Gram finally took me aside. Held me in front of a mirror, showed me my own face. “You have to eat,” she said quietly. “And get some sleep.” She patted my shoulder as I looked at myself, what I had become. Sarah had been missing for three months and the weight had slipped away from my face, the roundness of childhood was suddenly gone, and in its place I saw cheekbones. Sarah would be so proud, no longer embarrassed by her fat little sister. I also saw dark purple smears under my eyes, a pale chill on my skin, and a coldness to my expression that hadn’t been there before.
In those first weeks, it was Grammie who took me to school every day and, I think, waited outside in her car at the gate until school let out. She was always parked in the same place, a small smile on her face like she was relieved to see me, as if I too might just one day disappear if she didn’t keep an eye on me at all times. And then I started to grow—inches, it seemed—overnight, looking more like my missing sister every day. My school uniform pants were too short and too big in the waist, sleeves pulled up to the elbows. Mom was so lost in her world of searching for Sarah she didn’t notice.
One night, sitting at the dinner table, while I picked at my salad, she looked over at me and blinked, as if she had seen a ghost. “Have you grown, Nico? Your top doesn’t seem to fit.”
I shrugged, not wanting to acknowledge that she was right. I had just turned twelve. I needed a bra. I needed new clothes. But somehow admitting that would be wrong—it would mean that months had gone by, it was turning from fall into winter, things were changing, including me. And Sarah was still gone.
Before bed, Mom came into my room, carrying clothes on hangers. It took a moment for my mind to register what they were: Sarah’s uniforms, her perfectly pressed navy skirts and tailored white tops with Peter Pan collars and cuffed sleeves. “Why don’t you try these until we can take you shopping?”
I said nothing until she was out of the room, then I carefully picked them up. I couldn’t help myself, I held the shirt to my face and breathed it in, but there was no scent of Sarah left—not even fabric softener. Then I walked next door to my sister’s room and hung the clothes back in her closet, just like they had been before—the skirts all together on one side, shirts on the other. If Sarah came back, I wanted her to know I hadn’t touched her things, that I hadn’t worn anything, not even her best stuff. I would never make that mistake again.
SARAH
SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH my arm. Very wrong. It hurt so bad where he twisted and pulled on me, and I couldn’t really use my fingers. My face hurt too, but that wasn’t so bad. After a day or two, my eye opened back up and I could see again. At night, it would swell up and the headache would come back and I would have to lie on the bed in the dark and be still, very still. I would just listen to them. Fighting, always fighting. And other voices too.
After a few days, I didn’t want to complain, but my arm just wasn’t working and when I moved it, I hurt so much I felt like I might throw up. When she saw what he had done, she was so angry. “What happened to her arm?”
“I dunno—maybe she fell down or something, she’s clumsy.”
“Goddamnit, now we have to take her to a doctor—her arm’s broke, you stupid shit!”
Then the arguing. That went on for hours, it seemed like. It was night when she came back. She wrapped up my arm tight in a bandage. Then she tied a scarf around my neck and made a sling that my arm could rest in. The scarf was pink and soft. “Now you’ll eat something, won’t you? Be a good girl.” She gave me a white pill for the hurt and a peanut butter sandwich. The bread was brown and very dry, but I didn’t want to make any more trouble, so I ate it and took the pill with the milk. In my dreams, I was back home again, and everything was like it used to be. Even the feel of the soft blanket on the bed was the same, as if I was drifting back in time, back to that place, where I was little and I felt safe. As if I could.
CHAPTER 5
I HAD NEVER SAID the words I love you to Sarah. And I was pretty sure she had never said them to me. We weren’t a family like that. There were not abundant hugs and cuddling on the couch, like I had seen at friends’ houses. There was an occasional light hug from Mom, maybe just a loose wrap of arms around your body after a tennis match or getting a lead role in the school play. But usually it was a shoulder squeeze or a hand on the back to say good job or you are loved.
As we were ushered down the linoleum-lined hallway of the children’s shelter, lit overhead by bluish fluorescents, this was all I could think about: How would my parents greet this person? Would they embrace her? Would I be expected to hug her, this girl who looked like my sister but who I had probably never hugged in my entire life. Would we all rush to her and pull her into our arms?