Why?
I ran my hands over the desk, finding nothing, not even dust there. What was I looking for in this room? I turned and caught my reflection in the mirror over the dressing table: the very image of Sarah when she went missing.
I knew what I was looking for, even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I was looking for something that would prove to me that this girl really was Sarah, that this stranger was my sister.
SARAH
SOME NIGHTS I WOULD lie on that bed in the dark and stare at the ceiling, thinking about food. I wasn’t missing anyone or anything, or wanting to go home again—I just wanted something to eat. I thought about fried chicken and mashed potatoes. And fast food, like French fries. My stomach hurt so bad, I felt like it was turning inside out. Sometimes I would drift off to sleep and wake up grinding my teeth, thinking about eating.
One of my teeth, a big one, got loose and wiggled around and I was scared it was because of my dreams and thinking about eating too much. Every day I put my fingers on it and moved it around more and more until one awful day the tooth just totally fell out. Right out into my hand, covered in blood and spit. I sat there and cried for what must have been hours and then I fell asleep with the bloody tooth in my hand and blood on my pillowcase.
When she came into the room with a tray like she did some days, I sat up and she saw the blood. “What have you done now?” she said, and I had to show her even though I didn’t want to. I opened my hand and she saw the tooth and she just laughed.
“You’re such a crybaby, everybody loses a tooth now and then. That’s nothing to cry about.” Then she left me there with the dried brown blood on my hand and a small plate of food to eat: some pretzels and yellow cheese in plastic wrappers and a soda that was warm and a weird flavor. But I ate it all; I just chewed on the other side.
CHAPTER 11
BY THE TIME DAD and Sarah were done with the police interview, the news media had also somehow gotten the word. Mom called Dad’s cell and left a message to pull straight into the garage when they came home, that the cameras and vans were waiting outside. I knew what she was trying to avoid—and what they all wanted: a photo of how Sarah looked now, and Mom was not about to let them have it.
At Mom’s request, the detectives had sent over a couple of uniformed cops, who kept the reporters off the lawn, but they hovered on the sidewalk, where their shouts could be heard as Detective Donally’s car turned into the driveway. I watched from my bedroom window as Mom pushed the button to open the garage and he pulled in, the door quickly sliding down behind him as the reporters called out, “Who took you, Sarah? Did you run away?” and “Where have you been?” “Were you kidnapped?” “Did they hurt you?”
I went downstairs as soon as I heard them come in, but Detective Donally never even got out of the car. When he pulled out of the garage a few moments later, the yelling started again. The reporters couldn’t see into the car’s tinted windows and followed the car out of the driveway, microphones in hand, cameras at the ready, trying to catch a glimpse of whoever was inside.
I rounded the corner into the kitchen to see Sarah standing there next to Dad. She looked up at me and met my eyes, and for a moment, it was as if she didn’t know me. I got that same sick feeling I’d had at the shelter in Florida, tingling and numb, a whooshing sound in my ears as my heart beat hard. What did she tell them?
Then she smiled, like she was actually happy to be home, to see me. Relieved. I searched Dad’s face, looking for an answer to the questions I didn’t dare ask. We all stood there, unsure of what to do next.
“So?” Mom finally said.
“Well, she tried, but she couldn’t give them a lot,” Dad said. “I don’t really know why they insisted on questioning someone with amnesia, seems like a waste of time to me.”
Even though it was early afternoon, Dad moved into the den, leaving the three of us in the kitchen, and I heard the sound of his glass clinking against the bottle as he poured himself a drink. By the time the counselor from the Center for Missing Children arrived at the front door, under another intense attack from reporters, Dad was already on his third.