What Happened to My Sister: A Novel (30 page)

“Hey, Momma,” I say, keeping my voice quiet and casual. “You’re home from work early.”

She’s unsteady on her feet, scrubbing her face, splashing handfuls of water onto her soapy skin, so I guess Jim Beam saved me this time. Every once in a blue moon Momma has just the right amount of it to where I’m invisible to her. That’s when I love Mr. Jim Beam.

I get into my bed quickly and hope for the best. Sure enough, Momma stumbles to her own bed, falls into it and, minutes later, she’s sleeping. Easy as pie. I turn off the lamp that sits on the nightstand between our beds and wait for her to snore. Phee-you, I got lucky tonight.

There’s nothing to do in the quiet but read and write and tonight I’m glad for that. After making sure Momma’s out good I use my flat flashlight to stare at the words in my notebook and let my mind turn over the news. Emma was real! Emma was real. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. But why did Momma say she wasn’t? Why did she say I made Emma up and that I wasn’t to ever talk about her again? Maybe Momma’s so sad from her dying that she just cain’t bear to think about it. But then Mrs. Ford and them are sad from Caroline’s dying and
they
talk about
her
all the time. Cricket says we should talk to her father about all of it but I ain’t so sure. I believe her that
she
doesn’t think bad of me after learning the whole story, but Cricket’s parents are grown-ups and there’s never any telling what grown-ups will do. Her daddy could send me to the loony bin for kids just as easy as Momma could—he’s the police.

I been reading Mr. Gideon’s Bible and I have it on hand now in
case Momma stirs and asks me what I’m looking at. If she wakes up I’ll drop my notebook flat and grab the Bible like that’s what I’m reading. I’ve been real careful not to crack it too wide open in case Mr. Gideon comes back and claims it. I want it to look spanking new for him, the way it does now. I lie on my bed and turn the pages quiet-like and read about the baby Jesus only it’s not at all about the baby Jesus. At least not the part where I am—I’m a slow reader and lots of these words don’t make any sense.

“Stupid … dirty …,” Momma says from her pillow about an hour later.

I sit up to try to get a better look at her talking in her sleep again. No telling what this dream’s about.

“Goddamn … stray … dog,” she’s mumbling.

Her eyes are still closed. I hide the notebook under the comforter and walk around to the far side of her bed because I cain’t see her face good from my bed.

Getting up close to her, I realize Momma don’t smell too good. There was a girl in my old school named Penny and she never washed herself
ever
. After a couple of months Penny started smelling so bad no one would sit next to her. Or if they did they’d make a big show of pinching their noses closed. The teacher had to talk to Penny’s parents who said they’d given up hoping she’d get over her
aversion to water
. One day I got to school real early on account of wanting to be out of the house away from Richard, and I saw a teacher out in back of the school over by the playing field holding Penny while the old black lady who cleaned the school scrubbed Penny’s arms. Penny was crying and struggling to twist her way out of the teacher’s arms. I remember seeing the hose laying there and wondering if grass ever drowns.

“So stupid, you don’t even know,” Momma says, her hollow eyes blinking at me. She’s using her I’m-awake-for-good-now voice. “You, beating that Bible of yours … that precious Bible.”

Suddenly she’s wild-eyed and setting straight up in her bed.
She clears her throat, and without any notice she spits in my face! Trying not to think about how gross it is, I wipe it off my cheek with the back of my hand.

“Look at you, standing there with nothing but stupid to be,” she says, looking like the sight of me turns her stomach.

“But I didn’t do anything, Momma,” I say.
Don’t cry. Do not cry
.

“Let me see that book.” She tips her chin in the direction of my bed.

For a second I panic, thinking she’s talking about my notebook.

She holds her hand out and I see she means Mr. Gideon’s Bible. I don’t want to do it but I cain’t tell Momma no.

Slowly I place it in her hand. I figure once she sees up close how the letters are carved into the cover then painted gold, once she feels the super-thin pages, she’ll know it really is precious and she’ll be just as careful with it as I am.

But Momma doesn’t even spare Jesus her bad mood. She pries it open like butterfly wings, the spine cracking before I can remind her it don’t belong to us.

“Where is it?” She races through the pages in search of what I do not know.

“Where’s what, Momma?”

“Where is it?” Her hands shuffle pages madly back and forth.

“Aha! Here we go,” she says, looking up to make sure I’m paying mind. “Love is patient, love is kind … blah blah … Here we go, here it is.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things
.”

Slamming the book closed, she looks at me like she’s won a bet. Maybe I had a forgetting spell again because it seems like she’s waiting on me to say something.

“That’s
your book
talking about love,” she says.

“Yes, ma’am?” I say, hoping she’ll say more so I can know what I’m supposed to be doing right now.

“Let me spell it out for you.” She talks slow like to a baby. “I can’t
bear
you, I don’t
believe
you, and I sure as
hell
can’t
endure
you another minute. I. Never. Loved. You! And I never
will
love you and yet you
still
keep at me like a goddamn stray dog, following me everywhere, watching me. Even when I’m sleeping. Everything I do. You watch me like you know something. You know what? I can’t take it anymore.”

“Momma, don’t,” I say. Dangit I hate when I cain’t stop the tears. And trying to stop crying only makes me cry harder.

“Go on and cry,” she says. “Right on cue. Where’s the movie director, drama queen? Bring on the cameras.”

“Please don’t, Momma …”

“Momma please don’t,”
she says in a high voice. “Just listen to yourself. You hear yourself?
Momma don’t
. Just go on and get gone from my sight, you hear me? Oh, and don’t forget your precious
Bible
. You can’t hardly understand a word but there you are carrying it around like you and Jesus have found each other. The two of you judging me every livelong day. Take this damn book and
get the hell out of here!
”

The onion-thin pages crackle through the air when she throws the Bible across the room and at first I think they’re ripping but phee-you, they’re fine. Some are crumpled but I can flatten them back down later. I hurry to pick it up and while I’m at it I scramble for my notebook. The last thing I remember thinking is:

Getting kicked hurts just as much when Momma’s barefoot as it does when she’s wearing shoes
.

Momma slaps me good and hard before shoving me out onto the balcony, kicking my notebook and Bible out too, then slamming shut the door to room 217. Clicking the lock just in case I try to come back in, which I won’t. I drag myself to sitting up against the outside wall to our room, swallowing the metal taste of blood in my mouth. I don’t know how long I’m there—I think I fall asleep but I’m not sure. The moon’s bright enough for me to see my way
down the stairs and over to the chain-link fence at the empty pool. I’ve jumped this fence a million times before but never when I’m this banged up so it takes me a few tries before I’m safely at the bottom of the pool, where I can curl up and sleep. I know Momma won’t come looking for me so I let my brain turn off and slip away.

I don’t know how long I sleep but it couldn’t have been hours because the night is still velvet dark when I wake to the sound of someone stepping on an empty Coke can then cursing under their breath. I feel around for my two books and clutch them to my chest.

It’s a man’s voice. And he’s standing right over me.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Honor

I stir artificial sweetener into my tea and pull up a seat at the dining room table in front of stacks of file folders crammed full of Mother’s financial records and God only knows what else. It’s a mountain of papers so high my mind wanders every time I try to tackle it so it never gets tackled.

Over and over I replay the image of my former boss ushering me out after the firing—after my position as office manager was
eliminated
, I should say—his hand on my back as if I suddenly forgot the way to the door. Before I turned to face him to say goodbye I heard him stifle a burp then felt the mouthful of gaseous onion-scented air at the back of my neck.

“Damn economy,” he said, patting my shoulder. “I’m real sorry about this, Honor. Real sorry.”

“What’re you thinking about?” Mother’s voice startles me back to reality.

“I’m thinking we’re between a rock and a hard place, if you
really want to know,” I say. “And I honestly don’t know what to do. I know you don’t want to hear it but I could wring Hunter’s neck.”

“Oh, Honor, please,” Mother says, opening the swinging door that leads to the kitchen and with her foot pushing a Charlie Chaplin doorstop into place to keep it open. “I don’t want you bashing your brother over this. Over anything, actually. This is not his fault.”

I hear the icebox opening. She’s rummaging for something to eat. I put my hair into a hasty ponytail and scan the piles—for what I don’t know.

“Of course it’s his fault,” I say. There are several unopened letters from the county office—I’m almost afraid to open them because I know they’ll ratchet up my anger. “Whose else would it be, Mom? Jeez.”

I’m surprised to see Mother reappear empty-handed in the doorway. She normally doesn’t move that fast.

“Honor, listen to me and listen well,” she says, pointing a finger at me. “Because I’m not going to say this again. You leave Hunter out of this, you hear me? You don’t know what you’re talking about and besides, he’s your
brother
. He’s your family. Your blood. When I’m long gone he is all you’ll have left of our family. This is the sort of thing that can drive a permanent wedge between siblings and I simply won’t abide that, do you understand me? That would kill me.”

“Okay, okay,” I say, holding up my hands in surrender. “I got it.”

Something’s not quite right about this but I can’t put my finger on it. While she was talking I realized I’m never going to get anywhere by arguing with Mother, so I’ll just call Eddie and go over it with him. He can figure it out with me.

“Mom, I know you don’t want to hear this, but we’ve got to sell all this memorabilia, you know that, right?”

“No I do not,” she says, “and I will not, so you can take that right off the table.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say. “
Mom
. These things could really be worth something—we’re sitting on a gold mine and you want to plug up the hole? Why? Why hang on to all of it?”

“Honor Chaplin Ford, this is your legacy, for goodness’ sake,” she says, horrified that I’d dare mention parting with it. “This is your daughter’s legacy. I would think you would want to keep it intact for her at least.”

“Oh, Mother,” I sigh. It’s tempting to tell her about my meeting at City Hall with Mr. Sylvester. But I need to tease that whole thing out in my own mind before I tackle it with her, and I might just run it by Ed, see what he thinks. So instead I say, “Cricket doesn’t need dolls and posters and letters to know she’s a Chaplin. Seriously. Let me noodle around a little and see what we could get for—”

“No.”

“Just one or two things. What’s the harm in finding out the value of one or two things? Just pick out what you think you could part with and I’ll take care of it.”

“No!”

“It could buy us some more time in the house,” I singsong to her.

To my great surprise, she’s actually thinking it over.
Come on, Mom. You can do it …

“I’m not selling the Madame Alexander ones,” she says grumpily. “Or the signed stills. Or the Oscar repro.”

“Okay, fine. You don’t have to! Start with a few of the things you don’t care too much about and we’ll go from there, how about that? Oh, I’m so proud of you. This is great. Just bring me a couple of dolls you can live without and I’ll take it from there.”

“Oh well fine,” she says. “But don’t go sneaking things out behind my back, do you hear me?
I
will choose what to sell.”

“Absolutely.”

“I don’t want to get any grief over this,” she says.

“No grief. I promise.”

“Now let’s get our priorities straight here,” Mother says. “You need to go get our little girl.”

“She’s upstairs in her room,” I say.

“Not that one,” she says. “Our
other
little girl.”

I call up to Cricket and we head over to the Loveless.

After waiting in the parking lot at the Loveless for almost twenty minutes, I go in to use the house phone to call up to Carrie’s room, see what’s taking her so long and maybe even speak with her mother. It’s not like Carrie to be late—usually she’s waiting on the curb for us. The pine-tree-shaped air freshener hanging from the office door is no match for the kitty litter, and while Mr. Burdock clucks at me I start to wish Mrs. Burdock would show herself so I could drop a hint that she might want to water that pathetic-looking ficus in the corner.

“The phone was the first thing to go,” Mr. Burdock’s saying. “Hell they ain’t paid rent in two weeks and Mrs. Burdock’s about to have herself a stroke. She tallies up their bill every hour practically, it burns her up so much. You think I like hearing about them Parkers day and night like I do? Day and night I got to hear about how they’re stiffing us. Day and night. It’s all I can do to keep her from letting herself into their room to haul out their shit pardon my French and change the locks. I ain’t the bad guy here! I know things ain’t exactly right but let’s not go flying off the handle here.”