Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee (13 page)

“She's just a baby,” Stacie said.

“She looked at him, too,” Kyle said. “She made him ask questions.”

“She's too young—”

“No.” He leaned down into Lola's face. “You've been bad.”

Suddenly I remembered the day I told Stacie she was pregnant, how Kyle had been playing with that Barbie and saying he loved her, how he'd slammed the Barbie on the table. I stepped forward, reaching for Lola. “I'll take her,” I said. “I won't let Stacie feed her.” One more step and then another, and finally, I was close enough.

Kyle shoved Lola into my arms. He leaned against the kitchen counter. “You're all bad,” he said.

We sat there for hours, with Kyle staring at us, afraid to move. I held Lola while she cried her lungs out. Stacie leaned against the window that we'd both wanted so badly to look out of, wanted so badly to use to signal that man. Later that night, when Kyle was finally asleep, she took Lola into the bathroom and fed her. And that wasn't the last secret nighttime feeding. Even when the girls were too old to nurse, Kyle would sometimes take their food away. And we'd stash food together, hiding it in odd places like in the backs of high cupboards or underneath clothes. We'd take a little at a time so Kyle wouldn't notice it was missing and then use it to feed the girls. Stacie always helped with that. Almost until the end.

•   •   •

I haven't given her enough credit, for everything she did. For everything she didn't do. For all the years she held out, before . . .

I squeeze my eyes closed, search for another memory, a day or an hour or even a moment when she was Stacie, but she was still herself. When she would agree with what I'm doing. I know there are more, but I'm stuck back under the window. My hands grip hers, and she grips my hands back.

You wanted her.

My dad opens the door and peeks his head in. He frowns when he sees my purple shirt. I'd been wearing other colors, and this doesn't look good. It looks like I'm really crazy like we want Dr. Kayla to say. I set the Stacie doll down and try to look not crazy.

“You don't have a choice, honey,” he says. “I promise it will be okay. Your mom and I will be right there.”

“I have a choice,” I say.

He sighs and tilts his head that way he used to do when he was annoyed. Like when I took Jay's ball and wouldn't give it back to him.

“Someday I'll tell you and you'll understand,” I say. I wonder when that will be. When Kyle dies, how will I know? Will the girls be able to find me?

“Amy.” He sighs again and sits down next to me on the bed. “There is a court hearing. We have to go.”

My mom stands in the doorway now. She wrings her hands in front of her chest. Her eyes flit back and forth between us. I see Jay behind her, standing in the doorway of his bedroom,
staring. Mom is wearing a floral print dress like the kind she used to wear to church. It doesn't look natural on her anymore.

“I'm not going,” I say. “If they want to put me in jail, they can do that.”

“Nobody is going to put you in jail,” my dad says.

“Okay,” I say. “Good.”

My dad doesn't even try again. He goes back out of the room, and my mom stares in at me while he calls the lawyer and tells him that I won't go. In her eyes, she is saying,
Tell me.
Behind her, Jay's eyes are saying,
Tell them.
I make my eyes empty. I say nothing with my eyes at all.

Many hours later, after everyone else is asleep, I'm curled up on my bed, still wearing my clothes, holding the Stacie doll close. I'm trying not to think about anything, but I see them like they're right there. I see Barbie the day she was born, all messy and squealing. I see Lola jumping, trying to catch a fly. I see Stacie sitting on the bed, staring with those blank eyes. I see Kyle smiling. I feel his hand connect with my face, the hardness of the floor that comes up to meet me. I hear their voices saying my name.
Chel! Chel!
I hear the door slam in front of me. I hear the gravel crinkling beneath my feet. The night air swirls around me as I pass the line, the end of our world, the point beyond which horrible things are supposed to happen. I feel my steps taking me down, past the edge, away from them.

And suddenly:
Stacie is pregnant with Barbie, probably seven or eight months along. She's sitting up on the bed with her back leaning against the wall. One hand sits absently on her belly, and her face is calm. Two-year-old Lola is on the bed, too, playing with a rag doll,
one I made myself out of an old T-shirt and cotton balls. The doll's face is drawn on in marker, but Lola doesn't care. She's named it Poopa, and she loves it.

“Mommy, Poopa wants to say hi,” Lola says, scooting over to her.

“Well, does she?” Stacie says. “Did you hear that, Barbie? You've made a new friend.” Kyle had already named the baby, even though, of course, we didn't know it would be a girl. He was so sure he'd get exactly what he wanted.

“Mommy, they're friends already,” Lola says. She presses the doll's face against Stacie's stomach.

“I wish I had a friend named Poopa,” says Stacie, patting the doll's head. She looks up at me, where I'm standing with my broom, afraid to move and spoil this.

“It's a good name,” I say.

“Brilliant.”

“What's ‘brilliant'?” Lola asks.

“Like smart. Like if you know a lot of things,” Stacie replies.

“Brilliant!” Lola says, taking the doll back. “Brilliant!” It becomes her new favorite word, and for the few weeks until Barbie is born, whenever Lola says it, Stacie looks at me and smiles.

•   •   •

I open my eyes to find Lee sitting next to me on the bed. The window is open. I sit up and stare at it.

“You didn't move the whole time I was climbing in,” she says. “But you weren't asleep. Your eyes were open.”

I wipe the drool off my chin. I must have fallen asleep at least for a while.

“The judge set another date,” Lee says. Her hair is in a
ponytail, and she's wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. She's not dressed for a party this time.

“I'm sorry,” I say.

“No, you're not,” she says. She says it flatly, like it's just a statement of fact.

I look away from her. She's right. I know I'm doing the right thing.

“Picture this, Amy,” she says. “You have a daughter who you love more than anything in the world. She's your oldest daughter, and before you had her, you never really loved anyone. You didn't love your daughter's dad, not really. He was just a guy you grew up with, someone who could give you what you really wanted in life, to be a mother.”

I close my eyes. I want to put my hands over my ears.

“So this daughter, she's everything to you. Even when you have another daughter, who you love, you know you'll never love anyone like you love this girl. When you finally divorce the husband you never loved, you focus everything you are on the girls.”

“I'm sorry,” I whisper.

Lee is silent for a minute. “And then you lose her,” she finally says. “Even though six years go by, you never allow yourself to give up. You keep her room the same as it always was. You set a third place at the table. When you go to the movies with the daughter you have left, sometimes you even buy an extra ticket.”

“She did that?” I ask.

“Actually I set the table,” Lee says. “She made me do it.”

We are silent.

“Do you think she would have liked to know that, Amy? That Mom believed she was coming home?”

“I don't know,” I say. And I don't. What difference would it make, when she could never get there? Maybe it would have made things even worse. But maybe it would have given her hope. Knowing what I know, I wish I could go back and tell her.

“I'm not saying this to make you feel bad,” Lee says. “I just want you to understand. Mom freaked out in the courtroom. She screamed and cried and had to be carried out by the bailiff. Now she's asleep thanks to a ton of pills. Before you came back, her hope almost wasn't real. She hoped Dee was alive, but she didn't expect her to come walking through the door. Now she does. It's like right after she was kidnapped all over again. You gave her hope, Amy, and it's making her crazy. It's killing her.”

I wipe tears out of my closed eyes, but I say nothing.

“Amy, please look at me.”

Slowly, I turn my head. Her eyes are so sad, even though they're barely wet.

She picks up the Stacie doll from where I must have let it drop when I fell asleep. “This doll is always wearing pink, and you wanted the pink beads,” she says. “I know what this means. It means this doll represents Dee.”

I kind of nod and shake my head at the same time.

“It means you loved her.”

I reach for the doll, but she holds it away from me.

“She wouldn't want her mom to suffer, would she? To not know? I thought it would be better for all of us. I thought the woman who cooks every night for two children would never be able to handle the truth. But this is worse, Amy. It's
worse
.” She's squeezing the doll so hard that her hand shakes. She realizes she's doing it and eases up. She looks down at the doll and smoothes its pink dress. “I didn't come here to say that. I never wanted to push you. I know whatever is going on with us, what happened to you must have been worse.”

Not what happened to me,
I think. But that truth isn't what Lee wants to know. She thinks there's only life and death, staying away or coming home. She doesn't know about the difference between Stacie and Dee, between being whole and being shattered.

“I came here because I just wanted to talk about her. That's all. I won't try to pressure you, I promise.” She looks down at the doll as she speaks. She probably means what she's saying. Everything she's done so far has been to help me. But she also wants to know the truth. And she's going to learn it. It has a life of its own, now that it's out there. Vinnie knows, and soon everyone else will, too. I can't stop it, but I can't let it happen either.

I don't know what to do, so I sit perfectly still.

“And I want to do something to remember her,” Lee says. “I want to help you, but I need to remember her. I can't pretend she never existed. That's what you want, but I can't do it.”

“I don't want that,” I say. But that's the result, I realize. So few people really knew her in the short time she had. If no one
can ask me about her, then I'm wiping the rest of her away. She wouldn't want that. She always wanted to be included. She'd want us to remember.

“What do you think Dee would like to do, if she were here now?” Lee leans the doll against the wall, so she's facing us.

“She'd want to eat Red Vines,” I say. But immediately I know that's wrong. It was twelve-year-old Dee who wanted to eat candy. Eighteen-year-old Dee would want to be making out with some boy in the back of a movie theater, or hanging out with her eighteen-year-old friends. I don't actually know what eighteen-year-olds do. But Lee doesn't care whether I'm right or not.

“Okay,” she says. “That's what we'll do. We'll get some Red Vines.”

I never agreed to go with her. I know I can't go, because she's changed her mind about not knowing. But I don't feel like I have any control over my body as I pull myself over the windowsill and land on the grass of our side yard. Lee has used the card with me that she has figured out will always work. Dee would want to live, and she would want us to remember.

LEE DRIVES FOR
a minute in silence. It feels weird around her. Her silence makes me want to say something, and I want it to be something normal. I want to keep more of the truth from spilling out.

“I had a good time with Vinnie,” I say. “He taught me how to drive.”

“He told me,” she says.

I freeze. But he can't have told her
that
.

“Maybe we should call him.” She hands me her phone.

“It's late.” According to her phone, it's 1:00 a.m.

“Dee wouldn't want to just hang out with me,” she says. “She didn't like me all that much.”

“That's not true.”

“Sure it is. I remember she had this pair of shoes. They were too small for her. She grew out of them. She couldn't have used them at all anymore, so I asked if I could have them. Because they fit me perfectly. But she wouldn't give them to
me. Not until Mom made her. She threw a fit about it, too. She threw them at me. Broke one of the straps.”

“It sounds different when you tell it,” I say.

“I'll bet.”

“It was just a pair of shoes,” I say. “Sisters fight.”

“Usually they fight and then they make up,” she says. “Then they play a game of cards on the living room carpet and sneak candy into their bedrooms and talk all night. They band together to get their mom to make mac and cheese instead of tuna casserole.”

“She wanted to,” I say. “She felt bad about the fight, too.” I realize that I don't know whether she did or not. We were never allowed to talk about the families we left behind. I felt bad about how I'd been mean to Jay, not letting him hang out with us. Did she feel the same way? She must have.

“Big sisters share makeup with their little sisters,” she says. “They teach them how to do their hair.”

“I think you would have been the one teaching,” I say.

“Then the little sister teaches,” she says. “Somebody teaches somebody.” She turns abruptly, and we're heading down River Road. I take a deep breath, but we drive right by the place it happened. “Call Vinnie,” she says.

“I—”

“Just call him,” she says.

So I do. It takes me a minute because I don't understand how her phone works. But finally, I call his number.

“Lee?”

“It's Ch—Amy,” I say. “It's Amy MacArthur.” I say my whole name more for my benefit than his.

“Oh, hi. Want a late-night driving lesson? Nobody out on the road. Smart.”

“No, it's just . . .” I look at Lee, but her face is blank. “Lee and I are hanging out.”

“Meet us at the Publik Mart,” Lee says.

I repeat it for Vinnie.

“Okey-doke,” he says. He doesn't ask any questions. I wonder if he's used to Lee calling him in the middle of the night and insisting he show up someplace.

“You must be really good friends,” I say.

“We dated freshman year,” Lee says. “Nothing much happened, but yeah, he's been a good friend. One of the best.”

“You dated Vinnie?”

“You probably think I'm out of his league,” she says.

“Well, I guess, I mean . . .”

“He doesn't look like Marco,” Lee says. “But sometimes the hot guys, they expect you to be hot on the inside, too. They expect you to be pretty and perfect and well adjusted and normal. Vinnie would never expect that.”

“But you—”

“I'm the girl whose sister was kidnapped,” she says. She turns the corner into the Publik Mart. It hits me that this is also the bus stop. This is the place I stepped off the bus into Grey Wood. This is the place I became Amy again.
Amy MacArthur,
I think.
Amy.
Lee's face is lit by the overhanging lights above the
gas pumps. Even with her hair pulled back and no makeup, she's beautiful. If you look carefully, you can see the differences between Lee and Dee. Dee's face was rounder and more childlike. Even at eighteen, even after everything that happened, she still looked younger than her age. Lee has more angles. She looks like she's thinking something deep. Dee always looked like she was
feeling
.

Vinnie pulls in as we get out of the car. He gives Lee a hug and grins at me, arms open.

I lean in to him, and he gives me a quick squeeze.

“So what are we doing?” he asks. “I already took her to the library and Dairy Queen. If we want to take her someplace new, we'll have to go to Portland.”

“We're getting Red Vines,” Lee says. She leads the way into the store. We're the only people in there, except for the cashier, a thin, balding man who's practically asleep on his feet. He barely looks up as we walk in.

Vinnie hasn't acted like he knows anything. I can trust him, I tell myself. Lee trusts him, so I can, too.

Lee buys three large packages of Red Vines. Vinnie buys a Coke. I don't have any money, so I don't buy anything. We head back out to the parking lot and stand next to Lee's car. She tears the plastic off the box and puts a vine into her mouth.

Vinnie looks at me. Obviously he thinks Lee is acting weird, too. But I don't know if I should tell him why, or if I even can. Instead, I take out a Red Vine and start eating. I used to love these as much as Dee did, and I haven't had one in six
years. Even though I shouldn't be enjoying this night at all, I like it. I savor the texture of the candy, the taste of the sugar.
Amy MacArthur,
I think.
I am Amy.

Lee eats another vine. Vinnie eats one. I eat another.

“When Dee disappeared,” Lee says, “Vinnie was the first kid to talk to me. Everybody else was afraid. It was like having a sister disappear was catching.”

“Since I'm an only child, I was immune,” Vinnie says.

“It was probably three weeks before anyone else tried,” Lee says, ignoring the joke. “I mean, people would say they were sorry or ask how I was, but it was just bullshit. Nobody wanted to know the answer.”

“Not everyone was like that,” Vinnie says.

“I don't know,” Lee says. “Maybe not everyone. But most people. My friends stopped calling me. Right when you would think they'd be there, if they were your real friends. All the friends I have now are different. Christina and Kara, I met them once we started high school.” She swallows the last of a vine and looks at me. “I know it's not the same. I know. I was the lucky one. But it was hard for us, too.”

“I know,” I say.

“That's why Jay's hurting,” Lee says. “He knows it's not fair of him to complain, to be angry about what happened to
him
. But he's only fourteen. And he was eight when his whole life fell apart.”

“I know,” I say. “He hates me.”

“He doesn't hate you,” Lee says. “He missed you, too. Everyone was sorry for the parents, and they forgot about
him. He's mad because you were alive the whole time, and he thought you were dead. He was so sad, Amy.”

“I didn't forget him. I thought about him all the time.” I thought about those blackberries every day. I wasn't supposed to think about him, but I did. When it was dark and everyone was asleep, that's when I'd let myself remember.

“You tell him that,” she says. “You're lucky you still have him.” She grabs another Red Vine and shoves it in her mouth. She chews and chews, and there is too much vine in her mouth, and if this were any other moment, it would be silly. If Dee were here, we would be laughing. Instead, our eyes fill with tears. Even Vinnie wipes a tear away as he puts an arm around Lee's shoulder.

Lee finally swallows the last of it, and then she reaches for the half-empty box. She holds it up. “To Dee,” she says. “I know you're dead. I've known it since the first day Amy came back, and you didn't. I know horrible things happened to you that I can never even imagine, and he killed you. But I'm not going to forget. Mom's not going to forget, ever.” She takes a breath and opens her mouth like she's going to say something else, but then she throws the Red Vines on the ground. They spill out onto the pavement, and she folds her arms over her chest.

“Lee . . .”
What, Amy?
I think. Are you going to tell her it's not true? When Vinnie already knows? When really everyone already knows except Aunt Hannah, and everything that happens to Aunt Hannah happens to Lee? Am I really going to keep doing this to them?

Vinnie pulls Lee closer, but he doesn't say anything.

“I said I didn't want to know,” Lee says quietly, her chest heaving. “But I do. Not just for Mom, for me. I want to say goodbye to my sister. I want to have somebody to blame for what happened to us. I want to see this man in jail, to point my finger and say,
He did this.
I want whoever killed Dee to pay.”

The door slams in my face.

There is blood in Stacie's hair.

I'm shoving things into the Safeway bag. I'm shoving the Stacie doll in.

Now Vinnie's arm is around me. He has moved in between us and is pulling both of us close. I don't know how much time I've lost, but it's like Lee hasn't moved.

“She's dead,” I say. “But that's all I can tell you.” My hand goes to my pink beads. But the beads aren't for Dee; they're for Stacie. Stacie's not who we're mourning. I reach up and unhook the beads. I let them roll around in my hands. Somewhere, there are two little girls who are worth everything. They are worth Lee's pain, and Aunt Hannah's, and mine. They are even worth everything that happened to Dee. I have to believe that, or I will die. I will fall down on the ground right here at the bus stop and I will never get up. Unless Lola and Barbie are alive, and they are a reason to keep standing.

“Where is she?” Lee asks.

I shake my head.

“I want to know where her body is,” she says. “Mom will never believe it without a body.”

“I don't know,” I say.

Her face is calm and silent. Her eye is open, one blue eye staring up.

“You do know,” she says. “You know where
he
is.” Lee has turned toward me. Vinnie's arm is still around her, and now it's like he's holding her back, like he's afraid she'll attack me. But she just
looks
.

Barbie is crying, but Lola has stopped. Lola is grabbing the back of my leg.

I put my hand over my face.

“Lee, come on,” Vinnie says. “You don't know what she went through.” His voice is far away from me. I am far away from me.
Kyle is crying. He is bending over her, feeling for a pulse. Baby, baby, he says. Barbie clings to me. There is blood on her face, too, a little stream coming from her hairline.

“Amy, come back. Chelsea.” Lee shakes me. It works. I snap back. Vinnie is behind her, staring down at us, hands raised like he doesn't know what he should do. Lee's face is on a level with mine. “If she's dead, can't we just have her body? Can't my mom have that?” Tears stream down her face now. Her hands grip my shoulders.

“I don't know where he buried her,” I say. “That's the truth.”

“Lee, stop,” Vinnie says. He pulls her away from me. He pulls her all the way around the front of the car. “You're just pushing her away. You'll get your answers when Amy can handle it. Okay?” He holds Lee by both shoulders. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Lee says. She turns back to me. “I'm sorry. I know I promised. I wasn't lying; it's just hard. It's hard to be there for you and my mom both. And she was my sister. Not just her daughter, not just your friend, but
my
sister. I get to care, too.”

“I know,” I say. I realize that I have admitted to another person that Dee is dead, and now it truly can't be stopped. But it could never be stopped, really. When I decided to come home, I put everything in motion.

“I'm sorry,” Lee says. She walks back to me and puts her arms around me. She pulls me in, and I press my hands against her back. Here she is, comforting me, when I'm the one who has ruined her mom's life, and hers.

After a long time, Lee finally lets me go. She reaches on top of the car and takes the second package of Red Vines, and then she sits down on the ground. The parking lot is gross with gas stains and dirt and who knows what else, but she doesn't seem to care. She rips open the package.

Vinnie sits down next to her and takes a Red Vine.

I sit down, too.

“My mom planned Dee's whole life,” she says, mostly to Vinnie. “What classes she was going to take in high school. And when she would be allowed to date, and what her curfew would be. And now that she'd be eighteen, we're getting college brochures in the mail.”

“Knowing will help her,” Vinnie says. He pulls Lee close, and she puts her head on his shoulder.

I don't know what to say, so I chew a piece of candy. Even through everything, it's still sweet.

“Now I have to tell her,” Lee says. “I know Amy can't do it, so I have to. But unless she sees the body, she'll never believe. She'll keep on looking through those college brochures, trying to find the right one for her. Last month it was
Reed. This month it's Stanford. Dee got a lot smarter since she died, I guess.”