“Wow. Your mom is pretty effed up.”
I dart forward and rip the paper from her hands. She grins, the victor either way.
“That’s just a copy. I have more where that came from. You think Ryan Shipley could really like a backwoods freak like you? We only took you in out of pity.”
I stand next to myself—that’s how it feels—and watch helplessly as my arm pulls back and my fist balls, ready to hit her harder than I’ve ever hit anything.
“Go ahead—I dare you, freak,” Delaney hisses, not even trying to defend herself. “Show them who you really are—white-trash garbage whose mother didn’t bring her up right, let alone want her.”
To my horror, a dam breaks.
“You’re pathetic, you know that? I wish they’d never found you. I wish your crack-ass mother had taken you with her—”
“She was smoking meth” I hiss. “And I didn’t ask to come here.”
We’re both breathing heavily.
“What’s your problem with me anyway?” I say, the white heat filling my body. “I reckon you have everything a person could ask for. You even had my father. Why do you hate us so much?”
Delaney laughs, a hollow, bitter sound. “Are you kidding me? I never had either one of them. Not even my own mother! It was all about you. It’s always been about you! Were you alive? Were you dead? Oh, there’s another sighting. No, it’s not her. Were you hungry? Safe? Warm? Carey this, Carey that. It was always All about you.”
I watch the tears slip down her cheeks, the perfect facade melting into one of misery.
“You girls okay in there?” Melissa’s voice is light, calm.
“We’re fine, ma’am. Just finishing up.”
Delaney slaps the dish towel over my shoulder.
“I’m through here,” she says, her eyes hard. I watch her back, straight and proud, as she walks away.
Once she’s gone, I ball up the paper and shove it to the bottom of the garbage. Then I hold on to the edge of the counter for support and cry until I’m all cried out. I’m guessing a good cry has been a long time in the making, and I cry until I’m empty, but a good empty, like the speckled shells left behind by flapping quail babies.
My mind wanders back to the Hundred Acre Wood and I close my eyes, remembering the frosty breeze painting roses on our cheeks and setting the branches chattering; the stars blinking thoughtfully from their perilous heights; the crackling fire accompanying my violin, and Nessa clapping at the end, propped up against me for warmth.
I even yearn for Mama, just for a second, before I snuff out her memory like the candle stubs we read by when the kerosene lamp ran low.
I close the dishwasher after filling the tiny compartment with dishwasher soap like my father taught me. I wipe down the counters and then the stainless-steel double sinks.
Fee-bee. Feeeeee-bee.
The little bird lands on the windowsill, tilting its head curiously, regarding me with sympathetic eyes.
I think of Ryan, of how I played for him, how he made the violin happy again, instead of melancholy and achy. He watched my soul ride the notes to all the private places: happy, sad, unsure, scared. In his eyes, I was CC, not the backwoods freak.
Would that change if he knew? If my life in the woods got around school? If Delaney showed him Mama’s letter?
My breath comes fast, and I work on slowing it down. In, out. In, out. I reckon I’d die if Ryan found out about me—if he looked at me and saw the old Carey with the dirty nails and smoke-smudged face, the ripped jeans and the cat-pee coat.
“I’m taking Jenessa up for her bath,” Melissa says, peeking in through the doorway.
“Yes, ma’am.”
After she’s gone, I splash water on my face and dry it with a sheet of paper towel. I still can’t believe they come from trees. It makes me right sad. I use the sheet to wipe off the R circle, too, clearing the glass in time to see the phoebe ride the current and alight on the barn roof. A streak of light rims the bottom of the door, where my father finishes up the evening feed.
Does he think the same as Delaney? That his daughters are backwoods freaks? White trash? Whatever that is, it even sounds nasty. Delaney had to be lying, saying that he’d looked for me. Mama said she sent him letters but that he never wrote back. Why did he let Mama take me, knowing himself what she was like?
I slip up the stairs and close the door behind me, crawling into bed fully clothed, like in the woods.
I listen to Melissa singing to Nessa in the tub. Three blind mice. See how they run. I let the sounds wash over me, clutching at the peace that comes from knowing Nessa’s not a burden to Melissa. She loves my little sister. Anyone can see it.
I pretend she’s our mother, our real mother, and the woods are just a bad dream erased with a bubble bath and a nonsensical children’s song.
The last thing I see before I drift off is Melissa’s crescent-moon smile.