I started the engine. “Doro’s been great. She’s really made me feel welcome.”
“Why wouldn’t she? You’re going to tell her side of the story.” Frances ran her hands through her mane of red hair. It had started to curl wildly in the humidity, and I couldn’t quit looking at it. “What,” she said.
“The hair. It just . . . it’s throwing me off.”
She hooted with laughter. “Good. Do you know where the cabin is?”
“No. But I figured you did.”
She clucked in exasperation. “I’ll try. It’s been forty years.”
When we were headed down the main road, however, she directed me past the turnoff to Koa’s place, then deeper into the forest. Right before we hit the marsh, Frances flung out her arm, and I turned down another track. The woods were choked with spiky palmetto. Moss dripped from the overhead branches like stalactites from the roof of a cave. We jounced down the track, which narrowed and narrowed, until, suddenly, the trail ended, and we were in a clearing in front of a mossy, tumbledown cabin.
I switched off the Jeep, but Frances didn’t move. Her eyes traveled from the fern-laden roof to the crumbled chimney to the half-rotted front door. There was an old sawhorse, cracked down the middle, its two jagged ends forming an M.
“They used to put blankets on those,” she murmured. “Pretend they were horses. Kimmy and Kitten.” She glanced at me. “Doro, I mean.” She climbed out of the Jeep and walked to the sawhorse. Ran her fingers over it. “How is this still here?”
“I’m sure it’s not the same one, Frances. Koa said they still use the old cabins for storage. For repairs and stuff.”
Up the sagging steps, I pushed open the door, and we walked inside. I pulled the light cord, and one bare bulb buzzed yellow in the dusty space. The main room was grimy and cobwebbed and airless, piled high with gardening supplies and tools. There was a whole wall of shelves filled with mildewed cardboard boxes labeled Taxes. Pushed into a far corner, a motley collection of furniture formed a barricade: a vinyl-covered sofa, a ladder-back chair, a metal dinette set. A long, rolled rug balanced across the whole clutter.
Frances moved to the kitchen area. Ran her fingers along a cracked yellow counter, metal sink, and rust-eaten stove. She leaned against the counter, staring out the window.
I pushed past her, into the stub of a hallway. This cabin had two bedrooms.
“The one on the right was Mrs. Baker’s. Kimmy’s was on the left,” Frances said behind me.
I could smell her perfume and the ripe scent of sweat. That was a first; I’d never known my mother to sweat. I pushed open the doorway on the left and heard her sharp intake of breath.
I moved to her. “What is it?”
The tips of her red-lacquered nails were tented over her mouth, and her eyes had gone huge. The circles beneath them stood out starkly, like two blue moon crescents. She was trembling. She made a soft sound, a cross between a sob and a sigh.
“I’m so sorry, Kimmy,” she said. “So sorry.”
Panic bubbled up in me. The next second, the pinpricks kicked in.
“Come on,” I said to my mother, rubbing my hands together. “Don’t say that.”
I scanned the room, trying to figure out what had set her off. She must’ve seen something of Kim’s—a framed picture, an old doll, something. She seemed to be working through some real emotion, which was a shocker. Perhaps this was the moment she was going to open up and talk to me.
“You should sit down.” I tugged on her arm, but she resisted.
“Megan, no,” she said softly.
I let go of her. What was wrong with me? It was like I couldn’t bear to see her feel hurt, even as she wallowed in it.
She turned to me, her eyes red and watery. “I knew that Kim’s mother was sick. That she had problems and missed a lot of work. She neglected Kim. I suspected she beat Kim sometimes, but I . . . I was just a girl myself. And you know, back then, people didn’t bat an eye at spanking your children. But I should’ve told someone that the girl wasn’t safe. She wasn’t safe.”
I deflated in relief. Frances wasn’t confessing some huge secret. She was just doing her thing—gathering the drama, trying to make it revolve around her.
“I should have done something.” She gave a little wail, and it was all I could do not to slap her.
“C’mon, Frances,” I said. “Buck up. How many kids in the world have parents who are depressed? Or can’t manage to get their shit together? Probably every other obnoxious little brat in existence. So, at least a million. A billion, more likely. There’s no way you could’ve known what would happen to Kim.”
“I had a feeling something was wrong.”
I sighed.
“I had a feeling that little girl wasn’t properly looked after.”
“Why? Because she was Native?”
“No. Of course not.” Self-righteous indignation flashed in her eyes. “Because her mother was overwhelmed. And all alone. Not every single mother has the kind of wonderful help I did.”
Help. So that was what she was calling the people who raised me.
“Well, it’s all in the past,” I said. “There’s nothing you can do now. Except maybe forgive yourself.”
She ignored my sarcasm and floated toward the far wall. She brushed at the dirty windowpane but it was a futile act; the dirt was on the outside. “I came here a lot with Kitten.”
I folded my arms. Waited for the story.
“Kitten—Doro—wanted to show me something she and Kimmy had made. A dollhouse they’d made from an old set of bookshelves. It was really quite clever. The shelves were floors in the house. She and Kimmy made furniture from scraps of wood and shells. And they had their Barbies . . .”
She spotted something and brightened. “There it is!” She drifted to the other side of the room, to a small, dingy bookshelf. She knelt and pointed to the top shelf. “Oh my gosh. Look at this. They made this an attic. They made little chests to store treasures in it. Just like the attic at Ambletern. Such interesting, resourceful girls.” She paused, lost in her memories. “I made up a story for them. For their dolls who lived here.”
I nodded, chewing the inside of my lip. I couldn’t remember my mother ever making up a story for me.
“Kimmy’s mother, Vera, stayed in her bedroom the whole time. She was sick, Kimmy said. Kimmy invited us to stay, though. She was making dinner. Those TV dinners people used to heat up. Poor little girl, left to take care of herself.”
I ran my hands through my hair. “Why don’t you think they ever found a murder weapon?”
“I don’t know.” Frances’s gaze wandered back to the bookshelf. “Maybe there wasn’t one. You can kill a child with your bare hands, you know.”
“Nice.”
“It’s true.”
“But I read that the police thought a weapon was used. A tool or a bat. A rock, possibly.”
Her opaque eyes flicked to me. “Ah. The mico’s bowl. You’re reading the book.”
I shrugged. “For research.”
“Well, well. Wonders never cease.”
“It’s not bad. I’m actually kind of enjoying it.”