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

while ago with the wind and the radio and the painted barn rooftops. The metal siding creaks and I’m betting it’s the old car saying goodbye. It really did the best it could because it happened to cough to death right under a shade tree. Like a final act of kindness. Like it knew we weren’t the ones kicking it and hitting things with it all those years, it was Richard. I believe maybe this car had a soul and maybe that soul went up to Heaven and maybe up in Heaven it’s shiny new and Daddy’s behind the wheel, tooting hey to us from Up Above.
    I don’t think I’ll bring that up with Momma now though. Out of the side of my eye, without even moving an inch, I watch Momma because it occurs to me that what happens next depends on whether she hangs her head down like it’s the end or tilts it back to the headrest like the car dying is just a stumbling block and she’s not worried. Like she’s just figuring out our next move and we’ll be under way in the shake of a lamb’s tail , as Miss Mary at the old drugstore used to say. I breathe in and out four times before Momma drops her forehead to the steering wheel that has little dips for where your fingers go. Uh-oh. Momma doesn’t have a next move.
    After a short while, she sits up and stares out ahead like the car’s still moving.
    “Maybe it just needs a rest, Momma,” I say. Why this has not occurred to me till now I don’t right know but don’t that sound like a possibility? “Maybe it wants to cool down or something. It wasn’t this hot up back in the hills—it’s probably not used to the heat.”
    I sounded too schoolteachery. Too know-it-all. Momma hates know-it-alls. I guess I’m wrong because Momma doesn’t say anything back. I look over to find she’s in one of her trances again. If you saw her like this you’d swear on a stack of preachers’ Bibles a magician swung a pocket watch in front of her, saying you’re getting veeery sleepy … veeery sleepy …
    This time I’m not so worried because Momma cain’t stay in a tired old car forever like she near done in her bedroom after Daddy died. Back then, Momma took to her bed and that trance took infinity and a day to wear off enough for her to come back out. A minister came by once or twice to check on her and so did Mr. White and Miss Mary but I didn’t know them real good yet. On his way out Mr. White patted me on the head and said, “She’ll come around. She’s a survivor, that one.” Once I heard Mr. White say a part of Momma died when Daddy did. He told Miss Mary that Momma went into her room one person and came out an altogether different one .
    So I know the best thing I can do right now is stay still. Wait for Momma to come around again. I doodle little hearts in my notebook. New ones coming up out of the dips in the tops of old ones so you cain’t tell where they start from. Mrs. Ferson once said me drawing hearts means I got a whole lotta love packed inside me just dying to get out, making it sound like I might barf love if I got sick. So I think of Mrs. Ferson every time I doodle. I been working on covering a whole page in hearts and I’m almost to the bottom when Momma lifts her head and says:
    “Well all right. Let’s get out to where someone can see us.”
    Then she tells me to hop to and get the stuff out of the back. I kinda hoped we’d sleep curled up on them Hefty sacks like little kittens if we had to camp out in the car tonight. I guess not.
    Momma only has to bang her door twice this time to get it open and if you ask me, that’s almost a miracle right there. It usually takes five or six shoulder hits before the door’ll let you out. I climb over the seat and open the way-back door like normal since now we don’t need to mind the silver duct tape that’d been keeping it attached to the rest of the car.
    Jiminy Cricket! The road’s hotter than I thought it’d be, that’s for sure. I jump out and in two seconds I’m hopping up and down from bare foot to