Burn Our Bodies Down(28)

The thing is, I don’t. I mean, I know how old she was when she had me, but only because I figured it out myself. As for my father, I never wondered. Could never imagine it being an answer big enough to fill the space Mom left between the two of us. No, those years of Mom’s before I showed up, they’re hers. And she keeps them that way, packed in boxes in the back of a pawnshop.

“Why did she leave, though?” I say as we head into the kitchen. “I mean, I’m sure people talked, but—”

“It doesn’t take much in Phalene. But that, and the accident.” She points through the screen door, toward the stand of trees. “There was a fire out back that fall. In the apricot grove. She got wrapped up in all of it.”

“Wrapped up how?”

Gram doesn’t answer. She just sighs, and for the first time since I met her, I hear a mother in her. “It was a lot to put on her,” she says. “A girl can only take so much.”

I know, I think. Believe me. I know.

Gram sits me down at the table again and heats up a half-empty dish of casserole. The smell makes my stomach growl, but it’s too heavy, too rich, and I nearly feel sick when Gram slides a plate of it in front of me, the cheese bubbling, steam soft against my raw skin.

I should’ve taken the first-aid kit with me from the police station. Although I don’t know what I’d do, really. The flush is draining from my arms and legs, but I still feel tight all over, like if I move too fast my skin will split and I’ll pour out. Gram sets another water bottle down by my elbow, and when she’s not looking, too busy cleaning the already clean countertop, I press it to my forehead to ease the fever I can feel simmering in my veins.

It’s still so early, but I barely have the strength to stay upright at the table. I haven’t slept in more than a day, not since the last full night I spent in Calhoun, and every time I shut my eyes I see her, the girl, sprawled on her side in the corn, waiting for me to save her.

I wish we’d pulled over on the way here and I’d thrown back the sheet covering the body and said, “Look. Tell me who that is.” That way Gram wouldn’t be able to stay so calm. So normal. I’d have the proof I need, the proof I thought I’d find here, but there’s no sign of anyone else in this whole house, and I can’t fit it all together. Sister, twin, and empty space.

I nudge the plate away, take a slow, deep breath. If I have to throw up again I’ll do it where Gram can’t see me.

“All done?” Gram says. I nod. “I’d prefer a clean plate,” she tells me, but she takes it to the counter and starts scraping the leftovers back into the casserole dish. “I’ll make an exception for today.”

I get up, legs unsteady. All I want is to disappear into the ghost halls of this house. Find somewhere my mother never touched and stay there for a hundred years, until everything’s gone, until my whole life is just half a memory. I’d be safe. I’d belong to nobody and I’d be so safe.

But that’s not an option. Somewhere my mother never touched—good luck.

Gram turns from the counter and frowns at the sight of me. “Wait for me on the stairs,” she says, a surprising gentleness to her voice. I must look worse than I realize. “I’ll call your mother.”

Please don’t, I want to ask her, but it’s no use. This has to happen. I don’t have to watch, though. I leave her to reach for the landline and wander back into the entryway, collapse onto the stairs. The red runner is soft against the back of my thighs, worn nearly smooth. Just the feel of it comforts me, steadies the dizzy sway of the room. The knowledge that time has passed here, that Nielsens have come and gone. It isn’t only me.

A long quiet from the kitchen, and then I hear a muffled swear, and the sound of footsteps. Gram, pacing. More minutes, more silence. How many times has she called by now?

Then: “Finally. You’ve been incredibly rude, Josephine.”

Mom won’t take kindly to that. Or she wouldn’t if it were me saying it.

“That’s all well and good,” Gram says after a moment. “But I need to know how much you’ve said about—”

She breaks off. I can’t hear Mom on the other end—Gram’s too far away—but to interrupt Gram, Mom must have come in strong.

How much Mom’s said about what? About the girl? About the sister I seem to have?

“Nothing?” Gram asks. She sounds almost incredulous. “That’s fine. That’s in fact preferable.” A beat of quiet, and then, more softly, Gram says, “That’s well done, Jo.”

Mom must hang up at that, because I hear Gram mutter something to herself, hear the phone land back in the dock before she steps into the entryway, sun streaking through the storm door to set her edges on fire.

“Jo’s being Jo,” she says.

I hold back a laugh. That’s one way to put it.

“But there’s nothing to worry about,” Gram continues. “You’re with family now.”

Family. All this was waiting here for me, really really waiting, and Mom wouldn’t let me have it. Wouldn’t let me have it and her both. It must have been the daughter she wouldn’t claim keeping her away. That girl here, me in Calhoun, and nothing more important than the distance between us. But why?

“Nothing to worry about,” Gram repeats. She comes toward me and holds out her hand. When I take it, it’s startlingly warm. She’s real, I tell myself, and let her pull me to my feet. “Come on. Let’s get you settled in. We’ll work it out tomorrow.”