Lies We Bury(41)

Twin wraps her hand over and under my hair and yanks. “Ow!” I say.

“Move over, you’re too close.”

I don’t move because I’m mad and Twin pulls my hair again harder. “Ow!”

“Hey, you two, knock it off. I’m trying to think.” Mama Rosemary looks at the paper still.

“Mama?” I ask her and rub my head. My hair still hurts so I pinch Twin’s leg. She makes a face and I think maybe I gave her the bruise on her arm. “Are we still doing escape today?”

Twin hits me again then looks at her, too.

Mama Rosemary takes a second to reply. I think maybe she’s forgotten my question. “Are we still doing escape—”

“We have to. There’s no other way around it.” Mama’s voice is low and she stares at the table in front of her. “We can’t stay here, and we can’t risk him changing the code again.”

“What code?” Twin asks. Mama Rosemary looks at me and doesn’t talk.

Twin was asleep the last time when the Murphy was done squeaking but I was awake. The man went up the stairs like always only this time he needed help because he was too drunk. He’s drunk a lot when he comes to visit. Mama had to help him and I could hear the stairs extra loud then and thought they might break. The man entered the code—beep beep beep beep beep-beep—then he was gone. I came out to say hi and good night to Mama and she was writing on a paper. When she saw me she said Go to bed! and looked all scared and scary. She said not to tell my sisters what I saw or heard. I did not.

“Never mind, sweetheart. We just have to leave.”

“What code, Mama? What code? Tell us what code!”

Sweet Lily moans from the next room. Twin’s mouth sours like that time she ate a rotted apple.

“But Sweet Lily is sick again and she can’t ever move when she gets like that. We have to wait for her. We can’t leave her!” Twin’s voice gets high and I look to Mama’s face to make sure Twin is wrong, that we would never leave Sweet Lily.

Mama inhales a deep breath. She stares at one of Sweet Lily’s drawings on the wall. “It’s been done before. And sometimes, it’s the right call. To leave someone behind while the rest of us try and get help, to make it possible for everyone to get out, not just one or two of us. We could go fast. Have the police back here in twenty minutes.”

Mama’s words leave me feeling cold. Sweaty like I’m the one with a fever. Leave someone behind. Her voice is the same warm but her words make me feel sick. Worse than when I wake up screaming thinking someone is touching me.

“We can’t do that to Sweet Lily,” I whisper. Not sure whether the littlest of us can hear. “Not gonna do it.”

“But I don’t wanna stay either,” Twin says. Her eyes go big and round.

“Baby, look at me. Look at me, both of you,” she says again when I won’t. Slowly I raise my head to her neck. “No one wants to leave Sweet Lily alone, but think of each other. What about your Twin, hmm? We need to leave.”

Twin makes a squishy sound. “But . . . Sweet Lily.”

Mama Rosemary thinks for a second. “It’s not going to be easy, darling,” she says to her. “And you’ll need to be brave.”

The way Mama Rosemary looks at Twin makes me nervous. Like Mama wants something from Twin. Just like everyone else. I start to get angry. Frustrated that Twin is the center of attention again. But then I see Twin’s face. It’s pale. Empty like she’s already reading Mama’s mind. And knows exactly what Mama is going to ask.





Eighteen

It’s not exactly who you know—more like how you make people feel.

How can you know where you’re going unless you examine where you’ve been?

Create a new identity.

Snippets of conversations from yesterday reverberate in my head. A deep need swells within me to be done with this and to put our never-ending saga to bed. To move on. The well-meaning words of advice I’ve been given fail to consider that I’ve already tried normal methods of coping—being a considerate person, doing self-reflection and therapy, and trying to leave the stigma behind haven’t worked. I’m still here, trudging through life with this target on my back, courtesy of Chet.

In order to figure out the murderer’s identity before Chet is released in four days, I need to be more intentional with my sources. Neither of my sisters is going to pluck the exact memory from their childhoods and adulthoods to point the finger at the asshole harassing me. The police have released only the bare-minimum details on the dead dancer and the insurance salesman, not mentioning at all his side hustle of selling his artwork.

No. If I still have a chance in hell of figuring out what’s going on before someone else is hurt, it’s going to be by asking the hard questions face-to-face.

From where I stand outside the chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, the state prison is already crowded with visitors. I get in line behind a woman with a wide-brimmed turquoise hat, bearing an actual plume along the band. Words are hushed except for one family in the front, who whoops and squeals that today has finally arrived; their person is being released. Their glee continues as guards inspect identification, then wave each person through a gate in the fence and past an armed guard brandishing an automatic rifle.