What Happened to My Sister: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

lightbulb for a long time then look away and close your eyes a picture of the lightbulb is burned on the inside of your eyelids. This one summer me and Emma were taking turns balancing on the log fence when into my head came a picture of a little moss-colored glass ball rolling up to another one the same size but the color of the sky just before a storm. I could have sworn I even heard the click of the two balls hitting each other. I didn’t say anything about it and pretty soon I forgot the balls altogether. A few months later Mr. White from the drugstore gave me and Emma a set of glass marbles for Christmas but I’d already forgotten about the picture flash. Then, after we moved away, Richard caught me and Em playing with the marbles when we were supposed to be helping Momma in the kitchen and his boot came down on the pouch that held them and the crunch of the breaking glass made me cry something awful. With Richard hollering boo fucking hoo after us, Emma and me ran to the creek and settled on a rock at the edge. She said she wanted to show me something she had in her pocket and when she opened her fist I finally remembered the picture flash because there in the palm of her littlehand were two glass marbles: one moss green, the other stormy-sky gray.
    So anyway, I look out at the Waffle House missing an o and pow! I have myself a vision of a milk white pudgy baby arm reaching out, wriggling its teensy fingers. It’s gone as fast as it got here. I’m trying to decide whether to tell Momma about it when a loud clanking gives the both of us a start. The hood’s huffing and puffing like an old mule carrying a load of coal. Momma hears it too and slows down, saying please dear Lord don’t take her now , and for a second I think she means me but when the car starts choking and coughing I see she’s praying for it not me. The wind’s gone on account of us going real slow now. It’s spooky quiet and I hear Momma say to herself if the car dies we’re done for and now I’m officially scared because Momma never says things like we’re done for so I’m gonna pray. Even though her first husband, my real daddy, got shot dead right in front of her back at our old house in Toast, even though her second husband had the same thing done to him but by her own flesh and blood, and even though we’re broker than spit at a swap meet , Momma’s never said we’re done for . So I’ll pray harder than ever even though God don’t pay attention to little kids’ prayers. Emma and me, we done experiments over it and it’s true. But just in case things have changed since the prayer experiments, I promise God that if He lets the car live I’ll pray ever-day and I’ll never get on Momma’s last nerve again. I think those exact words over and over—ten times. Probably more—and I really and truly mean every one of them. I swear, God, if You let the car live I’ll pray ever-day and I’ll never get on Momma’s last nerve again, I swear . I say it in my head but I move my lips so He’ll know I’m for real.
    A car honks at us and Momma says Jesus H. Christmas can’t you see I’m trying to get out of the way , and like a magic trick, smoke starts slithering out from under the hood and Momma starts pumping at the gas pedal hard, even though it makes no difference.And now I know it’s a fact: God don’t pay mind to little kids’ prayers. He’s busy on more important things than dying cars carrying families driving on burning hot two-lane interstates. Momma’s hunched over hugging the steering wheel with her head to the side listening real careful like the motor’s whispering its last dying words. She pumps the gas pedal— “come on, come on, come on” —and the way it keeps crawling, the station wagon looks like it’s sorry it’s letting us down. We inch to the gravelly side of the road and the motor hisses itself out for good. It’s so quiet now I cain’t hardly believe it’s the same day as it was just a little