by Cylin Busby
I had gone out, to a senior party, just like a regular fifteen-year-old. I had been in Liam’s huge house, seen how he lived with his father and that “girlfriend.” That was normal for them. This was normal for us. Maybe we were slipping into being just another family again—maybe a regular life wasn’t that far off for us.
CHAPTER 16
THE NEXT DAY, I sat at the breakfast table and tried to pretend that everything was routine, that we were just like any other family of four, and things were going so well in our house, it was easy to do. Mom was at the stove frying up a second batch of bacon and Dad was leafing through the paper. The new coffee machine that Mom bought, just for Sarah, was bubbling away on the counter. It could have been any Sunday morning in any home. Sarah, in her new pink pajamas, knees pulled up to her chest, barely looked up from the comics section. “Nico, you want to hear your horoscope?” she asked.
“Um, okay.”
She scanned the paper in front of her, then looked up at me, a worried expression on her face. “I can’t remember your birthday, your sign.”
At that moment a memory came to me—Sarah, pushing my tiny clay sculptures off my dressing table onto the floor, breaking the cat—the tiny whiskers, so hard to get right, scattered into the rug, impossible to find. It’s not my fault. Your room is a mess. Aren’t Virgos supposed to be neat freaks? God, Nico. Clean up this crap.
“I’m a Virgo,” I said quietly.
“Oh, right,” she said. She read a few lines about how I was going to need to focus on my work for the next few days—actually true, as I hadn’t cracked a textbook since Sarah had come home, and I had school the next day. The prospect of facing everyone—my friends and teachers—made me push away my plate of eggs and toast, half eaten.
“I’m gonna jump in the shower,” Sarah announced, standing and stretching. She brought her plate and coffee cup over to the sink. “Thanks,” she said, giving Mom a quick embrace.
Once Sarah left the kitchen, Mom turned to Dad. “Did you see that?”
Dad put down the paper. “See what?”
“It’s nothing, just that—Sarah brought her plate over without being asked, and gave me a hug.” Mom stood there with the spatula in her hand and she and Dad exchanged a look of pure gratitude.
Dad smiled and shook his head. “She’s grown up a lot.”
The doorbell rang and, for an instant, we all held our breath. Detectives? Then I remembered, probably at the same time Mom and Dad did: Paula. She wouldn’t leave yesterday without a commitment from Sarah to go running in the morning, “We’ll do the high school track, Sarah,” she’d said, “like we used to.” But they hadn’t agreed on a time, Sarah had never said yes.
Mom shot Dad a look. “Nico, will you tell Paula that Sarah’s not up for a run—and we have family plans today,” Mom said.
I let out a sigh and went to the door. Paula was dressed in running clothes, complete with ponytail under her baseball cap. “Where’s Sarah?” She looked past me and into the house. The way she said Sarah’s name gave me shivers. It was almost sarcastic, or like she was angry.
“She’s not up for it,” I explained.
“Okay.” Paula nodded and met my eyes. Then she motioned for me to step outside on the porch and I did, pulling the door shut behind me. “Why don’t you walk with me for a while. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
What do you think you’re doing, Nico, talking to my friend about me behind my back—did you think I wouldn’t find out?
“I can’t, we’re doing something.”
“Oh really.” Paula tilted her head to the side, looking thoughtful. “Family time,” she murmured. “Well, tell Sarah that we’re heading back up to school today.” I noted her use of the word we. “But I’ll try to swing by next time I’m down.”
“Yeah, okay.” I turned to go back into the house, watching through the window as Paula crossed the street. She paused on the other side and looked up at the windows for a moment before she got into her car.
Mom came up behind me, wiping her hands with a dish towel. “The film Sarah wants to see starts in an hour and a half, okay?”
We had planned to take it easy today—spend time as a family before I headed back to school tomorrow and Dad went back to work. Sarah had a whole slew of doctors’ appointments Monday that Mom had to take her to, and I knew she was stressed about them.
“I dunno about the movie,” I said. “I’ve got homework, but you guys go.” I took the stairs two at a time. Something Paula had said was still echoing in my head—no, not what she said, how she said it. Family time. As if we weren’t a real family, as if we were just playing a game. I didn’t want Mom to see my face.
I rounded the corner and ran into Sarah in the dark hallway coming from the bathroom and startled. My instinct was still to cower, to wait for the shove, the slap.
Nico, clumsy Nico, always falling and getting hurt.
“Oh, Nico, sorry!” She put a hand on my arm and I jerked back. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said sincerely. “Who was at the door?”
I paused and held my breath. The word nobody was on my lips. “Paula. She thought you might want to go running.”
“Oh, right,” Sarah said. She had probably forgotten that Paula even asked her yesterday. “Did she leave already?”
I nodded. “I told her you weren’t up for it. . . .” I waited for her to say something.
You have to get cardio every day, that’s what you don’t understand, Nico. You’re going to be blubber your whole life if you don’t start working out.
Sarah rubbed her wet hair with a towel. “You okay with seeing this dumb movie? I know it’s for kids, but looks kinda cute, right?”
“I can’t, I’ve got piles of homework. School tomorrow.” I backed into my room, but she followed me.
“What do you have? Anything I can help with?”
“It’s advanced algebra, and I have midterms next week, so . . .” Sarah had never been good at math.
“Let me have a look.” She moved to my desk and she picked up the algebra II book.
“Really, I’ve got it,” I said quickly, taking the book from her hands.
“I’ll get dressed and grab the chair from my room so we can sit at your desk,” she said, dismissing my protests.
When Mom came up to get us for the movie, we were already halfway done with the assignment, Sarah carefully explaining each step of the complicated equations. It felt strange to sit so closely to her, to have her take the pencil from my hand without grabbing, shoving. Uh, Nico, you are stupid, beyond stupid.
She smelled like my shampoo and soap and lotion.
“You understand this stuff?” Mom leaned over my scratch pad of work, marveling. “Sarah?”
“I guess I just remember it.” She shrugged. “But we’re going to miss the movie I think, right, Nico? A couple more pages to get through and then she’ll totally have this.”
Mom stood behind us, her mouth slightly open in shock. Her daughter, asking to do math homework instead of seeing a movie. Sarah helping Nico with homework.
“Okay, that’s fine, we’ll see it another time,” Mom said as she moved to the door. I saw her eyes water up before she turned to go.
By afternoon, I had not only finished my math, I was ready for the midterm—something about how Sarah explained the equations made it just click into place. She wasn’t as helpful on the social studies. “Maps are just not my thing,” she admitted. But it was still nice to have someone else there while I answered questions about ancient India and China.
“You girls have been working all day,” Dad pointed out. “I think we should at least rent a movie and order a pizza—what do you say?”
“Or we could rent a pizza and order a movie,” Sarah joked, doing an impression of Groucho Marx. I burst out laughing, I’d never seen her do anything like that before, so light and funny—not taking herself seriously.
Mom and Dad exchanged a look that I couldn’t read, somew
here between amusement and bewilderment. “Let’s do whatever it takes to get a pizza and movie happening in this house.” Mom laughed.
I stuffed my books and notebooks into my backpack and hung it up while Sarah went downstairs to pick out pizza toppings. I took her chair back into her room and tucked it under the desk. Something under the desk at the back was blocking the chair. I leaned down and saw a black nylon bag tucked partway behind the drawers. I could hear voices from downstairs, Dad on the phone placing the pizza order. I kneeled down, listening for a moment before I reached under the desk and pulled at the bag. It was a small duffel I recognized as Sarah’s. She had used it for PE clothes and her cheer uniform. What was it doing here, hidden behind her desk? She always kept it in her closet.
I slid the bag over the carpet; it seemed almost empty. I held my breath as I unzipped it. Inside was a hooded sweatshirt, rolled around a pair of black leggings and a shirt from Sarah’s closet—old stuff, nothing from our recent shopping trip. The dirty pink flip-flops Sarah had been wearing when we got her in Florida were under that.
Why was she keeping these things hidden? I went to slide it back under the desk, when I noticed the outline of something in the front pocket. I almost didn’t want to see what was there, but I unzipped it and reached inside. There was a business card with a hair elastic wrapped around it. Carmen Rosa, Department of Children’s Welfare and Services, it read, with an address and phone number in Florida. I tried to remember if we had met a Carmen at the shelter. Behind the card were three twenty-dollar bills, carefully folded, and two slips of paper. As I unfolded the paper I felt my hands start to shake. They were blank checks, Mom and Dad’s checks with our name and address on them.
A getaway bag. That’s what this was. But why would Sarah need to run? She was home now. Safe. With us, her family. Wasn’t she?
“Nico, if you want some say in the movie, you better get down here,” Dad called. I startled, sticking the money and the checks into the elastic behind the card, and shoving it all back into the little pocket. I slid the bag where I had found it and pushed the chair in.
When I got downstairs, everyone was in the den. Dad held a glass filled with Scotch and ice in one hand and scrolled through movie options with the remote in the other. Sarah scooted over on the couch and patted the cushion next to her. I went over and sat down. Where would Mom sit? Usually it was just the three of us, Mom on one side of the big soft couch, Dad on the other and me in the middle. Now I was in Mom’s usual spot, Sarah was in mine. It felt good to lean on the arm of the couch, to tuck a pillow behind me and cozy in. Mom came in with a tray of drinks and popcorn and placed it on the coffee table. Without a moment’s hesitation she pulled the overstuffed armchair closer to the couch on Dad’s side.
“What’s the decision?” Mom asked, looking over the movie titles for something she recognized. “How about that one set in India, it’s supposed to be really beautiful.”
“Mom,” I said curtly. “No one in that movie is under eighty years old. Please.”
Sarah laughed, but agreed to just about anything as we went through the options, saying, “Oh yeah, that sounds good.” It was strange to see, through her eyes, all the movie titles of the past four years—the big releases and the bombs—that she had missed. The huge teen blockbuster that she had never heard of, the dark romantic comedy that had won all the awards. She was open to anything.
When the pizza came, I watched in the darkened den as she took a slice of pepperoni, her eyes glued to the screen. That’s a bunch of leftover pig parts, you know, and so is bacon, Sarah used to say. Gross. They put the snout and the tail and everything in there. Of course Nico eats it, she’ll eat anything. So disgusting.
Sarah grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch and spread it over her own lap and mine, keeping her eyes on the screen as she thoughtfully tucked it down around me. My mind went to the bag under her desk upstairs, to the money and checks. I tried to picture Sarah packing them, folding the checks, sneaking them from the checkbook. But I couldn’t connect those hidden things, those stolen things, to this girl sitting beside me—my sister.
SARAH
I NEVER SAW HIM again after that, after the burns. And she said, “Things are gonna change around here.” And she meant it too. Things did change. First she put a special lotion on my back where he burned me. Those round dots got better in two or three days and I could even sleep on my back again after a week, with no bandages.
When it was a little bit better, she put me into the tub and washed me all over, telling me she was so sorry he had ever touched me but she was washing it off now. “It’s like it never happened, okay? This soap is magic and washes away bad men like him.” I believed her.
My hair hadn’t been washed in a long, long time and I had sores on my head so she had to put on some special shampoo and comb it out. That hurt almost worse than the burns. I felt like big chunks of my head were coming off.
“Let’s do this in front of the TV,” she said, and let me wrap up in her robe. It was white and fluffy and sizes too big for me, like a huge marshmallow. I sat on the floor while she sat on the couch with the special comb and we watched an old movie as she worked on my hair. It hurt, but I liked being out of the room and watching a movie about a funny little man with a bushy mustache, even if it was in black and white.
CHAPTER 17
MONDAY I WENT BACK to school. The first day was no joke, with the expected stares and whispers, a required visit to the counselor in the morning to check in.
“Nico, have a seat.” Dr. Weir welcomed me into her office. I glanced at the inspirational posters she had on the wall. One showed a picture of a juicy hamburger and asked, “Are you hungry to learn?” Another had an image of a ballerina on a stage and the words: “If you can DREAM it, you can DO it!” I stared at those words while Dr. Weir slid into the chair and paged through a file on her desk.
After we talked for a few minutes about Sarah and what had been going on for the past week, Dr. Weir said it seemed like I was handling things remarkably well and that made me feel pretty good. “If you need to talk about anything—anything at all, please know my door is always open and I’m here for you.” She quickly signed the form that would allow me back into class and handed it to me.
I got up to go, grabbing my book bag and slinging it over my shoulder, but I stood in the doorway for a moment.
“Is there something else, Nico?”
I nodded, feeling tears well up in my eyes. I had not cried once since Sarah had been back, but now I felt like a wall was coming down, like I was finally ready to tell someone everything. Dr. Weir motioned for me to sit again and handed me a box of tissues. She waited quietly while tears streamed down my face.
I had spent a lot of hours in Dr. Weir’s office. I used to see her once a week, a regular thing—my parents wanted me to have someone to talk to. After a few months of weekly meetings, you get comfortable with a person. I had cried in this office so many times, mostly about my parents—about Mom and how sad she was. About how it ate me up inside to see her suffer and feel powerless to help her. About how hard I had to work to be perfect, perfect, perfect and not ever give them any reason to worry. How I had to be different from Sarah, so different in every way.
I was totally honest about all of that. But I couldn’t tell Dr. Weir everything. I never told her that, after years of cruelty from my sister, I sort of secretly liked being the only child. That I didn’t really miss Sarah. I had never told anyone that. I almost couldn’t think it, I knew how wrong it was. Like the thoughts I was having now. I just shook my head.
“Nico, it’s okay to crack, it’s okay to cry, you don’t have to be perfect. We’ve talked about this before. No one expects you to be the perfect daughter, the perfect student. You can have feelings.”
I nodded, hearing the familiar words. We had been talking about this, working on it, for ages. But if Dr. Weir or my parents knew just how far from perfect I really was . . .
“Tell me wh
at’s bothering you,” Dr. Weir went on. “Talk to me.”
“It’s just that Sarah is really different now. I mean really different, like a different person, and sometimes I catch myself thinking stuff like . . .” The tears started again. I was too scared to say the words out loud.
“It’s okay, you can tell me,” Dr. Weir encouraged. “You start thinking what?” Her face stayed calm. “Let me ask you something. Did you think you would ever see Sarah again?”
“No.” I heard my voice crack. “I thought she was dead.”
“We all thought that, sadly,” Dr. Weir said. “So, having Sarah back is like having someone come back from the dead. When you are pretty sure you’re never, ever going to see someone again, and they return, that’s a lot for your mind and your heart to handle, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“When you have to deal with someone being dead, gone forever, that’s a grieving process that can’t be undone overnight. And you almost don’t want to believe they’re alive, because you don’t want to be hurt again.”
I thought about all the dead blond girls my parents had seen. All the bodies, all the false leads.
“Getting used to having Sarah around is going to take time, that’s all. You also can’t expect that she’ll be the same girl you used to know. It could take some time for her to readjust to being with her family. It’s understandable that there will be some bumps along the way.”
When I left Dr. Weir’s office, I went straight into the girls’ bathroom and threw cold water on my face. I covered my warm cheeks with the paper towels and never looked into the mirror, too afraid that I would see Sarah’s old face there, looking back at me.
At lunch, friends we hadn’t seen Saturday night crowded around our table and peppered me with questions. I was able to dismiss any speculation by explaining that Sarah had amnesia and by telling them I wasn’t allowed to talk about it, since it was an ongoing case. Without any horror stories to pass around, talk eventually dried up and returned to what I had missed the week before. Until Gabe came up and tapped my shoulder.