let Momma be passed out already. Please, Lord
.

I open the door real slow and careful in case the Lord’s heard my prayer and put her into sleep before I got here.