If You Find Me(14)

She skips down the hall, dragging me along.

I know what she’s saying, like I always do, even without the words. I’m dying to try the handburger, too, and the milk shake, which I remember to be something like drinkable ice cream. I don’t remember the handburger though, or the fries. Handburgers must be something you eat with your hands, not much different than in the woods. And french fries, well, French means France, so it must be something fried from France.

We may be backward in some ways, but Ness and me, we know our countries. We must have taken apart and put together Ness’s wooden puzzle of the world a few hundred times.

[page]I do know what pizza is—it’s the favorite food of a little girl in one of Jenessa’s books, made of bread, white cheese, and tomato sauce, baked and served in triangles. And we had funnel cake once; Mama brought it back to the camper as a surprise, full of laughter and smiles, which meant her meth connection had come through.

The man pulls around the front of the courthouse, waving us over from the driver’s seat. I help Jenessa up to the cab, sitting her between us, the lap belt stretched across us.

“You girls hungry?”

Jenessa bounces up and down, smiling, with all her teeth show ing.

“She wants to know if we can have handburgers and milk shakes and french fries?”

The man—our father, now that it’s official—smiles at us; a full-on smile, one of the first.

“You bet you can. They have the best ones at the Rustic Inn, but it’ll take us about a half hour to get there. Can you two wait that long?”

Jenessa sighs loudly, her dimples swallowed up in a scowl. My father tries not to smile, and I appreciate that; no one likes a spoiled little girl. I think of the bulge of her belly after breakfast and marvel at how, once again, her stomach appears concave. But I don’t think she’s being cute at all.

I elbow Nessa.

“We can wait, sir.”

“Good. It’s worth the wait.”

Outvoted, Jenessa rests her head on my shoulder. I look out the window over her head, watching the scenery flash by. It all looks so unfamiliar, and I feel naked without the cover of our beautiful lofty trees. Even the sun feels hotter in the absence of the Hundred Acre Wood’s canopy of a million shimmying leaves.

Nessa stares out the front windshield, taking it all in. New is amazing to her. She can’t fathom it being anything else. But I can. Although it’s good she’s seeing it as exciting, because it could’ve been the opposite, after all those years tucked away in our Hundred Acre Wood. She could’ve stayed like she was yesterday. She really scared me yesterday.

And I’m still worried. I can’t help it. Silent and sweet may not be the best combination amongst town folk. Out in civilization. Out in the real world.

The truck is silent except for the whistle of air through my father’s cracked window.

I tug at one of Nessa’s curls, and she flicks me off like a fly.

I’m not the main attraction anymore.

Feeling wicked, I do it again.

I know about cameras. Our mother had one, an old Brownie, but we never had any film to put in it. Ness kept bugs in it, like a cage. Fat beetles and even a butterfly once, always set free after five or ten minutes. I’m wishing I had that camera now as I giggle at the sight of Nessa grappling with the handburger near as big as her head, ketchup like Mama’s lipstick smeared around her mouth.

Civilization is almost worth it for the food alone, I reckon. The fries are right good with lots of salt, and the burger runs with “medium-rare juices” down our collective chins.

“Slow down, Ness. Chew your food,” I tell her, my eyes scanning the walls for the bathroom entrance, just in case our little wolf regurgitates.

I’m momentarily distracted by a chubby toddler in a high chair, clacking a spoon against the table and smacking his lips. I remember Ness at that age, easily. Mama propped her up on a stack of yellowing newspapers, a rope around her waist tying her to the back of a chair.

I take the handburger from Ness’s hand, cut it in half, and place the smaller half on her plate. She flaps her hands in protest, then immediately goes back to eating.

“Mrs. Haskell said we need to be careful, sir. Ness needs to be built up slowly.”

My father regards me silently, and for a second, as fast as the flash of a camera bulb, I see pride. Pride in me. Something unfolds in my chest: a winged, fluttering warmth. It’s almost too much to bear.

I turn back to my sister. She’s eating with her eyes closed, chewing slowly. I take a few bites of my own burger, dunk a few more fries in ketchup. I’m already full up.

“You need to build yourself back up too, Carey,” he says with a softness that only makes it worse. The warmth flutters behind my eyes. No. I blink it back.

“Yes, sir.”

I take another bite of my handburger, then another.

“It’s only forty minutes or so to the house from here. Everything’s already set up for you two. I’m sure whatever comes up, we’ll work it out,” he tells me.

I glance at him and hold it this time, both of us measuring, wondering, worrying about this new life.

“Those are some gorgeous girls you have there,” the woman with the toddler calls out to my father, smiling at Nessa and me.

“Thank you. How old is your boy?”

“Fourteen months. Already he’s eating us out of house and home.”