If You Find Me

by Emily Murdoch

  Who, who?

  I don’t know!

  I fall out of bed, landing hard on my side.

  “Smooth,” says Delaney, smirking from the doorway. “My mom said to wake you for breakfast. Since you slept through dinner and all.”

  She wrinkles her nose. “You slept with that fleabag in the bed all night? Gross!”

  Technically, I don’t know what gross is, but her facial expression does a more than adequate job of conveying the meaning. She marches into the room and yanks Shorty by the collar. The dog whimpers, pressing hard against Nessa, his body a deadweight.

  “Let him be,” I order, my voice still rough with sleep. “We’ll bring him down ourselves.”

  “Whatever. You better bounce. If my mom went through the trouble of cooking for you, the least you can do is eat it when it’s hot.”

  Bounce?

  I push up from the floor, ignoring her, and gently shake Jenessa’s shoulder.

  “Rise and shine, baby. It’s a new day.”

  Delaney sniggers, an ugly sound I vow never to make. I shuffle Ness into a sitting position, propped against the headboard like she’d started out the night before.

  Draped over the rocking chair are yesterday’s jeans. My cheeks burn as Delaney leans in the doorway, watching as I pull them on. I’m not changing my T-shirt in front of her, no matter what she thinks.

  “You’re flat as a board. Don’t they have boobs in the woods?”

  “People like you, you mean?”

  “Touché,” she says with a sharp smile, instead of the anger I’d expected. I wrap myself in the crocheted blanket. Shorty opens one eye, like he knows what comes next.

  “Let’s go outside, boy.”

  Shorty unfolds himself from my sister and carefully jumps down. We watch him stretch.

  “He’s arthritic, the old mutt. I thought you said you never had a dog before?”

  “Doesn’t take a genius to know he’d need to go out in the morning.”

  “Want me to stay and help Jenessa get dressed?”

  I search her eyes, digging deep. I see no trickery, no malice.

  “Suit yourself. She’s hard in the morning, though. Make sure she doesn’t go back to sleep. If she does, take the blanket from her. Tell her to put on clean socks, underpants, and an undershirt— they’re in the top drawer of the bureau in her room, and her jeans and shirts are in the closet—and make sure she brushes her teeth. You have to watch her, or she’ll skip it.”

  Delaney looks surprised that something like fresh underwear and clean teeth would matter to us. I roll my eyes and follow Shorty down the hallway.

  It’s true: We may not have had much. Not a fancy house, expensive clothes, or stuff to show off. But I’ve always made sure we’re clean. Clean is free.

  Mama once said teeth were like parents—you only got one set. Being poor was no reason to take them for granted. Me and Ness, we’d bathed in the large metal tub year-round, the sun helping to warm the water in the wintertime, although in the wintertime, we’d been lucky to brave the water once a week. But the rest of the time, we’d bathed twice a week, and that didn’t count all the times we swam in the river. Mama said a person makes do with what they’ve got, and that’s what we’d done.

  Shorty waits for me at the bottom of the stairs, eyeing me as I peck my way down, steeling myself to deal with my father and Melissa and all the noise of the civilized world. But my father is nowhere in sight. My stomach rumbles and growls at the scents drifting from the kitchen.

  Bacon, again.

  A griddle spits. A woman hums to herself. Like a ghost, I tiptoe past, grabbing Shorty by the collar and leading him out the front door. The hound lopes off, scattering a flock of birds into the ether, puffs of dirt kicking out behind his flying paws. I suck in the late-October air, nippy but bearable with the blanket around my shoulders. I wish I had a robe like Delaney’s, though, all thick and warm and shiverproof.

  Delaney doesn’t sleep in T-shirts. Last night, she slept in a longsleeved, button-down top with matching pants, the cream-colored material shiny and etched with curled-up cats. Just by looking at her, I know she wears bras, like Mama, not undershirts, like me.

  I glance down at my chest. I’m washboard skinny, just like Jenessa, which makes me skinny up there, too.

  Shorty returns with a stick in his mouth, panting and smiling, and then trots off with it. When I hear a cow bellowing in the distance, I remember what my father said on the ride yesterday. Cows and goats, an old horse, a mule and donkeys. A farm. Not as a living, but as a place with plenty of room to wander.

  I jump when his deep voice sneaks up behind me. “I see you’re up.”

  I feel shy as I turn to face him. He holds a mug in his hand, a beat-up pair of work gloves peeking from the pocket of his sheepskin coat.

  “Shorty needed out. Jenessa is getting dressed, and then she’ll be down.”

  “I take it you girls rested well?”

  I’m embarrassed to tell him how well. Two pillows apiece; a real mattress, not two old blankets sewn together and stuffed with yellowed newspaper to cushion a cot too small for two growing girls. Real blankets keeping us warm, no need to sleep in our winter coats . . . I think of Delaney snickering, and nod my head instead.

  “Good. We didn’t have the heart to wake you, the two of you out cold like that.”

  Warm. I raise my eyes from his boots. I practically know them by heart at this point.

  “Thank you, sir, for the hospitality.”

  I don’t know what else to say. He nods toward the distance.

  “I see you made a new friend.”

  I think of Delaney, thinking how wrong he is. But when I follow his gaze, I see Shorty playing fetch with himself. Silly dog.

  “I’m mighty grateful to that old hound,” I say, thinking of my sister.

  “Have you had your breakfast?”

  I shake my head no, and think of Nessa. I feel a pang, knowing she hasn’t eaten yet, either. Worse, I’ve left her with Delaney.

  “I’d better see to Jenessa,” I say, my shoulders hunched against the chill air, fighting the urge to glance back over my shoulder as I shuffle toward the house. I feel his eyes on me, trying to know me the way we’re trying to know him; voice, walk, words—both spoken and unspoken.

  I think of yesterday. Mrs. Haskell was right. Ness and me need to stick together. She’ll need my help to decode this new world, with all the things she’s never seen before, like inside tubs, flameless lights that don’t reek of kerosene, meat from the store bundled in shiny, see-through packages. I’m sure she’ll like it better than creek-caught trout and gamy squirrels and pigeons.

  I hate myself for thinking it, but the bed and food are worth the risk of being here. At least it’s worth giving it a shot. I wish I had my shotgun, though. But, when I made one final sweep of the camper, I forgot I’d left it on the tree stump. I didn’t know how to explain my need for it, so I didn’t ask Mrs. Haskell or my father to let me go back for it.

  One thing I keep going over like a well-worn photograph is the first sighting of Melissa on the porch steps. Oozing smiles and griddle-warm welcomes, her voice soft and sincere—so different from Mama’s cigarette-roughened bark and irritated, clipped sentences.

  I can’t imagine someone like Melissa letting my father hurt us. Maybe in the past he was just angry at Mama. Maybe he’d found her smoking the meth or drinking the moonshine. Maybe I had the rash, the one my sister always had until I stepped in and made Nessa like my own baby, changing and cleaning her regularly.

  It’s easy to get angry at Mama. She often forgot about us completely—like not coming home for weeks on end, or forgetting to hug us or wash our clothes. I didn’t mind picking up the slack, because I’d have done anything for Nessa. But there were the times Mama got all fired-up mean, leaving angry welts from the switch all down our behinds and backs.

  My breath comes faster as I think of the men she brought home from town, starting when I was eight ye
ars old. Their dirty, sandpaper hands rubbed me raw in the most secret, velvety of places. I saw them give her money, and the next day, there’d be warm pop or chocolate or, the one time, Jenessa’s new Salvation Army coat and sneakers.

  I was lucky I turned red early. There were no more hands after I turned red. That alone was worth the cramps and the mess of it.

  I think of this man, this father, compared to the version in my mind. I’d hated him for hurting us, for making it so we had to leave, for not giving a damn about us. But maybe it was Mama who hurt us. Maybe she had it all mixed up.

  Mama said possums don’t change their tails.

  It sure rang true, for Mama.

  6

  “There you are, Carey. Come have some breakfast.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Melissa beams at me, and she really means it; it’s obvious in the way her face opens wide as the sky. I relax into it just a little, but her kindness is also a sort of free fall, pushing me off balance. I have to stay strong, for Nessa. I can’t let anything interfere. I hide away the yearning like a squirrel hides its nuts in a rotting hickory stump.

  Melissa guides me with a reassuring hand to an empty chair around a large table in a nook off the kitchen.

  Nessa sits in her chair, wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She’s mesmerized by the food, watching Delaney cut pancakes into mouth-size bites.

  “Ness can cut her own food,” I snap, more harshly than I mean to.

  Delaney throws up her hands, turning to Melissa to confirm it—I’m impossible. She collapses into a chair across from us, glaring at me.

  “No need for all the drama, Delly. Carey knows her sister best.”

  “Fine. I was only trying to help.”

  Melissa watches me, and so does Nessa.

  “Sorry, ma’am, but she don’t—she doesn’t—need babying. It’s bad enough she doesn’t talk. The world is tough on the weak and the helpless.”

  “Why does she talk like that? She better not talk like that in school, Mom, or I’ll be the laughingstock of the sophomore class! She’s better off saying nothing, like Jenessa.”

  Melissa ignores her and turns to me.

  “Those are wise words, Carey, and I understand your concerns. But everybody needs a little help now and again. Jenessa and Delaney are sisters now. You need to let them get used to each other.”

  “Really, Mother? That’s it? You’re going to let her speak to me that way and get away with it? You told me to be nice to her. Maybe you should tell her to be nice to me.”

  “Let it be, Delly.”

  I know I snapped at Delaney. I know I reverted to woods talk, and I need to get better at catching the words before I say them. I need to talk this new-world talk, not stick out like a sore thumb.

  “Sorry, Delaney,” I mumble, my eyes on my plate. “I worry about Jenessa, that’s all. I’m not used to having anyone help.”

  I pick up my fork and spear two pancakes off the pile.

  “At least tell me you can speak like a normal person? You sound, like, eighty or something.”

  “I was quoting Mama. I can talk right fine.”

  “ ‘Right fine’? Mom!”

  I lean over and grab the syrup, pouring some onto Nessa’s chopped pancakes. I shake my head no when Ness stuffs a large uncut section into her mouth, getting syrup on the tip of her nose.

  “Smaller bites, Ness. You know what happens.”

  I see a sadness fill Melissa’s eyes, and I look away. There’s no room for pity. Feeling sorry for yourself does no one no good.

  “Make her work on talking normal, Mom. Because it’s just going to make school harder if she acts all weird and stuff.”

  Melissa gives Delaney a long, hard look.

  “What?” Delaney pouts. “I’m just sayin’.” She puts down her fork. “May I be excused? Kara invited me over to try out their new trampoline.”

  “That sounds like fun, Delly.”

  Delaney sighs, looking from her mother to me. “You can come, too, if you want.”

  Melissa beams at Delaney, but I hear the uninvitation the loudest.

  “Thank you kindly, but I’d better stay here with Jenessa. She needs a bath, for starters.”

  “She sure does,” Delaney says under her breath as she gets up, pecking Melissa on the cheek. We hear the clopping of her feet as she runs upstairs. I relax against the back of my chair. Luckily, Nessa’s too busy chewing to pay attention to grown folk jawing.

  “Ma’am, Ness is in need of some meat on her bones, but she’s not too good at stopping. I’d suggest removing the rest of the pancakes from the table. She’ll sneak food when folk aren’t looking.”

  “Thank you, Carey.” Melissa gets up and grabs the platter, whisking it off into the kitchen. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Ness looks at me, her eyes pleading.

  “One more, and that’s it,” I say, handing over one of my own pancakes. She dances in her seat, acting as if I’ve offered her the world. I stand up to pour the syrup, but Melissa waves me back to my own breakfast. She pours the syrup for Nessa and tucks a paper napkin down the front of my sister’s shirt.

  Afterward, she pretends to read a newspaper, but I can feel her eyes on us. I concentrate on my plate, taking my own advice to eat slowly, not to overdo it, especially with the bacon. It’s so hard, because it all tastes so good. I want to dance in my seat, too. I had no idea food could taste so good, but my stomach feels about the size of Mama’s drawstring deerskin change purse.

  I’m collecting mine and Nessa’s plates and utensils to take to the sink when my father walks in, a cloud of cold trailing behind him. It smells like our woods in the early-winter mornings, with the copper kettle singing over the campfire, me playing my violin with socks on my hands, messing up just to make Ness giggle.

  “My girls,” he says, his voice husky, and Melissa smiles along with Jenessa. I keep my head down, chewing hard.

  I remember Delaney’s words, and borrow them.

  “May I be excused?”

  “You may,” Melissa says, approval in her voice. “I’m thinking you girls will want to get cleaned up. I’ll run a bubble bath for Jenessa and help her wash, if that’s okay with you, Carey?”

  I hesitate as a mental snapshot of Nessa’s back fills my mind. There’s no hiding it forever, I reckon, although I wish I could. I choke out a response.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  I’m glad I can wash myself. I’m feeling grimy, and excited about washing with water that’s actually hot. Funny how fast a body gets used to modern conveniences. The metal washtub seems like so long ago, like bathing beside herds of dinosaurs.

  “Have you ever used a shower before?”

  Looking down at my feet, I turn crimson.

  “Once, in the motel. The hot and cold water blend together.”

  “That’s right. Upstairs, the hot water is the left handle, and the cold is the right. When the temperature’s right, turn the knob in the middle and the water will come out from the showerhead above.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” I glance at Nessa, and it’s impossible not to smile at her syrup nose. “Melissa is going to give you a bath. Mind her, okay?”

  Nessa nods and grabs onto one of Melissa’s hands, holding it in her two sticky ones. My heart lurches, because it’s always been me and her . . . but that’s not normal. Not for most people in the world, and I want Nessa to be normal. I want her to stand on her own two feet, to have other people she can really, truly depend on. She’s not a baby anymore. She deserves a real mama, a mama like Melissa.

  Sorry, Mama.

  Melissa leads her away by the hand, and I rinse off our plates in the sink, fascinated by the blue-colored squirt soap and the sponge, which is soft on one side and bark-rough on the other.

  “This is a dishwasher,” my father says, walking up beside me. He opens a door and pulls out the top and bottom racks, which roll out on little wheels.

  “You don’t have to wash
them by hand. You rinse them in the sink, then stack them on the racks. Cups and glasses on top, plates and pots on the bottom. The machine does the washing for us.”

  “With electricity?”

  “Smart girl.”

  He walks back and forth from the table, handing me plates and cups, which I rinse under a stream of hot water and stack as he instructed. He whistles a song I don’t know, but a corner or two of the melody sounds familiar.

  I fumble a dish and he rescues it midair. I flinch, before I realize he’s only passing it back to me. I concentrate on loading the utensils. If he noticed, he doesn’t say.

  “Slippery suckers, aren’t they?” he says, his words gruff.

  I nod at his boots, and then the last dish is stacked, the last fork rinsed and placed.

  “See?”

  He takes a light blue box from a shelf in the cupboard and pours what look like colored crystals into a small compartment built into the door, then clicks it shut. I watch as he turns a did above the door to Normal Wash. I jump back as the machine comes to life. We both smile.

  “Go on up and take your shower. We have a two o’clock appointment with Mrs. Haskell. Her regular office is about twenty miles from here. She has tests for you girls, to get you ready for school.”

  I nod when my voice fails me. School, like the girls in my books. My stomach churns as I pass Melissa, who’s on her knees next to the tub in the first-floor bathroom, squinching her eyes shut as Nessa splashes bubbles all over the floor.

  I think of Nessa’s back and make a beeline up the stairs and straight into the bathroom connected to my new room, closing the door behind me with my foot. I make it to the toilet just in time as the pancakes and bacon thrust up and out, landing with a plunk and my own splash into the toilet water.

  I don’t want to go to school. The woods are my school.

  I think of the motel, and teaching Ness how to use a toilet after she’d pulled a handful of leaves from her coat pocket and motioned toward the trees out past the parking lot. Tears stung my eyes, seeing her joy in not having to trek out into the darkness of strange, cold places. She flushed the toilet with a grin, watching the contents spin and spin and then, like magic, disappear.