Now Sadie only hums in tune to the words. There’s a studious look on her face as she tries to remember all the beats. She’s told me that her father made her take up an instrument as an extracurricular and that’s the only reason she plays, but she has an ear for music.
As she plays on, I wonder why Sadie chose this song. Maybe she wanted to impress me with a classic, as a way for us to bond and to show me that she’s letting me in. The thought is so endearing that I decide not to tell her she’s missed the mark. I wasn’t even born when this was released. Not that I would expect her to know something like that. Even though I was born at the tail end of the 1990s, to her it’sall last century. Jade is older and more worldly. Less like a friend to her and more like a mother figure.
She only plays for about a minute, and then she stops with an embarrassed grin. “That’s as far as I got,” she says. “But when you told me it was your favorite, I went online to see if I could learn.”
My body goes cold. Sadie is still talking, but I can’t hear the words over the rushing of blood in my ears. “When?” I manage to blurt out, my voice hoarse.
I’ve interrupted whatever Sadie was saying, and she looks confused.
“When did I tell you that was my favorite song?” I press.Be calm,I tell myself. I have to be Jade right now, not Sissy, and Jade would have nothing to be alarmed about. Because Jade doesn’t have serial killers for sisters.
“Last night.” There’s an apprehensive squeak in Sadie’s voice. “When we went to that ice-cream truck.”
Last night, Moody and Iris demanded that I stay at home and rest. They told me I looked pale and that they were worried I was pushing myself too hard after the car crash. I’d felt perfectly fine, but I’d wondered if the pregnancy was starting to make itself known, and I didn’t want to arouse suspicion.
But Moody had gone out, returning hours later with a bag of groceries, singing to herself as she put them away. Singing her favorite song, the one Sadie has just performed.
It’s not just anger that fills me now, but helplessness. Moody didn’t hurt Sadie. Instead, she proved her point.
I walk over to the open door and push it closed. Sadie winces at the sound. “You shouldn’t leave this door open, you know,” I tell her. “You’re just as bad as Edison. Anyone can just march right in here.”
“Okay.” Sadie’s voice is small. She’s retreating back into hershyness. If ever there was a time for me to act like Jade, this is it. I should tell her I’m sorry for acting so hysterical and tell her that the song was beautiful. I should make small talk about music and school and ask her how things are going with that boy who broke her heart. I should. But when I turn around to face her again, when I grasp her shoulders, Sadie is looking into the eyes of the real me.
“There are dangerous people out there,” I tell her. “A man was murdered, and they still haven’t found who did it. Do you hear me?”
Sadie nods, the violin still clasped in one hand, the bow in the other.
“I want you to be more careful,” I say. “A lot more careful.” I reach into my pocket and draw out the box cutter from the collection that my sisters and I use for protection. “Carry this,” I say.
Sadie’s eyes widen. The murder doesn’t worry her at all. It’s just something that happened to a stranger on the news. “I can’t bring something like that to school,” she says, making no move to take it. “I’ll get suspended.”
Gently, I take the bow from her hand and replace it with the retracted blade. I close her fingers around it. “Not if they don’t know you’re carrying it,” I say.
I meet her eyes, and I hope she understands. I’ll never be able to protect my own child, but I can do this much for Sadie. I can help to keep hersafe.
24
I don’t confront Moody about what she’s done, and I don’t ask Iris how much she knew about it. There would be no point; the message was loud and clear. Moody might not know what my secrets are, but she knows that I’m keeping them. Jade isn’t real, and no matter how hard I pretend, I’ll never become her. I’ll never be able to run away with Edison and our baby and have our little life together.
Either I get rid of this baby now, or I wait until I start to show and my sisters will make me do it. They won’t let me hand it off to a nice family or leave it in a stroller the way that we were left, because this baby has Edison’s DNA and mine, and even if it takes decades, this will come back to haunt us. I am harvesting living, breathing evidence of our crimes.
The only real friend I have in this town is Dara. I’m going to tell her about the pregnancy. I’ll tell her that Edison isn’t the one I intendto spend the rest of my life with—a half-truth—and she won’t judge me. She’ll drive with me to the clinic and tell me that I’m making the right decision. After, she’ll drive us anywhere I want. To see a movie or to wander around until we find a food truck that looks promising.
It will make her feel better to help me with my own problem, rather than wallow in her grief. I want to believe she’s getting better now that Tim is gone. She’s young, smart, beautiful, and she should get out of this town. By the time we part ways, I want her to be ready to stand on her own. But there are moments when she retreats into herself. She disappears for long hours of the night, and I lie awake, waiting for the headlights of her car to steal in through the blinds when she returns. She stares off into the distance. She flinches and won’t meet anyone’s eyes.
This will pass, I tell myself. Dara isn’t like me, and I can almost envy her for that. She can look at someone as awful as Tim and still see the possibility for redemption. Something worth saving. It was only for one short, frenzied moment that she saw the monster within him. After years of enduring his rage, she understood that only one of them would survive that night. She made the right choice. But it scares her.
It’s time to take a new approach. If I can’t convince Dara that killing Tim was her only option, I’ll distract her. She can’t go back now and save him, and it will help her to channel that compassion into something else.
If I start to cry, she’ll know what to do. And I may cry, I realize. But for now, I swallow all of it down.One moment at a time, Sissy.I count every slat in the porch that connects my front door to Dara’s. I take a deep breath and then I knock. There’s no answer. Her car is still in its parking space and the curtains are drawn. I wait a few seconds and then knock again. When I try the doorknob, it’s locked.
“Dara?”
The dread is immediate, and all I can think is that she’s thrown her future away so quickly. I admire Dara’s heart, but it’s a danger to her. The human conscience is a liar. It grants compassion to those who don’t deserve it, and no matter how much Tim has hurt her, some piece of Dara still wants to believe she should have shown him mercy. Mercy he wouldn’t have shown her. I run down the stairs and around the back of her unit to the sliding glass door of her laundry room. It opens when I tug on the handle, and I barely have the cognizance to close it behind me.
I picture her pacing back and forth in the bedroom, staring at the neatly made bed. The blue cotton comforter with little yellow flowers on it and the matching pillow shams. The catalog-perfect life she tried to build with a man who overpromised. I picture her holding the phone, waiting for her hands to stop shaking so that she can dial the number that will connect her to the police department. She just needs a few minutes to stand here among all her pretty things and say goodbye to the life she’ll never have.
“Dara!”
