What I've Done (3 page)

I lean into the aisle to check on our mother once again but she still appears to be soundly sleeping. Her head flops roughly on her shoulder with each bump in the road the bus lulls over. There is almost something eerie about the way she bounces around in the seat, but I remind myself there have been times she was sleeping so soundly after coming down from a high I was sure she was dead. She most likely either ingested something before we got on the bus or took some pills during the night.

“Is this where we’re gonna live?” Rose whispers to me.

The sun is just beginning to rise over the land, revealing the new state and all its beauty to us as we ride along the highway. There are very few resemblances to Minnesota. It is green in California, unlike the dreary dark colors of winter back home, and there seems to be a million more people. The cars all look brilliantly clean without the slushy snow and mud to deal with. Everything in general is more brilliant here. The flowers pop in brighter colors, the trees are a vibrant green and even the roads appear to be cleaner, although they are more complex and the traffic moves at a much higher rate of speed.

“I think so, babe,” I finally answer, my voice soft.

I often wish I was a little girl again and that my father hadn’t died in a car accident. Things were simpler back then. My father’s death broke us; my mother cried for days on end after it happened. At first she would hold me and stroke my hair as we cried together, but after a while she started locking herself in her room. I would sit in front of the television for hours, waiting for her to come out.

The bus pulls into a large and bustling station, causing Rose to squeal with excitement. I wait until most of the people are off so I can rouse our mother without making a scene. When I begin to shake her, Rose hums a song from the radio behind me. Some of the last people walk past all at once so I pretend to be busy gathering our things. It is embarrassing enough that our mother gets high to the point of passing out—I don’t want to draw any more attention than necessary.

“Com’mon, mommy,” Rose sings while twirling her Barbie doll by its arm. “Time to wake up.” She dances around between the aisles, oblivious to the fact that our mother’s condition is not quite the same as usual.

The more I shake our mother, the more her body slouches over to the side. Panic stirs inside me when I let my fingers rest against her neck. This can’t be happening. Not now.

Her skin is cool to the touch and I cannot feel a pulse.

Our mother is dead.

CHAPTER 2

I snap my fingers away from my mother’s lifeless body as if I have been given a shock of electricity. My hand flies to my mouth when I think a scream will escape, but Rose looks up at me and I know I have to keep my cool for her sake. I inhale deeply and will myself to breathe.

My eyes dart all around us to see if anyone is watching, but the bus driver has exited by now and the only ones other than us to remain are an elderly couple who is trying to unfold some kind of walker in the narrow aisle and pays no attention to us.

It was inevitable the day would come when my mother would finally poison herself to death, but I hadn’t expected it to be in the middle of a move to another state. My head is filled with a string of questions.

Where will we go? What will we do for money? What will I do with my mother’s body? What will happen to us now?

We have no other family. My grandparents all died when I was little and my parents didn’t have any siblings. If anyone finds out we are all alone, I will surely lose my little sister this time.

I am not about to let that happen.

“We’ll just let momma sleep a little longer,” I tell Rose in a calm voice, hoping she cannot detect the panic behind it.

If I tell her our mother is dead she will only freak out and make the situation even more complicated. I can’t take that chance. We have no other choice than to leave our mother behind.

“Won’t she be scared when she wakes up and we’re not here?” Rose asks.

I look down at our mother’s lifeless body, holding back tears that fight their way through. “She’ll know where to find us.”

Eventually I will have to tell Rose the truth.

I throw our mother’s bag over my shoulder, but surprisingly it feels much heavier than I had expected. My shoulder buckles from the added weight. Wanting to see if there is anything inside we can leave behind without giving her identity away, I slide the bag down onto the seat behind me.

My stomach lurches when I unzip it to discover a sea of cash.

I can’t even begin to fathom how my mother would have been able to get her hands on so much money. My trembling hand runs through the bag, discovering it to be completely full of stacks upon
stacks
of hundred dollar bills.

All at once it is clear to me why our mother had wanted to leave in such a hurry—the money is quite obviously not hers. Someone will certainly know she took it and want it back, at any cost.

I clutch the seat to my right when I feel my knees go weak underneath me.

“I have to go potty,” Rose says, dancing around behind me.

The stale air seems to grow thinner inside the bus and my stomach turns wildly in fear. With this kind of cash we are like a walking target. If it is discovered we are on our own, it would be taken away and I may even be accused of stealing it.

“In a minute, babe,” I answer mechanically.

Certainly this much cash had not disappeared without someone noticing. The owners of it are most likely not law-abiding citizens, either. Whoever my mother had stolen the money from is going to come looking for it. I need to hide it until I am sure Rose and I will be safe.

Despite the fact that I am totally freaking out inside, I am able to gather our things and the cash in slow and steady movements before leading Rose off of the bus. We weave our way through the mass of people waiting for their luggage to be unloaded.

I stare at the families we pass, most of which seem to be arriving for a vacation. They play around and chat excitedly in anticipation of the fun that is to come. A girl around my age stands with her arms crossed and headphones pushed into her ears as her mother barks out rules for their trip at her younger siblings. The girl rolls her eyes with a smirk as I pass by. I’m sure she means it as a gesture of solidarity for being a teenager with an overly doting mother, but the act is lost on me. I have only ever dreamed of going on a real vacation with a real family—it is not anything my parents could afford, even when my father was alive.

Although it is early morning and the sun is fairly bright in the sky, we are able to sneak away from the station without anyone giving us a second glance. I forge ahead, still holding tightly to my sister’s hand. When we reach a busy highway that we have to cross I scoop Rose into my arms and begin the task of dodging through traffic that literally seems to be flying past.

“I’m scared!” Rose cries into my ear. “Where’s Momma?”

Her little arms are wrapped so tight around my neck I am sure that I will choke to death. I manage to dart past the traffic unscathed before prying Rose’s hands from me and setting her down on the sidewalk.

It is so hard not to break down in front of my sister. We are in a big city I know nothing about and have such a small handful of our own money I had been saving for emergencies such as this one. I have heard things in California are supposed to be more expensive and guess the little amount of money I brought with wouldn’t last us more than a couple nights in a cheap motel at the very most.

But under no condition can I spend the money my mother had stolen. If the owners of the cash ever find us, our only chances of survival may be if I can return every last cent to them.

The fact that my mother is truly dead and that I have left her on a bus where strangers will take her away has not fully registered in my mind.

It will probably take extra time for the police to figure out who she is since I took her license and everything else that she had on her. But once her identity is revealed, they will come looking for us. I am not sure which to be more afraid of—the social workers who would separate us or the owners of the money who would possibly do us physical harm.

I kneel down in front of my little sister for our first heart-to-heart since leaving home. The sidewalk we are on is busy with people rushing about so I pull her close and take her sweet, innocent little face in my hands.

“Rose, look at me,” I whisper. She is still crying but obligingly does as she is told. Her big brown eyes pull me in as they always do. “Momma is gone. She’s not coming back. It’s just you and me now. But I promise you we will get through this and everything will be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Rose takes in little gasps of breath between her sobs. “Why…is Momma…gone? Doesn’t she love us anymore?”

My heart feels as if it will shatter into a million pieces. I don’t know the proper way to tell a six year old that her mother is dead and wish I knew the right things to say. “Momma loved us very much, but she has gone up to heaven now.”

Rose throws her arms around me and buries her face in my hair as she cries.

The image of her wide eyes and shocked little face as I told her the news has been forever burned into my memory. As many times as I have dreaded looking into those exquisite pools of brown knowing I am about to let her down, I promise myself the days of disappointing her are over, no matter what I have to do.

But as we stand on the sidewalk in a strange city with hardly any money and no food or clothing other than those on our backs, I have absolutely no idea how I will be able to keep that promise.

* * *

One useful skill I have acquired in living with a drug addict is how to be resourceful in taking care of myself and my little sister. Checking into a homeless shelter would put us in too much danger of being discovered. Finding somewhere safe for us to sleep is going to be a challenge. I hope in the state of California the freezing temperatures are not as much of an issue as they are in Minnesota, but by the cool, crisp air hiding behind the soft breeze I am guessing it still will be a concern.

It seems critical for us to change our physical appearances as soon as possible. Rose looks far too much like a mirror image of our mother and my plain looks would probably be pretty easy to spot in a lineup. By the time the police figure out our mother’s identity, they will search for her family and discover she has two missing children.

Eventually it will come out that we had gotten on the bus in Minnesota and there will be a few people that can probably describe us, including what we had been wearing. The air is much warmer here than it was in Minnesota so a lighter change of clothes is warranted anyway.

We aren’t far from the downtown area when I discover a consignment shop. I spend five dollars on a plain blue t-shirt paired with tan capris for me and three dollars on a long sleeved, striped sundress for Rose that she spots as soon as we enter the store.

There is a skirted swimsuit in Rose’s favorite shade of pink that I also break down and buy. The purchase is probably somewhat frivolous but she will eventually grow tired of my dragging her all over the city and I will need something to entertain her. The thought of getting to see the ocean for the first time is still exciting, too.

Before now I have never stolen anything, but if I want to change our hair color I will have to get it some other way than by using our small emergency fund that remains. It is so tempting to spend the stolen money but I know it is too dangerous to even think about using it.

Inside a small drug store we come upon, I have Rose wait for me by the toy aisle while I pick out two boxes of hair color–dark for me and light for Rose. I nervously glance around the store with paranoia but manage to effortlessly slip them along with a pair of trimming scissors into my bag. Stealing something is surprisingly easy for me, although the guilt of having done something illegal weighs heavy on my mind. Through all the hard times in living with my mother I had taken pride in the fact that at least I personally had never broken any laws.

I bring a fifty cent bottle of generic water for Rose to the checkout and try to avoid eye contact with the middle aged woman behind the counter. By the way she keeps glancing at me I swear she knows I am up to no good. My hands become sweaty and my mouth is paper dry.

When she hands me the change and receipt her eyes lock onto mine for a minute longer than feels comfortable, causing my hand to shake as it accepts the money. My heart does a couple somersaults when I am sure she will call me out on the crime I have just committed, but finally her lips spread into a wide smile.

“I hope you have a good day.” The way in which she strings out her words comes off as more of a warning.

I smile politely in return before leaving to retrieve my sister. I yank Rose away from the toys and deliberately lead her outside at a modest pace, not wanting to look guilty of anything. However, I am sure I can feel the stare of the woman behind the counter burning holes in the back of my head.

Once we are safely on the sidewalk and around the corner I bend over at my waist, feeling my stomach wanting to hurl everything in it.

“Are you sick?” Rose asks.

She twirls the bag that holds her swimsuit around her wrist and watches it unwind. Earlier I even caught her cradling the bag like a little baby. She hasn’t even had a chance to put it on, but it already has made her day.

After everything we have been through with our mother, my little sister seems to miss nothing, yet somehow manages to still appear like a carefree child. I wish I could remember what it was like to have so little worries and cares to carry on my shoulders. I wonder if I could ever have been like the teenage girl I had seen at the bus station.

“No, I’m okay,” I answer, pulling myself together and standing straight. “Let’s go get some lunch.”

A few blocks away from the store we find a small stand that sells deli-style food. I buy Rose a ham sandwich that she gobbles down while we walk in search of our next destination. It is my next priority to find a safe place where I can hide the money until coming up with a different plan.