Lies We Bury(5)

“Ah, yeah. Do you know where I can find a bakery not packed with people—”

“Not food, darling. Something else,” she interrupts with a smirk. She glances at my elbow again, then flicks dark-blue eyes to mine. Across the street, people stare into their phones or talk in pairs, oblivious to any drug deals occurring opposite.

“Oh. No. Thanks.”

She shrugs. Slender hands dip into the pockets of her cargo pants. “Suit yourself. You change your mind, ask around for Gia.”

Without any comfort food or comfort beyond the residual sting of air against my wounded flesh, I scurry back to my car. As I slide into the driver’s seat, the windshield, empty of additional threats or riddles, feels like a middle finger to my initial hopes upon moving here—a sure sign that just when I think life might be going my way, the past isn’t through with me yet.





Three





THEN


Sisters are the absolute worst. They take your favorite book, wear your good pair of shorts, and sit in your corner of the basement, which has been your corner since forever—since way before Mama Nora left and before Mama Bethel left the earth. Mama Rosemary always says Mama Bethel went to heaven where the rooms have no walls and the ceilings are see-through and the air-conditioning is called “wind” instead. Mama Nora went outside a few years ago. Maybe outside and heaven are the same?

I told Twin this and she said There is no outside, duh. Mama Rosemary smiled then and explained what a metaphor is. She was pretty smart before the man took her.

Sisters are supposed to be my friends and be everything to each other and supposed to tell each other secrets—but we don’t have any secrets. Not in a two-room basement. I remember once when I was six I tried to save an extra piece of toast for myself behind the tub in a washcloth and Sweet Lily found it in minutes and almost choked on it. I got yelled at.

Sisters are supposed to keep our secrets but Sweet Lily was too little to realize. I don’t know what Twin’s excuse is.

Sometimes sisters aren’t so bad. The three of us like to play castle together and war battles. I always want to be the king but Twin won’t let me—she’s always King and I have to be Queen or Knight. I like those pretend roles fine but just once I’d like to be King. When I say this to Mama Rosemary she says, Wouldn’t we all? I don’t know what she means by that.

Once I asked her if we could have a brother and Mama Rosemary got angry. She shouted, Don’t even think such a thing! Then burst into tears. I felt really bad after and remorse filled me from head to toe just like in Anne of Green Gables when Anne accidentally got her friend Diana drunk off wine instead of raspberry cordial.

So no brothers for now. Only sisters—two of them. The basement didn’t feel so cramped when we were all little. But now I can’t step sideways without bumping one of them.

“You’re in my seat.” I stand with my hands on my hips the way Mama Nora used to do and point at Twin. In the first room we have plastic bins for storage and a table with four chairs and a bathtub and a frigerator and the Murphy bed in the wall. The potty sits in the corner. The walls are decorated with drawings that Sweet Lily and me made. Mama Rosemary always says we are packed to the gills in here so there’s not enough room to start taking people’s seats. “Move,” I say again to Twin.

She looks up from the Game Boy game she’s playing. Mario is jumping from pipe to pipe and she’s hunched over it like it’s one of our birthdays and she’s guarding her slice of cake. Her pink tongue pokes from the corner of her mouth. “What?”

“You’re in my seat.”

She’s not really my twin but that’s what all the mamas call us since we were born in the same year. Irish twins they said. “Irish” describes people from Ireland which is another part of the world that exists in books. Mama Rosemary has black hair and she would be from China in one of our books if she weren’t from a place called Boys-y. Me and Twin look alike since Mama Nora has black hair, too. Mama Nora would be from a place called India and that’s where Mowgli is from. Mama Bethel had yellow hair and yellowy skin and no one knows where she’d be from. Me and Twin were the same height before she grew two inches.

Twin juts out a foot and kicks at my shin but she misses. “Don’t gotta.” She reaches out and pinches my knee.

“Ow! Mama Rosemary!”

“Girls, don’t fight, please. I’m working on something, and I need you to be very good while I am. Okay?”

“Yes, Mama Rosemary,” we say together.

“Good girls. Now, what did we talk about earlier? What is today?”

“Escape day,” we answer eyes wide, still not really sure what that means. Mama Rosemary has been distracted for days talking to herself, writing stuff down then ripping it up and flushing the pieces in the toilet. After, she goes to the bed room and gets real quiet. She stares at the wall with tears on her face but she won’t talk if I talk to her. That’s how I know she’s in the Dark Place and I should leave her alone. Sometimes Twin goes and sits with her and doesn’t talk. I think Mama likes that.

“Mama Rose?” Sweet Lily pipes up. She’s three years old and not much bigger than a baby. Mama Rosemary still treats her like one anyway. “What is escape?”

“What does escape mean. It means we’re going to get out of here, sweetheart.” Mama Rosemary picks up our youngest in her thin arms and twirls her around until Sweet Lily’s face breaks into the smile we love. It doesn’t happen so often but when it does it makes all of us stop what we’re doing and be happy together. My sisters and me and Mama Rosemary.