Now he’s gone too, and there’s no one left to blame.
Is that why I stayed away so long … because of him? I wondered. There were always excuses – visiting Madi and the kids was that one thing on my to-do list that always got carried over to the next week, the next month, the next year. I didn’t want to see my father, but it wasn’t only him, it was the ghosts of my past – old friends, old boyfriends, and … the woods. I hated those damn woods.
Shuddering, I thought about my sister’s current situation with her own husband, John. He was cheating on her, just like Dad did to Mom.
Deep down, there was this niggly, nasty part of me that wanted to say, It’s your fault. You didn’t make him happy, Madeline. This is better for everyone; don’t you see that? Give her a taste of her own medicine.
But those sorts of vicious thoughts made me instantly feel ashamed. I wanted my sister to be happy, and despite what happened with Mom and Dad, she didn’t deserve to be treated that way by her husband.
I yanked the duvet off the bed and crawled beneath the sheets. My new silk pajamas were folded away in my bag, and I casually considered getting back up to slide them on, but then my thoughts were still muddled, my feelings toward my sister unclear…
Maybe Dad had painted over Mom’s walls. He lived here up until last year when he died, after all. But with my eyes closed, I could still see that pretty shade of pink. It was something Madi would choose.
Should I ask her about it tomorrow? Or am I just being petty and overly nostalgic about Mom? Before I could give it a second thought, there was a soft tap on the door.
I pulled the covers up to my chin, strangely afraid. ‘Who’s there?’
‘It’s your sister, silly.’
The door was unlocked, and a moment later, Madeline pushed it open a crack and looked in at me. ‘You got everything you need? What time do you want me to wake you up?’
My mind was still angry over the paint and mom, but I said, ‘I’m fine, and I’ll set my alarm myself.’
‘Thanks again for coming, Em. And thanks for staying a while. You have no idea how much this means to me.’
I nodded, still unable to meet her eyes. I wanted to cry about the paint on the walls. I wanted to cry over my mother’s death. Hell, maybe I wanted to cry about dad, too. I wanted to be left alone.
Mom doesn’t live in the layers of paint on the walls, Emily, I reminded myself. But this was exactly why I didn’t want to come home. When I was away, I could push it out of my mind. I could forget. But here, there’s no avoiding the past…
‘Goodnight,’ Madeline said, pulling the door back closed.
‘Madi? Wait. Why didn’t you just tell me over the phone? I don’t understand why it was such a big deal, why this thing with John was some sort of secret?’
My sister peered back in through the crack. Her mouth looked droopy and strained, her eyes getting that far off look in them again…
‘That’s not the only reason I asked you here. There’s more. But we’ll talk about that tomorrow.’
The door clicked shut. I listened to the soft tapping sounds of my sister’s footsteps moving down the hallway. What the hell does that mean? Why is she being so vague and mysterious?
I slipped back out of bed and flipped out the lights. Before getting back in, I tiptoed over to the window and peeked out through the blinds.
The backyard was dark, but I could see billowy shadows dancing in the distance – the trees in the forest never went to sleep.
They were always there, watching me, haunting me, even when I lived far away … those creepy woods were the one thing I hadn’t been able to forget. Sometimes, I still dreamed of falling, falling, falling…
I wonder if it senses me, if it knows I’ve come back home. Again, I scoffed at my own childish notions. Maybe my sister wasn’t the only one acting strangely. Being here was bringing out the worst in me already. Those slender crevices are splitting open—waiting to be filled with memories … memories I’ve lost forever.
What my sister didn’t know was that I had a secret too. Mine wasn’t as cryptic as hers, but it was equally important.
She’d been asking me to come back home for so long. And I’d never planned on actually coming, but there were events that had occurred over the last few weeks that made the timing just right for a trip back home.
I’d lost my job at the paper. I hadn’t told Madi yet, although she’d given me plenty of opportunities to bring it up earlier this evening. But I would. I’ll tell her tomorrow, I decided.
So, even though I could stay and help out with the kids for a while, I couldn’t help much with bills until I found a new job. There wasn’t much work to be had in this town, and even if I did find a job, I didn’t want to stay here long enough to need one anyway.
I crawled back into bed and pinched my eyes shut, desperate to sleep away the worries. I thought it would take hours to drift off, but my mind turned cloudy and wild, and within minutes, I was dreaming of the trees.
CHAPTER THREE
When I woke up, the house was shaking, the tat tat tat of heavy rain pounding the windows and rooftop like a gangster from a black-and-white mobster movie. Startled, I sat up straight in bed. Mom’s old sewing room drifted back into focus.
Coming back to Bare Border hadn’t been a dream after all. Too bad.
As though my movements were their own version of an alarm, someone rapped on the door.
‘I’m up, Madi,’ I grumbled.
‘It’s Ben.’ The door creaked open and one big brown eye peered in at me through the crack.
‘It’s storming. Can I get in bed with you?’
I was surprised but tried not to show it. I’d only met my nephew yesterday. ‘Yes, of course.’
I pushed the covers back and motioned for him to crawl in beside me. He bounded toward me like a Saint Bernard minus the slobber. He jumped up and down on the bed, to the count of eight, then wriggled like a worm beneath the blankets.
I wrapped an arm around him and sniffed his soft brown hair. It was too long, scruffy around his ears and hanging too low in his eyes, but it felt soft like feathers and it smelled like the same shampoo Madeline used.
Stealing a glance at my cell phone on the nightstand, I was surprised to see it was nearly eleven in the morning. Sleeping this late wasn’t all that unusual for me, but I was surprised Madeline wasn’t up making breakfast, or whatever motherly things she did on Saturday mornings.
‘Where’s your sister?’ I asked, stroking my fingers through his hair. He shied away from me now, skirting closer to the edge of the bed.
‘She’s been up for hours, too. She’s watching Teen Titans Go. I turned it on for her and poured her a cup of juice. I did spill some on the floor though…’
‘Where’s your mom?’
‘Where’s your mom?’ he repeated my words.
Madeline told me he liked to do this too – repeat words and phrases, and sometimes echo back what he’d just heard. I wasn’t sure if I should repeat my question or move on.
‘Okay, buddy. Let’s just get up. When I was your age, I liked to watch cartoons on Saturday. What is your favorite cartoon?’
‘I don’t watch cartoons. I play Five Nights at Freddy’s. Maybe they will turn it into a cartoon. Want to play it with me?’
I assured him that I would soon and listened as he described every level of the game while I pulled on cotton shorts and my favorite morning hoodie.
Ben told me more about the game as I padded down the hallway and made my way to the kitchen. Coffee. Why hasn’t Madi made coffee yet?
‘Is your mom sleeping in, too?’ I fiddled with the fifteen buttons on the coffee machine before I realized it wasn’t plugged in. Ben didn’t answer me, just stared up at the swooshing black tail on the cat clock, hypnotized. As I scavenged through the cupboard for coffee cups, my foot landed in a puddle of juice.
‘Okay,’ I said, flustered, switching my focus to finding paper towels.
After I c
leaned up the spill, I made my way toward my sister’s room. On the way, I passed Shelley. She was sitting pretzel-style on the floor in her room. She was indeed watching Teen Titans Go and her lips were stained purple from the juice drink.
The door to my sister’s bedroom was closed.
‘Does Mommy normally sleep this late? I don’t want to wake her up…’
Shelley noticed me, finally, and waddled out into the hall.
‘No, Mom’s an early bird. Early birds eat worms.’
I smiled. I might have been my mother’s favorite, but she and Madeline had a lot in common; they both liked to get up early – too early for my tastes.
‘Well, your mom and I were up pretty late last night. I probably wore her out.’
Softly, I knocked on my sister’s bedroom door, then waited. Ben clung to my legs now, squeezing my thighs like a vice grip, as he rambled on about that game.
Shelley tiptoed up beside me, gave me a knowing look, and tapped the door with her pointer finger. She was right—it wasn’t closed all the way, and when she jabbed it, the door wobbled forward.
‘Madeline, are you still asleep?’ But even from here, I could see that she wasn’t.
The bed was perfectly made, the corners tucked in tightly, military-style the way she liked them. I pushed the door all the way open. My sister wasn’t in her room.
‘Madi?’ I called out again. I’d almost forgotten, there was a master bathroom attached. I jiggled Ben off my legs and walked toward the bathroom.
But one glance inside the open door revealed she wasn’t in there either. The bathroom was pristine, clean white counters with bottles of perfume perfectly aligned.
It almost looked like she never slept in the bed or used the bathroom at all.
‘Maybe she got up early and went to the grocery store.’ I shrugged. A quick glance out the front curtains revealed I was right – the tan Jeep was gone, only the rented Civic remained in the driveway.
‘While we wait for her to get back, why don’t I make you guys a late breakfast?’ The idea of me cooking was ridiculous, but I felt like I had to do something. If I couldn’t help Madi out financially, I could at least pitch in for a little while, with housekeeping and cooking chores.
I opened the fridge and peered inside. There was plenty of food, and I thought it was unlikely that Madeline had gone out to get groceries after all.
‘How do you guys like your eggs?’ They were standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking up at me like eager puppies.
‘We don’t do eggs,’ Shelley said.
‘Ew,’ Ben concurred.
‘Okay, well, then what do you guys want to eat?’ I asked, exasperated.
‘Mac and cheese?’ Shelley suggested, with a hopeful smile.
Mac and cheese actually sounded good to me, too, and it’s one of the few things I knew how to make. In fact, pasta from a box was about all I ate myself anymore.
It took me a minute to find the macaroni, pot, and spoon. And then another few minutes to figure out how to light Madeline’s gas stove.
While I boiled the water and softened the noodles, Ben told me more about his favorite game. Shelley was intent on helping me. At first, I was worried about letting her stir, afraid she would get burned, but she seemed to know what she was doing, and she was eager to mix in the cheese and milk when it was done.
‘I’m going to be a chef,’ she told me, but it sounded more like ‘seff’ when she said it with her tiny baby voice.
I watched the children eat, my own appetite gone. Moving to the kitchen window, I looked out at the backyard from my childhood. Water shimmered on the trees in the forest, and from here, they seemed to be covered in tiny wet diamonds. But other than that, there were no traces of the storm I’d heard when I first woke up.
I wondered where Madeline had gone, and why she didn’t tell me first. What if the kids had gotten hurt and I hadn’t heard them? Would she leave me alone with the kids all the time now that I was staying here? I didn’t mind helping out, but I was definitely not equipped to be a babysitter. I didn’t have the experience, or the patience…
After lunch, Ben showed me his game and insisted I play it, too. Shelley watched and cheered us on, lining up Barbies as spectators. Finally, Ben was ready for a break, so he and Shelley played with their toys and chalkboard in the living room, while I checked the windows often, waiting for Madeline to get back.
When Shelley stood up from playing, I noticed a dark, circular stain on her pajama pants. She saw me looking, and said, ‘I peed my pants.’ Her lip trembled, and my heart lurched.
While Ben shouted for Shelley to come back and play, I scooped my hands under her armpits and carried her to the bathroom, careful to keep her urine-laden clothes from touching mine. My biceps burned as I lowered her onto the bathroom floor. Struggling, I peeled the wet bottoms off as I tried to coax Ben. ‘She’ll be right back!’ I huffed.
By the time I’d located clean shorts for Shelley and got her changed, it was nearly five o’clock.
I was starting to get annoyed. It wasn’t that I minded spending time with my niece and nephew, but I was still wondering why Madeline hadn’t at least bothered telling me she had somewhere to go. Shelley seemed fine without her mother here, but Ben was getting more and more restless, causing my own panic level to rise.
‘Where is my mommy?’ he asked, for nearly the tenth time. Like me, he paced in front of the living room window, looking out often.
‘Out shopping, I guess. I don’t know,’ I mumbled, wringing my hands.
I texted her again, and when she still didn’t answer, I called. Her phone rang and rang, finally reaching her voicemail. I left another shaky, awkward message, trying to hide my indignation. It was the fourth or fifth message I’d left so far, and I was starting to feel resentful that she hadn’t, in the very least, called back to tell me where she was or what she was doing…
‘What’s for dinner?’ Shelley squeaked. Tiredly, I rubbed the back of my neck. Do these kids ever stop eating or playing? An image popped up of one of those battery commercials … they keep going and going…
I wanted to take a shower and relax in my room, but the kids kept me moving. My own stomach was rumbling now, too, and I wondered briefly if there was a pizza place that delivered nearby. But I already knew the answer to that. There was nothing much around here. The closest pizzeria was twenty miles south of Bare Border. You want pizza around here, you either drive to get it or you settle for the waxy crap they sell at the store.
My mouth watered as I thought of the Chinese carryout store near my apartment. Takeout sounds so good right now … the peaceful silence of my apartment sounds good, too.
My phone rung and I jumped up from the couch, eager to talk to Madi. I was disappointed when I saw that the caller wasn’t her.
I recognized the number – it was my landlord, Jin. He knew I’d lost my job, and he was probably calling to see if I’d made arrangements to move out yet. I wasn’t sure if that’s what I wanted to do, but without a job, I wouldn’t have much choice. I silenced the call. Shelley and Ben were still staring at me, waiting for me to say something.
‘Not your mom. But I’m sure she’ll be here soon.’ They didn’t look convinced, my own voice shaky, unsure.
I tried one more time to call her, reaching her voicemail again. Damn you, Madi. Where did you go?
‘Alright,’ I said, sighing, ‘So, what do you guys want for dinner? Chicken noodle soup, hotdogs…?’
‘It’s time to go to the woods!’ Ben leapt up from the floor where he’d been playing and ran for the door. Shoes were piled on top of each other next to the front door and Ben struggled into a cute pair of green Chucks.
‘Ben, let’s wait on that. We need to eat, and your mom will be home soon…’
‘Mom always lets us go play in the woods before dinner. Ben will get mad if we don’t go. He likes to do things at the same time every day,’ Shelley warned.
‘She lets you go by yourself?�
�� I asked, bewildered.
‘No. I won’t go by myself,’ Ben answered, his eyes widening in fear. He paced back and forth in the front of the door, like a puppy waiting to be let out.
My stomach turned as I thought about going down to those woods. I took a deep breath in through my mouth and blew it out my nose, like a mad bull preparing for battle. I can’t do it.
Just the thought of going into those woods was enough to trigger a panic attack. I couldn’t imagine what would happen if I actually took them down there…
Ben rocked back and forth, the shrill screech of that squeal ripping through my head in waves. Where are you Madi? I can’t deal with these kids right now!
‘Okay. Shelley, do you know how to put on your shoes? Let me get mine on, too. But only for a few minutes, guys – you all need to eat dinner, and I’m getting hungry, too…’ It was like someone else was saying the words, some puppet master pulling my strings. Could I really face those woods again, after what happened down there?
But therein lies the problem – what did happen down there? I’d played in those woods all my life and then one day something had gone seriously wrong. The details leading up to that day were not only sketchy, they didn’t exist at all. Flashes come and go sometimes, but I haven’t thought about it for a while. I could remember going down there to play after school. I could remember the pain and the red, red, red, and the hospital room after … but other than that, my accident was a gray, smudgy speck on the part of my brain that controlled my memories.
‘I want to go now! It’s after five! We should be down there already.’ Ben was tugging at the door handle now, impervious to the fact that it was locked.
‘I can’t get it open. Open up, door!’ He smacked the door with an open, frustrated palm.
‘Ben, chill out! I’m getting my shoes on.’ What the hell does my sister do when he acts like this? And where is she, anyway?
My sandals were lined up next to the random shoe pile, my sister’s blue Nikes sitting next to mine. She was wearing those yesterday when I arrived. Did she wear a different pair of shoes to the store?
My Sister is Missing Page 3