Me & Emma (13 page)

I was playing in the side yard with Forsyth. We were taking turns pretending we were horse and owner. Forsyth would whinny and I

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would comb her hair like it was a mane and then hold my hand out with an invisible sugar cube on it for her to nibble up. Forsyth heard the shots and turned to me to ask if I knew what it was and, stupid me, I said yeah it was just some car up on the road because I wanted to keep playing. But Forsyth’s momma’s voice reached across the air and pulled her back home. When I saw her tucked in between her parents at Daddy’s funeral she looked over my head, like she was more interested in some bird flying in the sky than looking at me, and I just got a bad feeling like Forsyth Phillips and me would never be friends again. Momma said Mrs. Phillips won’t let Forsyth come over to our house anymore, but we stayed friends on account of her mother letting us play over at her house.

The blood was all over the front room. I didn’t see it, but it’s a good thing we didn’t have carpet because it’d never get clean. A lot of people came in and out of the house before and after the funeral, cleaning up and bringing food and they all looked sad when they looked at me, but it only embarrassed me and made me run to the bedroom to help cheer Emma up. I heard them, though, talking their hushed talk about “poor Caroline” and about how well I seemed to be holding up, “considering.” No one dared talk about Emma, I bet, because they knew that would’re made Momma cry even harder, But to tell you the truth I was more worried about Emma. And Momma.

Momma cried so much those first days I could feel the wall shake where her bed was. Even though I was one flight up my bed is right up against the same wall. So ] would just lay there and feel my momma hurt. Over and over again. Especially in the morning like when you wake up on Christmas Day remembering there was something special going to happen and then remembering a second or two later what it was. But this was the opposite. I’d hear her rustle in her

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bed like she was waking up and trying to fix her brain to remember what was going on, and then, sure enough, the wall would shake when she remembered what was so awful about the day. Every day that happened. Every single day. Emma didn’t wake up to Momma’s wall-shaking like I did. When she did finally wake up she’d just blink at the ceiling. I’d snuggle up to her so if she did want to talk to me it could be a whisper so Momma wouldn’t hear her and remember how Daddy died. But as it turns out I didn’t have to pull her into me after all since Emma didn’t make a sound for a good long time.

I think Momma must have stayed alive by eating at night, when we’d gone to bed. Sometimes she’d leave clues behind like a wrapper or some brown paper that used to hold raw meat. And Tab cans. Always Tab cans. She and Daddy kept cases of Tab they got at the discount store so we’d never run out and I guess that was handy now that Momma stopped grocery shopping altogether. But I never saw her come out of the room. Not once. She didn’t even come out to make us go to school. And I couldn’t just leave Emma all alone to get herself food and water—she was just a little girl!—so I ditched school. At first it was great. I’d look at the plastic daisy clock in the kitchen and I’d think about what everyone in my class was doing and I’d be so happy knowing I wouldn’t have to do homework or clean the blackboard or anything. The only thing I like about school is geography. Most kids would tell you they like recess the best but I hate recess. Balls hit me like I’m some kind of magnet pulling them to me. Everyone knows it. They don’t even aim them at me anymore…they just keep playing whatever game they’re in the middle of when I come out (red rover, softball, spud) and it’s only a matter of time until the ball bounces offmy head or slaps into my back. I always try to act like I think it’s as funny as they do but that doesn’t work. I try to act like 115

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I knew the ball was coroing my way and I wanted to get hit by it but that doesn’t work, eitlqer. So I went back to square one and I don’t act at all, I’m just jumping like a goofevery time the ball comes near me. So I don’t miss recess. Not a lick.

Since Momma stopped coming out of her room, the clothes have started to pile up wherever Emma and I decide to take them off. I like the pile at the bottom of the staircase because I can jump onto it from the third stair anti it feels like a pillow. Emma copied me once and fell back onto her bottom, but there were enough clothes so she didn’t hurt herself or anything. But she didn’t smile. When she forgot how to talk she also forgot how to use her mouth for smiling.

One day Momma was at the kitchen table when we came down from the Nest. Just like that. Like it was normal. I smelled the cigarette smoke from halfwaY down the steps and tried not to get my hopes up but ran the rest of the way down just in case it was really

her.

“Mornma?”

She doesn’t really look up so much as she straightens her back a little and pushes her head back up on her neck so I can see she is

awake.

I hug her and ever though her arms just stay down by her sides I know she’s happy I’ there. At least I think so.

Momma’s eyes are like a jack-o’-lantern’s eyes…all carved out and hollow and dark. It scares me but I don’t show it.

“You want me to get you some breakfast?” I ask her, but then I realize she’s not much going to like what we have to eat.

Her pumpkin eyes fix on me and then move to every part of the kitchen, like she’s seeing it for the very first time.

“How’re you going to do that, I wonder” are the first words she

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says to me in I don’t know how long. She says them real slow like she’s just learned to speak English.

“I can, you watch,” I say. Maybe she’ll like my breakfast. It’s easy. I use the mug that’s got a picture of Sacagawea on it from when Momma and Daddy drove out west when they were real young—I fill it up with flour and pour that:,into a mixing bowl I know I should’ve cleaned days ago. Then I hold the bowl under the tap and count to five and then I stir it together to make a paste. The frying pan’s already on the stove from yesterday so all I have to do is pour a little bit in and watch it grow into a circle that’ll fill our bellies until later. The pancake turner doesn’t slide under it all that easy since I haven’t cleaned it, either, but hey, no one’s perfect.

While the paste is cooking I sneak a peek at Momma, just to make sure she’s still there, in the flesh. I wish I hadn’t done this ‘cause I hate to see her cry. It’s one thing to feel her cry, another altogether to see it in person.

I don’t ever cry about Daddy. Maybe Momma cried enough for all three of us.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” I say to Emma, trying to take charge since it’s going to be nighttime and we’re going to have to find a place to sleep. “We got to find a little cave or something so we can hide and sleep a little.”

“It’s not even close to being dark out!”

“Yeah but if we’re out walking around during the day they’ll see us,” I explain. Where this is coming from I do not know, honor bright. Thinking of Daddy makes me sure we’re never going back to Richard. “Night’s when we’re going to have to make our move.”

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Emma squinches up her shoulders again and follows me. She seems so happy to be away from the house and I can’t blame her one bit.

“Tell me about Daddy again,” she says, peeling the bark offa pine branch so she can make a switch out of it.

“You deaf? We’ve got to start looking for a hiding spot! This isn’t Picnic Day, Em,” I say. Then my heart hurts like it does whenever I remember something about Daddy.

Picnic Day was Daddy’s invention and NIomma tried it with Richard once but I wouldn’t let her. Picnic Day was as good as when the teacher says class is going to be outside under the sycamore tree because it’s the first warm, sunny day after the cold winter. Picnic Day was as good as peeling the skin off an apple in one long curly strip. Momma would make fried chicken and start packing the wicker basket the day before Picnic Day. Just like in bedtime stories we had a red-and-white-checkerboard tablecloth and Momma packed it first, all folded up into a perfect square. Daddy’s potato salad would be chilling in the icebox, crunchy with sweet red pepper cubes, and I would practice my fake cough so when I went into school they’d see I was “coming down with something.” I threw that part in. Momma and Daddy said I shouldn’t do it, but it was all part of Picnic Day Planning.

For that one day of the year I would play hooky from school and Momma and Daddy would take me out to the Pine Barrens on the edge of the ocean and we’d lie around all day eating Momma’s chicken and Daddy’s potato salad.

After Momma married Richard, she got it in her head that he’d just take up where Daddy left off with Picnic Day. She started frying her chicken and she even made colesla’ (to take the place of

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Daddy’s potato salad), but when she pulled out the wicker basket from the basement that stays cold even through the summer heat I told her what for. She never tried to start Picnic Day back up again. It died with Daddy.

“Over here!” Emma calls out to me from up ahead. She is bending over something and swooshing her arm at me, as if I was Helen Keller and couldn’t have heard her voice.

“What?” Finally getting to her. I’d been walking much slower.

“It’s perfect,” she says. “We can lie down alongside each other and cover ourselves up with pine needles and they’ll never see us.”

“I don’t know, Em,” I say. I didn’t want to make her feel bad but this is not exactly what I had in mind. “Let’s keep looking. I bet we find a cave somewhere up ahead.”

“Aw, come on.” She sighs and rolls her eyes once but she follows me so I guess it could be worse.

“I’m starving,” I say out loud.

“Me, too.”

“Hey, how come you ate that dog food? That was so gross.”

I watch Emma do the shoulder squinch. “When you gotta eat, you gotta eat,” she says.

“Just eat the peanut butter like a normal human being,” I say. But right then I remember: the last time I saw that jar of Jif was under the Godsey porch before we got found out.

“I’m so hungry I could gnaw my own arm off,” Emma says, starting a game we always play.

“I’m so hungry I could walk barefoot on sap and then bite my own toes off,” I say.

“I’m so hungry I could eat dog doo,” she says, knowing she’s beaten

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me. There isn’t anything worse than eating dog doo. It’s a short game today, that’s how hungry we both are.

“Start looking for those mushrooms you were picking at back there at the tree stump,” I tell her. We both study the ground ahead of each step like it’s a test we’re about to take.

We don’t talk for a long time. Every time we see a white speck peeking up from under the needles we squat down and take turns eating it. Wild mushrooms aren’t so bad when you’re really hungry.

“This isn’t making me any less hungry.” She says what I’m thinkg

about now, too.

“I know.”

“What was that?” Emma stops walking and whips her head around looking to right behind us. Oh, Lord.

“What?” I’m whipping my head around, too.

“Shh! Listen,” she hisses at me.

We’re standing like we’ve had a spell cast on us that’s frozen us in our tracks. I’m too scared to move my arm back down to my side, even though it wouldn’t make a sound.

“Do you hear that?” Emma whispers to me.

“No,” I whisper back. “What is it? Whatdoyouhear?” And I do say it just like it’s one word.

“There’s someone coming.” She’s not whispering anymore. Instead, she grabs my hand and starts running. “Hurry!”

And, once again, I forget about being hungry. I forget about being tired. I run like it’s a life or death situation.

“There!” Emma pants to me. She’s let go of my hand and is pointing to an old tree that looks as out of place in this pine forest as we do. It’s a perfect climbing tree.

We jump onto its trunk like we’ve got suction cups on our hands

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and feet. There’s no time to think about anything but climbing as high up as we possibly can. It’s easy to do because just when we’ve pulled ourselves up onto one branch the next one is so close it’s practically bending down to pick us up for the higher level. The sap is already making little pads on the palms of my hands—I can’t imagine how much turpentine it would take to get all this off!

Emma’s climbing faster than me but I have to wait for a second. I’m hugging a branch that’s almost as thick as I am, one leg is wrapped around one side of it and the other, the other side.

“Come dowh here, you little monkey.” Daddy’s holding his hand

across his eyebrows to block the sun.

“Look how high I am, Daddy!”

“I see you, monkey. You’re doing real good. But you better come on down before you give your mother a heart attack,” he says.

“Caroline, get yourself down from that tree this very minute or there’ll be hell to pay,” Momma calls out from the back porch where she’s pouring her preserves into clean jelly jars.

“C’mon, monkey.” Daddy’s smiling at me. “Come to Daddy.”

“Psst,” Emma hisses at me. “Can you see what it is?”

“Wait a sec.” I answer her while I shimmy my rear end closer to the trunk. The bark catches on my T-shirt and pulls it in the other direction but there’s nothing I can do about that right now. I look down through the branches and it’s hard to say for sure but I don’t think there’s anything down there. So that’s what I tell Emma.

“You sure?” she calls back from above me.

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“Pretty much.” And then I just wait. So does she, I guess, ‘cause it’s quiet as a church on Monday. Then I hear rustling and grunting and I can tell she’s working her way down to me and my perch.

“Hey,” she says from a branch just an arm’s reach from me. If I wanted to I could push her out of the tree, that’s how close we are. “I know I heard something coming. I know it.”

I reckon it’s sap that’s gone and tangled Emma’s hair worse than before. Now she’ll most surely have to chop it all off. Looking at her I cain’t think of what to say.