The truck is silent except for the whistle of air through my father’s cracked window.
I tug at one of Nessa’s curls, and she flicks me off like a fly.
I’m not the main attraction anymore.
Feeling wicked, I do it again.
I know about cameras. Our mother had one, an old Brownie, but we never had any film to put in it. Ness kept bugs in it, like a cage. Fat beetles and even a butterfly once, always set free after five or ten minutes. I’m wishing I had that camera now as I giggle at the sight of Nessa grappling with the handburger near as big as her head, ketchup like Mama’s lipstick smeared around her mouth.
Civilization is almost worth it for the food alone, I reckon. The fries are right good with lots of salt, and the burger runs with “medium-rare juices” down our collective chins.
“Slow down, Ness. Chew your food,” I tell her, my eyes scanning the walls for the bathroom entrance, just in case our little wolf regurgitates.
I’m momentarily distracted by a chubby toddler in a high chair, clacking a spoon against the table and smacking his lips. I remember Ness at that age, easily. Mama propped her up on a stack of yellowing newspapers, a rope around her waist tying her to the back of a chair.
I take the handburger from Ness’s hand, cut it in half, and place the smaller half on her plate. She flaps her hands in protest, then immediately goes back to eating.
“Mrs. Haskell said we need to be careful, sir. Ness needs to be built up slowly.”
My father regards me silently, and for a second, as fast as the flash of a camera bulb, I see pride. Pride in me. Something unfolds in my chest: a winged, fluttering warmth. It’s almost too much to bear.
I turn back to my sister. She’s eating with her eyes closed, chewing slowly. I take a few bites of my own burger, dunk a few more fries in ketchup. I’m already full up.
“You need to build yourself back up too, Carey,” he says with a softness that only makes it worse. The warmth flutters behind my eyes. No. I blink it back.
“Yes, sir.”
I take another bite of my handburger, then another.
“It’s only forty minutes or so to the house from here. Everything’s already set up for you two. I’m sure whatever comes up, we’ll work it out,” he tells me.
I glance at him and hold it this time, both of us measuring, wondering, worrying about this new life.
“Those are some gorgeous girls you have there,” the woman with the toddler calls out to my father, smiling at Nessa and me.
“Thank you. How old is your boy?”
“Fourteen months. Already he’s eating us out of house and home.”
Their words float back and forth over our heads as I watch Jenessa eat her last fry and slurp her milk shake clean.
As for me, I’ve eaten almost half my burger. A pink-cheeked girl whisks off the remains (my father calls her a “waitress”) along with most of my fries, returning minutes later and handing me a spongy white box I reckon is made from the same material as my father’s and Mrs. Haskell’s steaming cups of (what I now know to be) coffee. She winks.
“There you go. If you don’t want it, I’m sure your dog will love it.”
I slurp the dregs of my milk shake, and she shakes her head uh uh. I stop, my ears burning. Don’t act backwoods. I want to ask the man, my father, for another glass, but the thought of asking, of the connection it implies, is so uncomfortable, I don’t.
The waitress hands my dad a slip of paper on a little black tray, and a pen.
“I’ll take it whenever you’re ready.”
He raises his hand in answer, and she waits while he scribbles on the paper, then hands it back to her.
“You girls ready?”
Jenessa looks to me for an answer, and I nod. I dip my napkin in my water glass, lean across the table, and scrub my sister’s mouth. She scrunches up her face and swats my hand away.
“We’re ready, sir.”
“Then let’s go home.”
Home. Four letters heavier than twenty thousand elephants. It’s like he’s saying a word bursting with a bunch of other words not yet ready for saying. His expression shifts, reminding me of the twists of colored glass in Nessa’s garage-sale kaleidoscope.
“Let’s go.”
Nessa takes the lead, smiling back at the patrons we pass, who can’t take their eyes off her. I bring up the rear with our “Styrofoam” boxes. But Nessa’s steps grow heavy, her feet dragging as she ducks beneath our father’s arm, which holds the door wide. Her peachy complexion takes on a greenish tinge, like the time I made her try chickpeas.
I don’t waste a second as I shove her toward the bushes lining the walkway to the parking lot. She stumbles and I catch her by the forearm. I have a moment to drop the food boxes and grab her hair into a ponytail before her lunch lands in the grass.
My father watches, dumbfounded.
“She’s all right, sir. You saw I tried to slow her down. She’s just not used to having—”