I’m in more trouble than I ever thought I could be. The best thing for me to do right now is try to make it right with Momma because I’m gonna have to face her when they leave. No one can save me then.
“Tell them, Momma,” I say. I just cain’t help it, the tears come whether I want them to or not. “Tell them we’ve been through that before. I know I only imagined her, remember? You said she wasn’t real, Momma. Tell them.”
“Tell them what?” Momma says, dragging on her cigarette. “You think you know what happened, you tell them. You with your eyes boring holes in my head …”
“Momma, I’m sorry,” I cry.
“You were there, that’s right, but you were a child. You weren’t awake in the middle of all those nights, hours of crying crying crying enough to where I nearly pulled out my own hair from the sound of my own sobbing. Your dear daddy. Ha!”
“Momma don’t talk bad about Daddy—”
“You think you can sit in judgment on me? You think I don’t see your eyes guilting me over it? Well here it is. Here’s the moment you been waiting for. Drumroll, please! Your dear daddy shook her and shook her—to make his point he just had to shake her.”
When a new policeman takes up the doorway and says, “Hey, Ford-o, we got the go-ahead,” ever-one stops picking through our things to surround Momma.
“You have the right to remain silent,” one is saying, pinning her arms behind her back with one hand, feeling for the handcuffs hanging from his belt with the other.
Momma has started a flood of words seems like she’s been dying to say for years. She’s slurring bad but I understand every word:
“Mountain girls are supposed to know how to keep a good clean house, keep their men happy, cook a square meal but Lord help me I never did know how to do all that right. And boy didn’t my mama love to remind me. I never knew how to stop that squalling. You—look at you. You’re doing it now. Like you always have. You stand there, staring at me, waiting for me to fail like I always do. Like you knew I’d fail—”
“No, Momma, please,” I say, through hiccuping.
“You’d waltz on in there like you were schooled in child rearing, like you were the mother and I was the kid. Sure enough she’d quiet up the second you neared her—”
“Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law,” the policeman says, clinking shut the second of the cuffs, then checking in a little notebook hid in his back pocket to be sure he got the words right.
“You’d get hold of her and rock her and look at me like I was the village idiot.” Momma’s talking to me like there’s no one else in the room. Like she wasn’t being arrested. “Well I’ve got a news flash for you: this is a relief. I’ve been knowing this day would come sooner or later.”
Since I cain’t stop Mr. Ford or the other policemen I run over to Mrs. Ford and the suit lady.
“Where’re they taking my momma? Why’re y’all taking her?”
The lady in the suit looks down at her clipboard and starts to answer, “Let’s see now. Manslaughter. Child endangerment …”
Mr. Ford holds up a hand to hush her from going on and gives the other policemen a signal to hold up. He wants to hear what Momma has to say just as much as I do.
“It didn’t matter I told him she was his.” Momma keeps talking, as though they all understand who she’s talking about. “We both knew different. You were his precious baby but she was mine. I knew he hated that I favored her but I never thought he’d hurt her. Shaking her so hard that night her head near to snapped off. I got her away from him, took her to your room. He and I fought pretty hard that night, sure we fought. But then we got tired of saying the same things over and over, threatening the same threats. I went to bed and when I woke up—he was gone and so was she. Well, I just lost it. The fury came on me. I got the gun from the shoe box he kept hidden in the garage—the gun he didn’t think I knew about but oh, I knew about it all right. I was waiting on him to come back, training it on the door, and when I saw that smug face of his coming through the door I pulled the trigger and in a split second everything changed. I’ll never know what he did with her body.”
Mr. Ford says, “All right boys,” and they walk Momma out.
I flatten up against the handrail so I can get around the knot of them, in front of them on the stairs. They move her slowly step … by … step. Her legs buckling don’t matter—the policemen are holding her up.
“Stop staring at me!” Momma shouts down to me. “You see? Y’all see what she’s doing? She’s got the judge and jury in those eyes—look at her. Look at her and tell me you don’t see what I been dealing with all these years.”
“Momma, I don’t know what you mean.” I choke on my sobs and that makes me cough. “What about Selma Blake’s husband, Momma? He killed Daddy. You were pinning clothes up out back when you heard someone banging on the front door …”
Momma shakes her head and as she gets closer I see a smile is lighting her face. “Y’all might want to look into extra help for this one—she’s not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed,” Momma says, passing in front of me.
“Watch yourself, ma’am.” The policeman’s hand is on the top of Momma’s head, making sure she doesn’t bump it getting into the squad car which I think is real nice of him. When he steps back I wriggle in close enough to hear my mother.
“Momma? I don’t understand, Momma.”
“You were small enough—with your daddy dead, I figured I could talk you into believing you made her up,” Momma says, staring ahead even though the car ain’t moving, looking at anything but me.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” she says. “You’d have called a telephone a banana if that’s what I told you it was called.”
“You mean …”
“Your daddy, well, he just plain never could get over the fact that she wasn’t his. Not only that—if he hated Dan White before, he nearly boiled over when I came home from Mother’s. When he saw that mark on her cheek, I’m telling you he nearly boiled over. You walked in when I was burning the family Bible with her birth date written in it—boy, that killed your daddy, when he saw I wrote that in there. I told him I’d get rid of it, if it bothered him that much I’d just get rid of it.”
“All right, kid, you best step back now,” the policeman says to me.
I guess it doesn’t hit her that she’s being arrested for real until the car door is shutting because that’s when Momma’s voice gets higher and she’d never admit to being scared but I can plainly see she is.
“Go on, now,” she says through the glass, motioning at me with her chin toward Mr. and Mrs. Ford.
“Momma!” I manage to push out of whoever’s arms are trying to hold me back so I can run alongside the car as it starts to pull away. I put the palm of my hand on the closed window.
Through the glass Momma says, “You got yourself a new life now.”
“Step away from the car, young lady,” the police officer driving says out his window.
I feel hands gently but firmly pulling me away.
“Momma!”
The police officer says something to Momma and the car moves forward.
“Carrie, honey,” Mrs. Ford is saying. “Come on, Carrie,” she’s saying. “Shhhh, it’s okay. Come on. Let’s go home.”
“Momma—Momma wait.” I try hollering over the engine, through the glass, past Mrs. Ford calling my name.
The police car pulls away slow as it moves from the parking lot into the road letting out a whoop of siren. Words flutter to my ears when the quiet’s restored: let’s go on home now. And oh, sweetheart, it’s all going to be okay. And Caroline … followed by … nothing. Because really, what can be said to soften the blow of the moment your momma’s taken away by the police? What can anyone say to soften the blow of finally finding your sister only to learn she’s long been dead? No pillow’s that soft.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Three months later
Carrie
&nbs
p; “Will somebody please pass the mashed potatoes before they get cold?”
“Wait, we forgot the cranberry sauce! Oh, I didn’t see it over there.”
“Caroline, honey, pass me that bowl, will you?”
I look from one to the other, trying to keep up, the talk reminding me of the alphabet songs on Sesame Street with the ball bouncing from letter to letter to help kids follow along.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say to Mrs. Ford.
“What’s the difference between white meat and dark meat?” Cricket asks.
“White meat’s for girls, dark meat’s for boys,” Mr. Ford says.
“The turkey’s just perfect, Honor,” Miss Chaplin says, dabbing the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “Nice and tender.”
“No way,” Cricket says, scooping first stuffing then turkey onto her fork. “Mom? Is that true?”
“Is what true, honey?”
“Is white meat for girls and dark meat for boys?” Cricket asks. “That’s not true, is it? Can you pass the salt?”
“Pass the salt …” Mrs. Ford raises her eyebrows and holds the saltshaker hostage until Cricket rolls her eyes and says: “Please.”
“That’s better,” Mrs. Ford says. “And you know, girls, when you’re asked for either the salt or the pepper you should always pass both, even if the person only wants one.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say.
“That’s just plain ridic,” says Cricket.
“Excuse me?” her daddy says.
“I don’t like that kind of language at the table, Cricket,” Mrs. Ford says.
“Miss Ruth, you need me to carve up some more white meat?” Mr. Ford asks Miss Chaplin.
“Ridic isn’t a bad word, Mom, jeez. It’s short for ridiculous. Everybody says it.”
“No, thank you, Edsil, I’m still working on what I’ve got here,” Miss Chaplin says. She’s starting to lose weight, and I think she’s finally getting used to the way her house looks now, without all the Chaplin stuff crowding it up.
I think the overtalking might be my favorite thing about the Fords and the Chaplins. Their voices blending together, making pretty music.
The doorbell gives us all a start.
“Oh, heavens, they’re early!” Miss Chaplin says. “Honor, help me up out of this chair please?”
“I’ll get it!” Cricket, smiling wide, leaps from the table, but Mr. Ford’s faster—he catches hold of her arm.
“Uh-uh-uh,” he says to Cricket. “We went over this, girleen, remember?”
I have no earthly idea what’s going on but that’s nothing new. There’s always stuff going on here that I don’t know about so I’m used to it. These past months have been a whirligig. Helping pack up dolls, first in thin tissue then rolling them in the bubble wrap me and Cricket like to pinch and pop. Waking up to still more Charlies to send away, shelf by shelf emptying out. Tabletops clearing off. Trips to the post office. Loading up the car again. More trips to the post office.
Then, back-to-school shopping! And starting up at my new school. Cricket and me riding the bus there and back every day. New friends coming by, sometimes even sleeping over (but not on school nights).
Mr. Ford moving in with all of us, eating meals with us on nights he ain’t—I mean, on nights he’s not working. Surprise family outings. Picnics. The zoo.
I never saw the lady in the suit again but I did get to know her colleague, Arleen, who pops by for unannounced visits they make to all foster families.
Like I said, there’s always something happening at this house so when the doorbell rings and Mrs. Ford rushes out from the dining room to answer it, I don’t think much of it.
Until Mr. Ford tells Cricket to sit back down and then says he has something real exciting to tell me.
“Now, Caroline,” he says. Mr. Ford’s still the only one who calls me Caroline. “I thought we’d have a little more time to explain but this’ll have to do for now. Honey, we haven’t talked about it in a while but remember how we discussed the importance of family and roots and knowing where you came from so you can know where you’re going?”
“Yes, sir,” I say.
“We never finished working on it, but remember the family tree we started for you? Your grandmother—Gammy—she was a help with some of it. With her side of the family at least,” he says.
Gammy’s answered my letters, each and every one. She even folded a five-dollar bill in the Halloween card she sent. I think she might feel bad about Momma being locked up, awaiting trial, leaving me all alone. I’ve told her a million times I’m happy here at Miss Chaplin’s, though. It’s the first real family I ever had but I don’t tell her that part because I don’t want to hurt her feelings. But soon, if the paperwork goes through like they’re saying it will, we’ll be a family for real!
I hear the low murmer of greetings and then footsteps approach us.
“Well, I did a little research of my own, wanting to solve a mystery,” Mr. Ford’s saying. He holds up a hand to someone behind me, wanting them to wait until he’s finished, “but not really sure where it was going to lead. Well, lo and behold, I found out something really amazing. It took some doing but I did it. We have a big surprise for you, Caroline …”
But the minute I hear the word surprise I whip around before he can finish.
They say it was like I was in a trance. They tell me they hurried to explain how it all came together. They say I even nodded like I understood them, but I don’t remember any of that.
I only remember staring at the two of them standing there in the doorway to the dining room, trying to figure out if my brain was again playing tricks on me. The red-haired lady wearing a sweater with fall leaves knitted on it, her arm around a little girl huddled so close to her mother’s skirt she was almost hiding. The lady smiled at me and bent to whisper to the little girl, who then moved forward, one step closer to me. The colors of the girl’s dress matched the leaf sweater the lady was wearing. She wore brown tights and polished dress-up shoes I knew probably weren’t comfortable. She stood there with her shoulder-length blond hair combed nice, parted on the side, a barrette neatly holding her bangs out of her face, blinking back at me.
“Hi,” she said, holding out her little hand to be shaken because that’s what she’d been taught to do. She’d been taught good manners.
I didn’t stare at the birthmark on her cheek. At least I tried not to. Because I was taught good manners too.
“I’m Carrie,” I said, taking her hand, holding it instead of shaking it, not wanting to let it go even for a second.
“I’m Emma,” she said.
They say we held hands the whole rest of the day. They tell me her adoptive mother was just lovely and such good company that Thanksgiving. They even say I insisted on sitting in the middle between Emma and Cricket—calling them my two sisters. But I don’t remember that.
I only remember that it was the day Emma came back into my life. And I will never let her go again. Ever.
For Cathleen Carmody
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It would have been impossible for me to write this novel without the support and encouragement of Random House and my extraordinary network of friends and family.
My deep gratitude to Caitlin Alexander, my brilliant, eagle-eyed editor. Thanks, too, to Larry Kirshbaum and Susanna Einstein.
Throughout the three years it took to bring this book to life, whether they realize it or not, the following people lifted me up when I needed it most: Jim Brawders, Bill Brancucci, Fauzia Burke, Laura Caldwell, Cathleen Carmody, Jodie Chase, Mary Jane Clark, Edouard Daunas, Junot Diaz, Catherine DiBenedetto, Liz Getter, Kathryn Gregorio, Markie Hancock, Eamon Hickey, Heidi Holst-Knudsen, Linda Lee, Gregg Lempp, Ellie Lipman, Rick Livingston, Erika Mansourian, Wayne Merchant, Kathryn Mosteller, Joan Drummond Olson, Dotty Sonnemaker, Rosario Varela, and Andy Weiner. For unwittingly keeping me from slipping down a rabbit hole into darkness, I am forever indebted to them all.
My extraordinary p
arents, Barbara and Reg Brack, are easily the most devoted, loving, and supportive people I know. Without them I would crumble and disintegrate into the abyss. To thank them for all they have done for me would be to say the least of it.
Jill Brack is more than my sister-in-law, she is one of my best friends. I am always grateful for her steadfast love. To my brothers and my girls … my love and appreciation.
Thematically, this is a book about identity: about who we are, who we pretend to be, and why the two rarely if ever coalesce. This is a book about that thread of self woven into the fabric of the relationships we forge and the suffering we endure only to become entangled beyond recognition. It’s about family, the one we’re born into and the one we choose. But, really, this is a book about mothers and daughters. Though I don’t tell her this often enough, I hope my mother knows I love her most of all. I write because of her. I write for her.
And finally, my heartfelt thanks to the people of Hendersonville, North Carolina, for letting me take poetic license by turning their city into the tiny hill town that Carrie and her mother left behind when they turned the page.
ALSO BY ELIZABETH FLOCK
But Inside I’m Screaming
Me & Emma
Everything Must Go
Sleepwalking in Daylight
New York Times bestselling author ELIZABETH FLOCK is a former journalist who reported for Time and People magazines and worked as an on-air correspondent for CBS. She is the author of several acclaimed novels, including Me & Emma. Elizabeth lives in New York City.
Elizabeth Flock
What Happened to My Sister
A Reader’s Guide
A CONVERSATION BETWEEN ELIZABETH FLOCK AND CAROLINE LEAVITT
Caroline Leavitt is the New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You, and the award-winning author of eight other novels. Soon after the completion of What Happened to My Sister, Caroline sat down with Elizabeth Flock to talk about books, anxieties, and everything in between.