Burn Our Bodies Down(61)

we fight all the time of course we do we’re sisters but it’s more than that more than being half of each other

it’s that sometimes i’m not sure which of us i am

sometimes we are just mini and sometimes we are something else entirely

if we die it will be together if she dies i am going with her



I shut the Bible. Katherine, holding tight to Mom. And look at them now. One of them dead, the other one only half living.

Gram said it was Mom’s job to tell me how Katherine died. And Mom didn’t give me much, but it’s enough. “I’m what happened to her,” she said in the driveway this morning. Mom, scratching out her sister’s face. Mom, full of anger and envy both. I’m scared I might know what she meant.

I’m safer here, I tell myself. Safer without her. And whatever Gram’s willing to give me, that’s all I deserve.





twenty-two





i stay in my room the rest of the afternoon. Skip dinner, and try to sleep, try to force this day into memory, but it nags at me all night. Mom, and the blue dress she wore to the clinic, and Tess, and I lie there, eyes open, until the sun rises again and the exhaustion is finally too much. It hits, takes me deep, wraps me in heavy, feverish dreams. Keeps me under until a knock on my bedroom door startles me awake.

I stagger to my feet, disoriented and dizzy. “Hang on,” I mumble, and I hear Gram’s voice say something back that I can’t make out.

When I open the door, Gram’s standing on the other side with a dress in her hands. Brightly patterned with blue flowers, fluttering sleeves and a skirt too full for my liking.

“What are you doing asleep so late?” she says, bustling past me. She’s got a pair of sandals too, dangling from her wrist by their white straps. “We’re due in town at five o’clock.”

I check the clock. It’s after four. I still feel like I could sleep another day, everything since arriving in Phalene a weight pressing me back into the mattress.

“Come on,” Gram says. “Up.”

“What?” It’s too normal, all of this. I can still feel Gram’s hand on my knee when she told me this is the only place I’ll ever belong. And here she is. With a dress. Like a different dress isn’t the reason I ran from her in the first place.

Gram turns to face me, holding the dress pressed against her chest like she’s seeing how it looks on her. “The police fundraiser. The Millers have had it planned for ages.”

That sounds like nothing she’d ever want to do. I know how she feels about Phalene. How Phalene feels about her. And I certainly don’t want us to see the police any more than we have to. They’re after Gram, and they want my help, and I’m scared that if they ask again I might give it. No, we’re safer if we stay away.

“Why are we going?” I sit on the bed, throw the covers back and swing my legs up. “It’s not like we’re gonna be particularly welcome.” Let’s just stay here, I want to tell her. You and me and nothing else and that’ll be the rest of our lives. I won’t have to see Tess. I won’t have to face the way I treated her.

“That’s why we’re going.” Gram sets the sandals down, lays the dress on the bed and stands over me. “We’ll show how little their gossip matters to us.”

I’m sure there’s something she’s not saying. There’s no way we’re going into town just to be seen. Not with the body and the fire. And me.

“Sure,” I say, because it’s not worth a fight right now. Gram looks pleased and nods to the dress.

“Put that on,” she says. “I got it just for you, in Crawford.”

I frown. “When did you have time to do that?”

“After you left our breakfast with the Millers so abruptly,” she says, her voice just sharp enough to let me know she’s still put out. “I guessed the size. Come into my room when you’ve finished dressing. I’ll do your hair.”

She leaves me then. I get up, stare down at the dress. I can’t tell if it’s an apology for the blue dress in the attic, or if it’s a reminder. A warning. You have lost your mother already; do not lose me.

No. I squeeze my eyes shut and undo the zipper. Not everything has to be picked apart. She bought this for me, even after I all but ran away from her at the Millers’—that’s care. That’s something to hold close.

The dress slips against my raw skin as I put it on, too carefully to hurt. I grab the pair of sandals Gram brought in with it and head back out to the landing. The door to Gram’s room is open, buttery light spilling out along with the faint sound of music.

The floor uneven under my feet, and I hear it creak as I near the door.

“Don’t dawdle,” Gram calls. “Come in.”

Inside, the bed is neatly made, like the last time I saw it, and Gram is sitting at the vanity on the far wall, her long gray hair spread across her shoulders. She’s wearing a dress like mine—I can see it in the large oval mirror—but hers is red. She’s got a curling iron in one hand and is touching up the ends of her hair, making sure they follow the same exaggerated curve. She looks like she’s from another age. Plucked out of time and put here in this room for me to find.

“Margot,” she says, meeting my eyes in the mirror. “Don’t you look like a picture.”