Sadie(12)

Keith is not my father, but he sometimes pretended he was, would let people make the mistake and silently dared me to correct them. He would buy me candy at the gas station whether or not I was begging for it, then make a production of putting it in my palms just because he wanted to hear me force out a thank you. He would sit me at the table at night and have me memorize prayers to the utter delight of May Beth and Mattie was right to be afraid of the dark then because at night, he would come into my room and make me say them.

When I was nineteen and Mattie was thirteen, Keith came back.

I turn the switchblade one more time in my sweaty palm, feeling the weight of its neat black handle and the unforgiving blade tucked inside.

It was his, a long time ago.

It’s mine now.

I’m going to carve my name into his soul.





THE GIRLS

EPISODE 2


WEST McCRAY:

In our last episode, I introduced you to the two girls at the center of this podcast, Mattie Southern and Sadie Hunter. Mattie was murdered, her body left just outside her hometown of Cold Creek, Colorado. Sadie is missing, her car found, abandoned, thousands of miles away, with all her personal belongings still inside it. The girls’ surrogate grandmother, May Beth Foster, has enlisted my help in finding Sadie and bringing her home.

For those of you just tuning in, this is a serialized podcast, so if you haven’t listened to our first episode, you should do that now. We have more story than time to tell it—but I suppose that’s true for all of us.

[THE GIRLS THEME]


ANNOUNCER:

The Girls is brought to you by Macmillan Publishers.


WEST McCRAY:

Claire left when Sadie was sixteen, which meant Mattie was ten. Their mother had wholly succumbed to her drug addiction by that point, and her exit was its most logical conclusion. May Beth’s last conversation with Claire was two days before she abandoned her life and children in Cold Creek.


MAY BETH FOSTER:

She wanted money from me and I knew what she wanted it for. Said it was for the girls, for food, and I said well, you tell me what you need and I’ll pick it up at Stackett’s for ya, and she said no, I need the money. And we got into it worse than we ever had. I tried not to push her too much, because whenever I did, she’d keep the girls from me …

Anyway, I told her to get her shit together, that she was still young enough to turn it all around and God would reward her trouble, but she had to do her part too. She hung up the phone so hard, my ears were ringing all night.


WEST McCRAY:

The next day, May Beth went on a two-week vacation to visit her daughter in Florida. The day after that, Claire left.

Mattie had just entered fifth grade and was enjoying herself. Sadie had been dividing her time between high school—which, per May Beth, she didn’t like at all—and working at the McKinnon Gas Station.

Her boss, Marty McKinnon, has lived in Cold Creek all forty-five years of his life and expects he’ll live what years are left of it here too. He’s an imposingly well-built, ruddy-faced guy but he’s known around town as a gentle giant. He’d give you the shirt off your back, if you’re not too afraid to ask for it.


MARTY MCKINNON:

Sadie was a good kid, hard worker. I didn’t need the help so much as she did, you catch my meaning. She’d uh, she tried all over town for a job before she ended up with me. They’d been talking about it at the bar, Joel’s, you know. Makin’ fun of her, like— WEST McCRAY:

What did they say?


MARTY MCKINNON:

They just thought it was funny she might be able to do anything worth paying for. She was a buck and change and she can’t hardly talk, so how can you put her to work? That sorta thing … well, I thought that was damn unfair, so when she finally came my way, I offered her something. She was so grateful, that was the first and only time she ever hugged me. If you knew Sadie, you’d know she wasn’t a … she didn’t open up a lot. It was like pulling teeth just to get her to tell you how she was. I think that’s because she was always terrified people would call CPS and she’d get separated from Mattie. But that was unlikely.


WEST McCRAY:

Why do you say that? It seems pretty obvious the girls needed help.


MARTY MCKINNON:

Yeah, but everyone here does, you get me? We’re not in the habit of borrowing trouble. Still, it worried Sadie and she thought Claire leaving would be the end of ’em—as if May Beth would’ve ever let that happen—so she didn’t say a word about it to anyone and made Mattie swear to do the same. Then, a week later, around four in the morning, I get a call. It’s Mattie, frantic. She thought Sadie was dying. I drove over and Sadie was sick as a dog. It was bad enough I took her to the hospital. They hooked her up to some IVs and she was fine … just one of those freak things.


MAY BETH FOSTER:

I think it was the stress of Claire going, that’s what caused it.


MARTY MCKINNON:

Anyway, we were in the waiting room and Mattie just lost it, just started bawling her eyes out and Mattie’s always been kind of dramatic, like Claire was, but this wasn’t that. She was scared out of her mind. So I got her candy from the vending machine, tried to settle her down some, and she told me Claire had left and if anyone found out, she and Sadie would never see each other again. My God, the kid was so upset, she threw up all over me. It was a mess. First thing I did was call May Beth in Florida and she flew back that day. She really loves those girls. Sadie was so mad at Mattie tellin’ me and at me tellin’ May Beth, and at May Beth just for knowin’, I don’t think she talked to any of us for a week.