I understand almost none of what she’s saying but I can tell she’s feeling guilty.
“Can I ask you something?” she says.
“Yeah,” I say.
“I’m not asking to make you feel bad but … I mean, why didn’t you want to tell me about your dad being dead? It’s not like it was your fault or anything. Why’d you tell me all that about your parents getting remarried and stuff?”
She kicks off her flip-flops and climbs onto the bed, settling Indian-style up by her fluffy pillows, waiting on me to answer. I have to come clean. Now’s the time I have to come clean. I know that. But knowing it don’t make it any easier. I get up from my desk chair and climb up to join her on the bed.
“There’s something I’ve got to tell you,” I say. “Something worse.”
I take in a deep breath and say the words as I’m blowing it out because if I don’t do it now I’m scared I might chicken out altogether.
“I had a sister,” I say. “I had a sister and her name was Emma.”
Cricket cocks her head to the side and wrinkles show up between her eyebrows. “But … how come you never said?” she asks. “I mean, why didn’t you ever mention it before? Did she die? You said you had a sister …”
“Sorry I didn’t tell y’all,” I say, feeling butterflies in my belly, “but it’s more than just I had a sister and I didn’t know how to explain it and then I worried y’all would think I’m crazy and not want me to come over here again plus then with my daddy being dead it all sounds made-up and weird and I thought you wouldn’t want to be friends anymore …”
I trail off because I start crying. Cricket reaches down to the foot of the bed where I’m sitting and touches my leg, something I bet her mom would do if she was here. It still takes getting used to, the way they touch each other all the time in this family, hugging, patting, Cricket drapes herself all over her momma—and her momma doesn’t even mind!
“Carrie, it’s totally okay,” Cricket says, straightening back up, “and just so you know, no way would we think you’re crazy—that’s ridiculous! And no way will we ever not want you to be here. Are you kidding me? Let’s pinkie-swear so I can promise you that, okay?”
I smile through my tears and we hook our pinkies together and you know what? That does make me feel a little better.
“So tell me,” she says.
Before I start back up again, there’s one other thing that’s been bothering me so much I don’t even let myself think on it anymore much less write in my notebook about it.
“If I tell you,” I say real slow because I almost cain’t say the next words, “um, if I tell you and my momma finds out? If she finds out I said anything at all she’ll have me sent away.”
“Sent away?” Cricket’s eyes get big. “What’s that mean, sent away? Like, to live with relatives?”
“No no. Sent away to the loony bin for kids where they can lock you up forever if your parents say to. And Momma would definitely say for them to lock me up if she finds out I told you all I’m about to tell you.”
“Okay, first of all there’s no such thing as a loony bin for kids,” Cricket says. She looks sure about that but how does she know? “And second of all, I swear I won’t tell anyone what you tell me so your mom won’t know.”
I hold out my pinkie again for her to promise and she does so I keep going.
“Emma’s my baby sister,” I say, not knowing where else to start. “She’s opposite of me. She had hair near-white blond, and it was tangled most of the time because she hated combing it. She was real little with tiny bird bones. I could make a finger bracelet around her wrist and still have my fingertip to spare. Her eyes turned the color green when she was mad but normally they were the pale blue color of this robin’s eggshell we found one springtime.
“Back when I used to go to school my clothes fit right and if they didn’t Momma would take us to our neighbor’s house to get hand-me-downs from Maisey Wells, who was a few years older than me and grew like a weed. Her mama called ever-one sugar and said Maisey didn’t mind letting me have her old clothes but I know for a fact she did mind. A lot. She would act all nice in front of grown-ups but then she’d tell ever-one at school we were poor white trash. Anyway, Emma being so much littler than me, she went around in nothing but a nappy. Momma said there was no sense buying her baby clothes when she’d outgrow them in five minutes and also in the hot summer Emma was happier just being naked. And that’s another thing: Momma didn’t mind talking about Emma back then when she was a little baby. She didn’t mind hearing Emma’s name at all. But then I wasn’t to say the name Emma ever again. That’s how it is now. I cain’t ever talk about Emma or even say her name.”
“Wait wait wait hold up. Where is Emma now?” Cricket asks.
I don’t know how to answer that so I look down without saying anything.
“Carrie? Where’s your sister now?”
I take another deep breath—this is harder to explain than I thought.
“Well, see, that’s the thing,” I say. My mouth gets dry, which is probably on account of me being at the tricky part. “Momma said—she still says—there never was an Emma. Momma says I made her up out of thin air after—well, um, after …”
“After your dad died?”
I’d been looking down at my hands but when she says that my head snaps up like Pinocchio’s father lifted an invisible string on the top of it, to see how she said it. Like, did she have a mad look on her face or was she making fun of my stupid lying? But she was just … Cricket. She was saying the words out loud so I wouldn’t have to.
“I’m really sorry I lied to you about that,” I tell her again.
“Oh-Em-Gee, it’s totally okay,” she says, batting away my words like they were flies. And then she pauses, which she never does once she’s started talking. She picks up a stuffed giraffe and hugs it close, nuzzling its spotted neck. “You know, for a long time after my sister died I lied when I met anyone new. Anyone who didn’t know. I’d tell them I had a sister and that she went away to boarding school. If it was summer I’d say she was at sleepaway camp. I made up whole long stories about what she was doing there, her activities and stuff. So don’t worry, I lied too. But wait, so, your mom says you made up that you had a sister because you were so sad your dad died?”
“Yeah. Momma says she felt sorry for me having no daddy so she humored me for a while and let me have an invisible friend—that’s what she called Emma. My invisible friend. But then I kept talking about Emma and soon—this is the part where you’ll say I’m crazy—but soon I got to where I just believed Emma was real. I cain’t explain it good but I saw her, talked to her, played with her. Ever-thing. Most times I felt like Emma was all I had going for me, you know? You wouldn’t know, actually. You got the best family in the world and loads of friends and all.”
Cricket looks down at the giraffe in her lap and traces circles around his little glass eyes.
“That’s how much you know,” she says, still fooling with the giraffe. She looks up at me. “You’re not the only one with secrets. You think I have a lot of friends?”
I nod at her and she snorts.
“Yeah, well, I don’t,” she says. At first I figure she’s trying to make me feel better but then she goes on. “I’ve got, like, none. Zero. Zip. Caroline—my sister, Caroline, I mean—she was, like, my best friend. When we were growing up I copied everything she did so, like, if she wanted to go swimming at the Y, I did too even though deep down I’ve never really liked putting my head underwater. She was a fish, she loved it so much. Any music she listened to, so did I. I copied everything she wore, her handwriting, the way she talked—she had this way of making everything funny, you know when people do that? Like if Mom said she was going on a diet but we knew she was still eating whatever she wanted, Caroline would say how’s that workin’ out for ya? and Mom would laugh, but if it were me, I’d probably have said something awful like but you’re still eating like a horse and then I’d get in
trouble for being mean.
“Anyway, Caroline was the popular one,” she says. “Everyone loved Caroline. She had so many friends her room at the hospital was practically wallpapered with get-well-soon cards and posters everyone in her class signed. I didn’t get to see her that much when she was in the hospital at the end because my parents were trying to protect me or whatever—like I didn’t know she was going to die.”
She pauses, then her eyes water up and she looks away to try to keep from crying.
“I knew. Of course I knew,” Cricket says, sniffling. “All anyone did in our house was whisper and if I walked in a room they’d stop and make these fake smiles to try to cover up what everybody knew, including me. Lots of times my parents would leave me at the Cutlers’ house because their daughter, Lucy, was in my grade at school and you know how grown-ups think just because you’re the same age you’ll be instant best friends? Well, I hated Lucy mainly because Lucy hated me. She couldn’t say so because her parents told her to be nice to me because of Caroline, but when we were alone it was like I was invisible. I’d start trying to talk to her about something—not something about Caroline but just, you know, anything—and she’d literally pick up a book and pretend to be really engrossed in it. I spent the night over at the Cutlers’ lots of times and they were polite to me but we were all relieved when my mom or dad would pick me up. I’d have to hug them to say thanks and goodbye and Lucy would just stand there with her arms down at her sides, not hugging me back to make me feel even stupider. I never told my parents I hated going over there because I knew they needed me to be out of their hair so they could be with Caroline. When she died, you know how many kids from my class came to the funeral? Two. And that was just because one was the son of the school principal and the other had an older sister in Caroline’s grade so their whole family came.”
I don’t know what I can say to help Cricket feel better so I just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.
“I’m your friend.”
She looks up from the giraffe with tears in her eyes. “You are my friend,” she says, not smiling. “You’re like my only friend. And since we’re confessing, I’ve been wanting to tell you I’m sorry about yesterday. I told you I had a doctor’s appointment but really I was going over to my dad’s and I didn’t want you to come but I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“That’s okay,” I say.
“It’s not that I haven’t wanted to bring you to my dad’s,” she says, “I totally have! And obviously, as you could see, he’s like in love with you. It’s just that it’s so sad over at his place, you know? It’s like he doesn’t know how to take care of himself without my mom. Half the time I’m cleaning up for him—doing the dishes he’s got piled in the sink and wiping the counters, throwing out empty pizza boxes, stuff like that, but I have to do it when he’s busy or not paying attention because I know he’ll feel bad if he sees me, like, pity him or whatever. Plus, all he wants to talk about is my mom and does she ever talk about him. I mean, he doesn’t come right out and ask point-blank like that. He thinks he’s being cool about it. Like, we’ll be talking about summer school and out of the blue, as if it’s just occurred to him, he’ll say hey, by the way, how’s Mom doing? What’s she been up to this summer? So anyway, it’s just that I didn’t want you to see him all broken like he is. I don’t want you to know that version of my dad. He’s so great when he’s, you know, regular.”
“You think they’re gonna get back together, your momma and daddy?” I ask her.
“I want them to,” she says, “but I don’t know. I wish they would.”
Seems like this is a good time to tell Cricket the last part of my story and I figure the best way to do it is to show her.
“What’s that?” she asks me as I carefully put the picture on the bed facing her.
“That’s Emma,” I say. “My sister.”
“But, wait, I thought you made her up?”
“That’s what my momma says but then I found this and there’s this other thing I haven’t told you yet. See, I get these pictures? In my head? I been getting these flashes of memory or something—I don’t really know what they are but they show a baby being shook hard and a Bible in flames. I know it makes me out to sound crazy but when I found this picture Momma was hiding from me suddenly I knew.”
“What? What’d you know?”
“The flashes are of Emma,” I say, waiting on Cricket to understand. But she’s staring at me like she doesn’t. “Get it? The flashes of the baby—they’re of Emma. She was real! I didn’t make her up after all! I think she died and that’s why Momma says she was only imaginary and not to talk about her. I think Momma’s covering up for something.”
“Whoaaaaa.” Cricket finally has the face I thought she would have: shock mixed with scary mixed with wow-what-a-story. “You think your mom killed her?”
“What? No! I mean I don’t know.” I cain’t think of what to think and plus I never thought of it so simple like that. Did Momma kill Emma? Or Daddy? No. No way. “Is that what you think? I mean, from what all I told you, is that what you think happened?”
Cricket hops down and gets a pad of paper and a pen from her desk. Then she climbs back onto the bed.
“Here’s what we should do,” she says. “Let’s make a list of all the facts we have now, then we can figure out what we need to search for online. Wait, how come you didn’t tell the police about this?”
“They’d never believe me,” I say, hoping she’ll leave it alone and get back to the list making. Please leave it alone Cricket please please please …
“How do you know? You could tell my dad—he’d totally believe you,” she says, holding her pen ready above the paper. “We should tell my father. I’ll stay with you the whole time so you don’t have to be scared and plus my dad’s not scary at all so. Wait, what’s the matter? Why’re you crying?”
I’m crying because now I’ve got to tell her about Richard and I may be stupid but even I know she’s never going to look at me the same way again.
“What is it?” she asks, scootching closer to gently pat my back. “You can tell me.”
I sniff and wipe my snot and tears with the back of my hand. She is never going to look at me the same way again.
“There’s something else,” I say. But I hold off because maybe there’s a way to answer her without telling about Richard.
“Tell me, Carrie,” Cricket says.
I wish I could wave a magic wand and disappear from here into a time machine that could take me back to the car ride, back to before I went and opened my big fat mouth and got myself trapped in the truth. Or it could fly me into the future, way after today, when Cricket and them are long past the part we’re at now. When they’ve learned to not think of me as a murderer. But my own momma hasn’t learned that yet and she’s my momma. So I’m a super-idiot for thinking Cricket will ever get past it.
“Carrie, seriously,” she’s saying. “You’ve got to tell me what it is.”
All of a sudden it hits me. She’s right. I’ve got to tell her because she’s got to know ever-thing because I’ve got to find out what happened to my sister.
“Okay, well, there was this man”—I start from the beginning—“and his name was Richard.”
The sun’s starting to go down when I finally come to the end of the story. Cricket’s laying on her belly, chin in her hands, feet making lazy circles in the air behind her. I’m still cross-legged and I’m pretty sure both my legs are asleep by now. It’s going to be pins and needles when I stand up.
“Aha!” she says. “So that’s why you say the police won’t believe you.”
I nod and wait for her to give me that I-didn’t-realize-you-were-a-murderer look. But she goes and surprises me again.
“Okay then,” Cricket says, sitting up then hopping off the bed. “Let’s get started.”
“Huh?” I ask, watching her turn on the computer. “Ow!”
My legs are asleep after all. C
ricket pats the pillow on my desk chair for me to come set beside her. I don’t tell her thank you for not looking at me different now that you know the truth about me. I don’t tell her that I’m so lucky she’s my friend. I don’t burst into baby-tears and hug her.
I want to do all that, but I don’t.
“Come on, we’ve got work to do,” she says. “Wait, where did you say your mom came back from when she came home with Emma?”
“I think she was at my gammy’s house,” I say. “I don’t remember much about where I was when Momma was there. Maybe I went and stayed there too, but I don’t recall.”
“Where does your grandma live again?”
“A small place near Asheville is all I know. She used to send us stuff from a store in Asheville she drove to all the time so it’s somewhere near there.”
“Okay, so, let’s try this,” Cricket says, clicking on something. “I think the county site is our best bet. Shoot. I don’t know why they don’t have anything under ‘Public Records.’ Seems like it should be—Wait! How come I didn’t see this link? It was right there all along.”
I’m excited because she’s excited. That’s why Cricket’s so great. She knows this is something I need so it’s like she needs it too, now.
“Here it is!” She says it like she’s won a prize, twirling in her desk chair with her arms waving in the air, singing. “I found it, oh yeah, I found it I found it oh yeah …”
I rub my eyes and read it again to be sure I ain’t seeing visions.
“And that’s the only thing they got with my momma’s name on it, right?” I ask her.
“Yup. Just the birth record. Nothing else. Anywhere.”
And then I copy it down in my notebook, word for word.
CERTIFICATE OF BIRTH
Buncombe County Hospital
Buncombe County
North Carolina
This certifies that Emma Margaret was born in this