I ran to my room, all done up now and pretty with the new blanket on the bed and curtains and a pink rug. I pulled the illustrated Bible book from the shelf and brought it out to show it to the lady. I couldn’t read, but I had every story memorized by the pictures. She seemed really interested so I told her every one. “My favorite,” I said, “is this one where the man gets swallowed by the whale. Or this one, with the nice lions.”
Both Ma and the lady laughed and the lady said, “Liberty, you are a true delight. How lucky you are to have her. We don’t usually find a match right away for these foster kids, but I think we may have this time, I really do.” And Ma nodded, smiling at me.
That night, there was ice cream—chocolate chip, my favorite—and Ma said, “You did good, kid. We’re a good team, aren’t we?” And after that we were. A team.
CHAPTER 21
THE THOUGHT HAD BEEN waiting just below the surface, in that realm where dreams from the night before swim, nagging at me, trying to tell me something. It had been there, but I hadn’t wanted to think it, really think it. The truth.
Sarah.
She had been my worst enemy, my torturer. She made my life hell. She hurt me, with her words and with her hands. She made me hate myself, and I hated her.
Yes, I hated my own sister. Yes, I wished for her to die. And yes, my life got better when she disappeared. Paula’s did too—at first. We both got what we always wanted. Even though it came at a price—a steep and terrible price.
Now Sarah was back, but she wasn’t the same Sarah. She was the sister I always wanted, I always needed. She was kind, open, loving, to me, to Mom and Dad. I liked her—I loved her, even. I was not going to let Paula ruin this for me, for my family. No.
I heard the words of the school counselor coming out of my mouth. “If you think someone is dead, and they come back, it can take a while for you to get used to having them around again.” I was talking fast as Paula cocked her head to the side, hand on her hip. “The school psychologist explained it to me, it’s actually really normal to have doubts.”
“Have you finished signing up?” A man stood impatiently behind us.
“Oh, yes, sorry.” I moved out of the way, hoping he hadn’t heard anything we’d been saying.
Paula grabbed my elbow and led me to the side of the front doors. “I’ve got to go. I have to get back.” I tried to pull away from her.
“Back to what? That girl who claims she’s Sarah? That stranger—Are your parents in on this too? Do you even know who she is?” Paula hissed.
“She’s Sarah!” I spat, wrenching my arm free. I heard my own words, the lie I’d been telling myself for months, because I couldn’t face the truth—what had really happened to my sister that day at the park. If Sarah was back, it had never happened. None of it.
I walked quickly away, imagining Paula behind me, but when I turned to look she was gone. I stood on the stairs that led down into the dining room and looked at my family, my mother and my sister, sitting so close together, their identical blond heads, Sarah’s light brown roots just starting to show.
I thought about the night she had come home from her date with Max, how she had crumbled, broken. The screams of terror in the night. Looking at her, I couldn’t bear the idea that someone would hurt this girl. That someone had burned her, tortured her, made her feel unloved, unworthy. But someone had done it.
My breath slowed as I watched them, laughing, Mom stirring sugar into her iced tea, Sarah ordering dessert from the waiter. She looked up and caught my eye, her face warm and open as she smiled and waved me over. I couldn’t help but smile back.
Sarah had been home for months now, and everyone else thought it was her. Everyone knew it was her. Max, Uncle Phil, even Gram when she came to visit.
The problems between Sarah and Max were easily explained too. Sarah told me all about their last conversation: Max had confessed that he blamed himself. He was supposed to meet her on the day she disappeared. When she didn’t show up, he assumed she had been pissed and left. He thought he would see her again. “I can’t stop thinking about what would have happened if I had been there just fifteen, twenty minutes earlier, like I said I was going to be,” he told her.
I hadn’t known that, for all these years, he had been living with that guilt. And seeing how Sarah was now, the damage that had been done, he couldn’t seem to get over it. Sarah told me he cried almost the entire time.
I tried to tell myself, as the long, hot days of summer wore on, that Paula would drop her craziness and leave us alone, as soon as she went back to the university. But anytime we were out—and especially at the club—I dreaded seeing her again, feared that she might say something shocking to my parents or to Sarah. But what she actually ended up doing was far, far worse.
SARAH