If You Find Me (13 page)

Back at my father’s house, with all the pomp and circumstance of an Obed red-shouldered hawk funeral, I shove my violin to the back of the highest shelf of my closet, pull some white rectangular boxes in front of it, fuss a little more, then stand back, satisfied.

I’m not that girl anymore. The fiddler in the woods is dead. I’m like a wild bear balancing on a ball in the circus: I’m no longer one or the other. I’m The New One. The One I Don’t Know Yet. And, as Delaney likes to say, it kinda sucks.

After dinner, a quiet one with Delaney at school for a late cheer practice, I sit cross-legged on my bed, my geometry book open on my lap. It doesn’t take long to work out the answers to the problems in the notebook next to me, even though my mind keeps returning to Ryan and the look on his face.

I can’t let Mama ruin one more thing.
I have to apologize. I know it. And yet I hesitate even as I imagine it, walking up to him and saying the words. No one warned me that being close to people meant hurting sometimes, both them and you. And then I think of Mama. If I’d learned anything, it should’ve been that.
A small knock and a short bark, and I can’t help but smile.
“Come in.”
Shorty climbs onto the bed in stages, eventually stretching out next to me, using my thigh as a pillow. I pat the bed.
“Come sit for a minute, Ness.”
Jenessa climbs up and snuggles against me. Her skin smells like cake. Like Melissa’s famous butterscotch cake, and, on further inspection, I see flour on her shirt. Dried batter above her lip. I push the books and papers to the end of the bed with my feet.
“You look good, Ness. You look healthy and happy.”
What she does next surprises me.
“I am,” she says softly. Me and Shorty sway toward the sound of her voice, like flowers to the sunlight. “I love it here. Don’t you?”
Her eyes are pleading, hoping. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how perceptive she is, especially where I’m concerned. Her silence makes a person forget her quick memory, the braille way she reads people, her mind sharper than the waddle badger and the shuffle fox combined.
I remember what the speech therapist told Mama.
“If she talks, don’t make a big deal out of it. We don’t want to give her mutism any more power than it already has. The same goes for her silence.”
“It’s nice here, yes,” I tell her, forcing a smile. And it’s not a lie. It is nice here, with a warm bed, new clothes, a quiet belly, toasty toes. We can even go barefoot in winter. We even have slippers.
“I like Melissa. Isn’t she nice?”
I have to lean in close to hear her, but even so, it’s progress— whole sentences of it.
“She’s wonderful. It’s obvious she thinks you’re wonderful, too, Ness.”
I pull her closer, breathing her in. Strawberry shampoo. Baby powder. She rests her head on my chest and my heart swells. Regardless of how I feel about myself, I’m so happy for her, I could bust.
“You’re not ever gonna leave me, are you, Carey?”
I watch her hands play with Shorty’s ears, arranging them on his head as if they were a hairstyle. I’m sad that she doesn’t know I won’t.
“Wherever you are, I’ll be there. Remember?”
“Like in the Hundred Acre Wood,” she says, lifting her head to check my eyes. “You said we’d always be together.”
“And I meant it.”
But, for the first time that I can remember, she’s not sure she can believe me. It makes my chest ache all over again.
I recite one of her favorite Poohisms. “ ‘If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together. . . . there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But, the most important thing is, even if we’re apart . . . I’ll always be with you.’ ”
She looks up at me, and for a split second, I see her campfire eyes shining back at me, the ones from before the white-star night.
“But I want you here for real, “ she says, pouting. “Not in my heart, but for real.”
“I’m here, baby.” I take her hand. “See?”
“I’m never leaving, Carey. Even when I’m older than old.”
“I bet I know one of your favorite parts about being here,” I say, teasing her. “No more beans.”
“Uh-uh,” she says, correcting me with a grin. “Human beans.”
I could eat her up.
“Did you finish your homework?”
The campfire goes out, and she shakes her head no, scrambling from the bed and motioning to Shorty. The dog lowers himself slowly to the ground and proceeds to stretch, rump poking the air, front paws splayed, back leg centered beneath him. It looks like one of Melissa’s yoga positions.
“Could you close the door, please?”
They disappear with a click and it’s just me again. Backwoods, clumsy, square-peg me. Circus Bear Carey, and I reckon that’s not the worst folks could call me.
Jenessa would be fine. If they didn’t want me anymore, she’d be fine. That’s the main thing.
Ness would always be okay, if she had Melissa. Melissa would raise her as if she were her own—she already is. Even Delaney loves Nessa. We all know it, no matter how hard she tries to hide it.
Another knock, and I wonder what Jenessa forgot.
“Come in.”
Only it’s Melissa, bearing a tray of butterscotch cake and a glass of chocolate milk. She sets it down on the night table, smiling at me.
“It’s strange to have daughters who do their homework without being scolded into it,” she says.
We stare at each other, the word daughters hanging in the air, dainty and unexpected, like the first snowflake of winter.
I look her in the eye, woods-brave. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“For the cake? It’s no bother.”
“Not just the cake.” Monkey arms sprout from my shoulders, but it’s important. “ She’s happy here.”
Her eyes smile at me, warming me, like the eyes of a mother from a book. Just when I think she’s about to cry, she blinks back the tears and gives a little laugh.
“I really care about your sister. About both of you, for that matter.”
She looks away, taking a moment, then finds my eyes again.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” She pauses, straightening the edge of my quilt so it hangs straight. “Can I assume your back looks something like Nessa’s?”
I look away, in answer. I know she hears it.
“You must’ve been pretty brave, fending for yourselves in the woods.”
I wish something fierce it were true. Wish I felt it.
“Your dad asked if you’d help him outside,” she says softly. “You can have your cake afterward.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I slip from the bed, feeling self-conscious as I search for my socks. She pauses in the doorway, watching me.
“Are you, Carey?” she asks.
“Am I what, ma’am?” I find my snow boots half under the bed, hidden behind the dust ruffle.
“Happy here. Perhaps just a little?”
I busy myself by pulling on boots. Ryan makes my heart soar like a kite. This here makes my heart feel gnawed on, like one of Shorty’s bones. But it’s not her fault. It’s not her fault she won’t want me once she knows about the white-star night.
“You’ve been very kind to us. I could never repay you.”
“But . . .” she says sadly, waiting.
“It’s not—it’s just—it’s just that I—”
She crosses the room in two strides and enfolds me in her arms. I hear sobs, muffled by her thick sweater, before I realize that it’s me crying. That’s me. When she kisses my hair, I close my eyes, making a memory, one I can take with me wherever I go.
“We knew it would be harder for you, sweetie. Especially for you. And that’s okay.”
But it’s not.
She sinks to the bed, pulling me with her. We sit together, not talking. I want to be the girl in the mirror glass, the lucky girl who has it easy, the girl who forgets all about the woods and the horrible things she’s done. I want to be like Delaney and go to sleepovers and listen to the cool music and dance around my room in my new jeans. But I don’t know how to be that girl.
“The day before your dad went to get you two, we spent three hours with Mrs. Haskell, asking all sorts of questions. How could we make you girls feel at home. How could we help you fit in. Things like that.”
She smoothes my hair from my face and caresses my cheek with the back of her hand.
“Mrs. Haskell gave us ideas as to what to do, what not to do, how it might go, what problems to expect. But in the end, even if we did everything right, she said it all came down to time.”
“Time?” I sniffle.
“Time. Time to get used to things, time to forge new bonds, new associations. There’s no rushing time. She said it wouldn’t always be easy, and that you girls might be homesick or angry or confused. She said that no matter what happened, the best we could do was just love you as you are.”
“She said that?”
“Yes. Your dad couldn’t understand how you girls could ever be homesick, especially after the way you were living. But I could. We make attachments to what’s familiar. We find the beauty, even in the lack. That’s human. We make the best of what we’re given.” I think over her words. It’s true.
“And all of this”—she makes a sweeping gesture—“isn’t what you’re used to. We even thought it might be best if we homeschooled you, but Mrs. Haskell was right. Better to face your fears and make a new normal, instead of sitting around worrying about it.”
She stands up and smoothes down her apron. “It’ll be okay, sweetie. If you let it.”
Like she knows for sure. Could she?
“Your dad’s waiting for you.”
I let her tug me to my feet.
“This is yours, too, Carey. I know it’s different. But it’s yours.”
I take back my hand, like a leaf letting go. It hurts too much to hang on. So why does it hurt so much to let go?
“Thank you, ma’am.” I look at her, then look away. “I reckon Delaney’s not too happy, though.”
If they make me leave, I’m taking this new coat with me, I think as I zip up my puffer coat— that’s what Melissa called it, a “puffer coat”— and pull on my mittens. The quilted waist-long white coat sprouts a hood lined in faux ermine. Or at least in my mind it is.
Melissa stops in the doorway and turns, her face thoughtful.
“Delly was used to things being a certain way, too. Although she’d never met you, you were already a part of her life. Not an easy part, either. So, Delly needs time. We all need time. Thank goodness we have plenty of it.”
She leaves me alone. I pull on the strange cap with its interwoven threads of blue-, pink-, and yellow-speckled wool, the braided ties hanging from the earflaps. I turn and catch myself in the mirror.
I’m always unleaving.
The woods girl stares back with her grim face, eyes the color of rotting leaves. I blink, and the One I Don’t Know Yet, blinks back.
Outside, I follow the light. I can hear my father moving around in the barn as I crunch my way through the snow and slide open the door. He’s flipping down straw bedding for the four goats to sleep on, while the donkeys, one cocoa brown and the other softest gray, munch hay in their stalls with half-closed lids.
My father ducks his head in greeting.
“I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“Yes, sir.”
I watch him use the muck rake to pick up the last of the manure, tossing it into a huge wheelbarrow.
“You can sit there,” he says, motioning toward a bale of straw. “Let me just latch the stalls.”
He locks the animals in for the night, the goats watching me with their strange keyhole irises. They’re kind of cute, actually, with their nubby horns, which instantly remind me of Pan, god of the wild, keeper of shepherds and their flocks, nature and mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music. Wooded glens. Violins around campfires. Margaret’s Spring. The goats are a huge hit with Nessa, if not with Shorty, who constantly tries to herd them from one place to another. My father slides the barn door open a smitch and leans in the opening.
“I know it’s difficult to talk about . . .” He pauses to light a cigarette, the smoke curling out the door and disappearing. “But I wanted to ask about your mama.”
I fidget on the bale, plucking a piece of straw just to have something to do with my hands.
“Your mama hit you girls?”
I think of Melissa, and nod. I can’t meet his eyes, either.
“She left you on your own in the woods? More than just that time we found you?”
Again, I nod.
“I know you said your sister stopped talking last year. What I want to know is why.”
I command myself to breathe. In, out. In, out. I’ve rehearsed the words in my head so many times, it should be easy.
“She never talked a lot to begin with, sir. It wasn’t like there were lots of folks to talk to anyhow.”
I see it in his eyes, the struggle not to push.
“Ness was five,” I continue. “After a few months, when she stayed like that, Mama took her to the speech therapist in town.”
“Was there a precipitating event?”
“ ‘Precipitating’?”
I know so many words. It’s perplexing to come across so many I don’t.
“Something that upset her. There must’ve been a reason.”
I look at the animals, so warm and safe. The cocoa brown donkey peers at me, waiting for an answer, too. I don’t know what to say. All the prerehearsed words aren’t as easy with my father’s eyes upon me and his forehead creased with concern.
“I don’t know,” I say, trying not to look away, because liars look away. That’s what the man in the woods had said. I tremble, trying not to remember. My father pulls a blanket from a shelf and drapes it over my shoulders.
My teeth chatter the words. “Thhank yyyou, ssssir.”
His work boots are water-stained at the toes after dumping and filling buckets for the animals. Neither of us talks for a long spell, but I can feel his need to know. I think of Perdita, as lost as me:

One of these two must be necessities
Which then will speak, that you must change this purpose, Or I my life.

“Well, if you think of anything, let me know. We want to help Nessa get past this.”
I nod as I hand the blanket back. “Yes, sir.”
Outside, I let out my breath in a large white cloud. I’m shivering even while my T-shirt sticks to my ribs. I follow along the wall to the back of the barn, sliding down into a squat. I wish I had that paper bag. The lady on the late-night “infomercial” called them “anxiety attacks.” They’re becoming all too common lately.
My father has no idea what he’s asking of me. None of them do. Only Jenessa, who loves me too much to tell—literally. Jenessa, who’s willing to give up her words altogether to keep me close . . . a sacrifice I let her make because I’m too cowardly to say the words myself.
What kind of monster am I, to let a six-year-old bear my sins?
I hate myself, hate what I’ve done. I’ve thought it through backward and forward, and I still can’t find an answer that spares us both.
I wipe away the tears angrily, the wool chapping my cheeks. I cry too easily since coming here. I hate that, too.
As long as Ness is safe, the rest doesn’t matter.
I think of Mama, the tears giving way to numbness. She was only being herself, leaving us in the woods. “Just cuz a person don’t like the truth don’t make it less the truth.” Mama’s brain doesn’t work right. She called it “manic episodes.” Diagnosed bipolar when she was my age. She didn’t have a say in it, either.
Saint Joseph, can you hear me? I don’t know what to do! It seems no matter what I do, a little girl gets hurt. You tell me—what’s worse? Jenessa losing her words, or losing me?
What if I tell them and they don’t want me anymore?
I roll up the leg of my jeans, my skin moon white in the darkness. I run my mitten over the scar, flat and gray, like a rut in the back of my calf where the flesh rubbed away. The metal edge of the folding table had done that. I hadn’t felt it happen until afterward.
“Charles! Carey? It’s freezing out here! Jenessa is hoping Carey will give her her bubble bath. Are you two coming in?”
I’m surprised when my father covers for me.
“Carey went for a walk—I told her not to go too far. Tell Ness that Carey’ll have to give her a rain check.”
“Well, don’t you be too long, then. I have water on for tea.”
“I’m just finishing up, and then I’ll be in.”
Their voices ring out clear as crow caws carried on the back of the frigid air.
A few minutes later, I hear my father’s footsteps crunch through the snow and the sound of boots knocking against the back stairs before the door clicks shut behind him.
It’s only a matter of time. I know it for sure now. And then I won’t be able to stay here—either because the law won’t let me or because it won’t be good for Jenessa and her new family.
I reckon Miss Charlotte Brontë summed it up best.