The Night Sister

Piper thought of the photo they’d found in the suitcase: Two girls. One plain and chunky with dark, tousled hair; one blonde and beautiful. Both lost in their own ways now. Amy looked nothing like her mother. Amy, Piper suddenly realized, looked more like her aunt Sylvie, radiant and blonde.

Piper glanced at Margot. She was listening politely, like the good girl she always was, sitting straight up in her chair. Piper felt a brief surge of anger; if her little sister hadn’t been there, hadn’t come into the tower looking for them, then she never would have run and fallen through the floor. They would never have found the suitcase. Piper wished it had stayed hidden. She had a terrible feeling about the whole thing. It had started small at first, like a toothache, but now it traveled through her, pulsed along with the pain in her shin. When Piper glanced down at the bandage now, she saw the pink bloodstain soaking through—it was shaped like a butterfly.

“Sylvie left a note, didn’t she?” Amy asked.

Her grandmother sighed. “You know the story. And you know I don’t like to talk about it. Neither does your mother. If…when she comes back, you mustn’t ever bring it up. It upsets her.”

“I know,” Amy said. For a second, Piper thought Amy looked like she might start crying.

Piper thought of how little Amy ever said about her mom.

“She’s a drunk,” Amy had told Piper once, when Margot wasn’t around. “Grandma says that she can’t help it. Something’s broken inside her, and the only way she knows how to make it feel better is by drinking. But I think she’s just plain crazy, drunk or not. One time, when I was real little, I woke up and found her standing over my bed. She was holding this big old chain and looking crazy. I started screaming and crying—I was sure she was going to kill me. Grandma came and asked her what she was doing. Mom kept saying she ‘needed to know.’ I have no freaking idea what she was talking about. Then she just turned and left. She took off, and we didn’t see her for almost a year that time.”

Piper thought it was awful and sad, to have a mother who was alive but who, for whatever reason, couldn’t be your mother. She wondered where Amy’s mom was, and if she thought of Amy every day or if she forgot all about even having a kid.

“Please, Grandma,” Amy said as she pushed back from the dining-room table. “Just tell me one more time. You found a note Sylvie left, right?”

Her grandmother blew out a breath, then nodded, closing her eyes, like it was easier to tell the story in the dark. “I woke up that morning because your mother was crying, just howling away like it was the end of the world. I went into their room and saw Sylvie’s bed was empty. Your mother was so upset she could hardly speak. The closet was open, and most of Sylvie’s clothes were gone. Then I found the note. It was stuck in her typewriter. On her desk.”

“What did the note say? Do you remember?”

“It said she couldn’t stay here anymore. And that she loved us and hoped we’d understand. She promised to get in touch as soon as she got settled.”

“But she never did, right?” Amy asked.

“No.” Amy’s grandma flinched slightly. “Not a word.”

“Are you sure? Are you sure Mom never heard from her?”

“I’m sure.”

“Do you think that’s where Mom goes?” Amy asked, voice low. She picked at some skin around her thumbnail. “When she’s not here? Do you think maybe she’s off looking for Sylvie?”

“Oh, sweetie,” Grandma Charlotte said, coming to stand behind Amy and putting her arms around Amy’s shoulders. But Amy only stiffened, sat up straighter.

“Do you still have the note?” she asked. “The one Sylvie left?”

Amy’s grandma narrowed her eyes. “Why does it matter?”