What Happened to My Sister: A Novel Read Online Free

If I was outside and Emma was inside, she’d put a note saying “Good” if the coast was clear to come on inside. “Bad” meant stay away long as you can. Usually that meant until the beer put Richard to sleep still setting upright in his chair, or like when he gave whippings. He always whipped with the buckle end of his belt because it was his goal in life to get me to cry and I never would even though it hurt real bad. You never saw girls as stubborn as me and Emma.
    From out by the rock I could hear Momma’s steps on the wood flooring coming back down from checking upstairs so I knew my days as a Hendersonvillian were fading away. One last time I lifted up the message rock and it’d been a while since we’d used it so I jumped a little in my skin when a million bugs skittered off to other rocks, looking up at me ripping the roof off their house. If I spoke bug I’d tell them I didn’t mean them no harm. After they ran for cover, I shook the dirt off the folded-up notepaper to find “Bad.” I snuck it to my pocket for what I don’t know and put the rock back exactly where it was but them bugs didn’t know they could come on home and maybe they never will and maybe little bitty baby bugs got lost from their mommas and they’ll crawl around forever, crying little bug tears, homesick for their old rock and the way it used to be, and then they’ll die alone with no family or they’ll be squished on account of them not having a rock-roof over their heads. I wished I could find them and shoo them back. I wanted to cry I got to feeling so bad. The screen doorslammed behind Momma who hollered for me to make haste . She jingled the car keys and lowered her sunglasses from the top of her head.
    Then a miracle of gar gan tuan, gi normous proportions happened. I’m listing it as Miracle Number One .
    We’re about to get in the car when Momma squints at me over the peeling paint car hood and says:
    “Why you riding in back?”
    “I always ride in back,” I say.
    Sometimes out of nowhere she likes to test me, see if I’ll follow rules, and I didn’t want to fail like I always do. Because I’m dumb. It’s okay—ever-one knows I’m stupid. Once I heard Momma tell Gammy I wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed . So I thought Momma was tricking me to see if I’d follow the rule to always set in back.
    “Best you get on up here with me,” Momma says.
    She says it like it isn’t the first time I ever rode in front. She says it like it isn’t my dream come true. I been wanting to ride up front forever. Soon as I come to my senses I say:
    “ Re ally?”
    “Come on, now,” Momma says. “Let’s not make a federal case of it.”
    I hurry in case she decides to change her mind while she’s lighting her cigarette.
    Then, just before the tires push off the crunchy rocks onto the paved road, Momma turns in her seat to face me. She blows smoke out the side her mouth like Puff the Magic Dragon, points her cigarette in the V of her fingers at me, and lays down the law:
    “From here on out, soon as we pull out of this no-good godforsaken town, I don’t want to hear anything more about anything. I’m laying down the law. You understand me? I don’t want to take any of that old shit with me. You listening? Look at me—I’m seriousas a heart attack. You understand? We’re leaving it all behind. You hear me?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “And by the way, you haven’t said it in a while,” she says—figuring rightly that I’d know what she was talking about.
    “Emma was made-up,” I say. I know the words by heart.
    “Keep going …”
    “I pretended I had a sister but I really didn’t. I made her up. Emma was made-up.”
    Like I said, I know the words by heart.
    “I don’t hear a lot of feeling behind those words—you’re sounding like a robot,” she says.
    “No, Momma, I know I made her up,” I say, not wanting her mood to go bad like it can do if you’re not real careful.
    “Promise?”
    “Yes,