“Do you know why we’re here?”
Mrs. Haskell searches my face as my stomach contents begin their climb: beans, of course. Baked beans cold from the can, the sweet kind Nessa likes so much. I feel like a fortune-teller, knowin’ her words are about to change the earth below and the sky above and rearrange everythin’ we hold normal and dear.
I stare at her, expectin’ the inevitable.
“We’re here to take you home, Carey.”
Home?
I wait for the ground to right itself, and once it does, I fling myself into the bushes and let the beans fly. Afterward, the anger licks my innards like a wildfire. I turn around, hands on my hips, and stare this woman down. She cringes when I wipe my mouth on the sleeve of my T-shirt.
“That’s impossible, ma’am. We are home. We live here with our mama.”
“Where is your mom, honey?”
I glare at her; no way I’m fallin’ for the “honey” bit.
“Like I said, Mama went into town for supplies. We were runnin’—running—out of some stuffand—”
“How long has she been gone?”
I have to lie. Jenessa is almost hyperventilatin’, on the verge of one of her nervous fits. She skitters over and stands next to me, reachin’ for my hand and holdin’ it so tight, my pulse punches through my fingernails.
“Mama left this mornin’. We’re fixin’ on seein’ her before nightfall.”
I give Ness’s hand a hard squeeze.
“Your mother said she left over two months ago. We received her letter yesterday.”
What?
The blood rushes from my head and my ears ring. I grasp onto a nearby branch for steadyin’. I must have heard her wrong. But she nods her head yes, her eyes full of sorrys I don’t want to hear.
“Wha—what letter?”
Jenessa’s tears tickle my arm like chiggers, and I want to scratch, but I can’t let go of her hand. She sags against me, and again, I burn. Look what they’re doin’ to my sister. Mama was right: Outsiders can’t be trusted. All they do is ruin lives.
Mrs. Haskell smiles an apologetic smile, a practiced smile, like we’re not her first victims, nor her last. I wonder how many kids have stood before her like this, swayin’ in their newly tiltin’ worlds. Hundreds, I’d bet, goin’ by her eyes.
However, I see a sadness there, too; a softness for us, a familiar bent of the head that comes from the things we’re used to seein’, like the sun-dazzled canopies of the Hundred Acre Wood, or learnin’ to go without butter, or havin’ Mama disappear for weeks on end.
She waits until I’m steady again. I hold on to her eyes, like a rock in the roilin’ river.
“Your mother wrote us last month, Carey. She said she could no longer take care of you and your sister—”
“That’s a lie! She’d never leave us!”
“She asked us to intervene,” she continues, ignorin’ my outburst. “We would’ve been here sooner, but we couldn’t find you girls. She really had you hidden away pretty good.”
“No!”
But it’s a strangled cry, a hollow cry, floatin’ away on the air like dandelion fluff and wishes that don’t come true. And then, as quick as the emotion escapes, it freezes over. I stand up straight. I am ice, slippery and cool, impenetrable and in control.
“You must have it wrong, ma’am. Mama wouldn’t leave us permanent like. You must’ve misunderstood.”
The three of us jump back, but not fast enough. Nessa’s stomach contents spatter Mrs. Haskell’s fancy shoes. This, I can tell, is somethin’ she ain’t used to. Mrs. Haskell throws up her hands, and without thinkin’, I fling my arms in front of my face.
“Oh, God, honey, no—”
“Just leave us alone,” I snap. “I wish you’d never found us!”
Without a word, she knows another one of my secrets, and I hate her for it. I hate them both.
Her eyes burn into my back as I lead Jenessa over to a pail. I dip a clean rag into the water and dab at my sister’s mouth, her eyes glazed over and dartin’ from me to them like a cornered rabbit. The man walks away, his shoulders saggin’. He pulls a cigarette pack from his coat pocket, the cellophane crinklin’ like a butterscotch wrapper.
Get a hold of yourself this instant, Carey Violet Blackburn! Fix this!
“You’re scarin’ my little sister,” I say, my voice close to a hiss. “Look, Mama will be home tomorrow. Why don’t you come back and we can discuss it then?”
I sound just like an adult. Pretty convincin’, if you ask me.
“I’m sorry, Carey, but I can’t do that. Under the laws of the state of Tennessee, I can’t leave two minor children unattended in the middle of the woods.”
I soak another rag in the water and hand it to Mrs. Haskell, lowerin’ myself onto the rough bark of a downed tree. I pull Ness onto my lap, my arm around her waist, not even carin’ about the acrid smell that replaces the sweet, sunbaked one from just an hour ago. Her body is limp, like a rag doll in my arms. She’s already gone.