If You Find Me(45)

I watch the tears slip down her cheeks, the perfect facade melting into one of misery.

“You girls okay in there?” Melissa’s voice is light, calm.

“We’re fine, ma’am. Just finishing up.”

Delaney slaps the dish towel over my shoulder.

“I’m through here,” she says, her eyes hard. I watch her back, straight and proud, as she walks away.

Once she’s gone, I ball up the paper and shove it to the bottom of the garbage. Then I hold on to the edge of the counter for support and cry until I’m all cried out. I’m guessing a good cry has been a long time in the making, and I cry until I’m empty, but a good empty, like the speckled shells left behind by flapping quail babies.

My mind wanders back to the Hundred Acre Wood and I close my eyes, remembering the frosty breeze painting roses on our cheeks and setting the branches chattering; the stars blinking thoughtfully from their perilous heights; the crackling fire accompanying my violin, and Nessa clapping at the end, propped up against me for warmth.

I even yearn for Mama, just for a second, before I snuff out her memory like the candle stubs we read by when the kerosene lamp ran low.

I close the dishwasher after filling the tiny compartment with dishwasher soap like my father taught me. I wipe down the counters and then the stainless-steel double sinks.

Fee-bee. Feeeeee-bee.

The little bird lands on the windowsill, tilting its head curiously, regarding me with sympathetic eyes.

I think of Ryan, of how I played for him, how he made the violin happy again, instead of melancholy and achy. He watched my soul ride the notes to all the private places: happy, sad, unsure, scared. In his eyes, I was CC, not the backwoods freak.

Would that change if he knew? If my life in the woods got around school? If Delaney showed him Mama’s letter?

My breath comes fast, and I work on slowing it down. In, out. In, out. I reckon I’d die if Ryan found out about me—if he looked at me and saw the old Carey with the dirty nails and smoke-smudged face, the ripped jeans and the cat-pee coat.

“I’m taking Jenessa up for her bath,” Melissa says, peeking in through the doorway.

“Yes, ma’am.”

After she’s gone, I splash water on my face and dry it with a sheet of paper towel. I still can’t believe they come from trees. It makes me right sad. I use the sheet to wipe off the R circle, too, clearing the glass in time to see the phoebe ride the current and alight on the barn roof. A streak of light rims the bottom of the door, where my father finishes up the evening feed.

Does he think the same as Delaney? That his daughters are backwoods freaks? White trash? Whatever that is, it even sounds nasty. Delaney had to be lying, saying that he’d looked for me. Mama said she sent him letters but that he never wrote back. Why did he let Mama take me, knowing himself what she was like?

I slip up the stairs and close the door behind me, crawling into bed fully clothed, like in the woods.

I listen to Melissa singing to Nessa in the tub. Three blind mice. See how they run. I let the sounds wash over me, clutching at the peace that comes from knowing Nessa’s not a burden to Melissa. She loves my little sister. Anyone can see it.

I pretend she’s our mother, our real mother, and the woods are just a bad dream erased with a bubble bath and a nonsensical children’s song.

The last thing I see before I drift off is Melissa’s crescent-moon smile.

She opens my door quietly, reaches in, and flicks off the light.

“Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

I sure hope they bite Mama.





11


Marie reads out loud while I stare out the classroom window.

“You okay?”

Pixie whispers from the side of her mouth, pretending to take notes as Mrs. Hadley regards us sternly.

“I’m fine. Shhhh.”

Pixie is amused by this, by my shushing her. With her hair on fire and her peculiar fashion sense—a canned-corn yellow sundress tied across the shoulders of a tie-dyed long-sleeved t-shirt, with multicolored stripped stockings underneath, laced into combat boots (Delaney owns a few well-worn pairs herself), Pixie couldn’t stick out more if she tried.

“Well, you don’t look okay. You look nervous. Like something’s bugging you,” Pixie says, pressing.

Now I’m the one talking out of the side of my mouth.

“I’m fine. You’re going to get us in trouble.”

Pixie pretends she’s concentrating on the book in front of her, fooling Mrs. Hadley, who turns back to the notes on the blackboard.

“Delaney giving you shit about Ryan?”

I stare at her.

“What? Because I said shit? It’s just a word,” she says matter-of-factly, turning back to The Great Gatsby, yawning and flipping a page. “Can you believe they make us read this shit?”

She giggles, and I can’t help but grin.

Bored myself, I watch Pixie use her pen to connect the freckles on her arm into the shape of the stainless-steel dipper we’d used to scoop our rabbit stew.

She stares proudly at her handiwork. “That’s the Little Dipper, like I see over our house at night.”

I think of the violin constellation, twinkling down over the camper, and nod appreciatively, my eyes back on my book as Mrs. Hadley turns around.

“Courtney, I’d like you to read the next page, please.”