My Sister is Missing Read online

  ‘They’re being awfully quiet,’ I remarked, trailing my sister as she led me through the familiar arch from the living room to the dining room, and then onto the kitchen.

  I am the worst aunt in the universe. Ben was eight and Shelley was three, and I’d never laid eyes on them. Not really. Sure, I’d liked their pictures on Madeline’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, but that didn’t really count for much, did it? We had planned nearly a dozen meet-ups over the years, but I’d always used my work as an excuse not to come. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to meet my niece and nephew … I just didn’t want to come to Bare Border to see them. Madi had never shown any anger about my absence from their lives, but I suspected that my failure to be a decent aunt, and not showing up for my father’s funeral, were the reasons for her becoming more distant with me over the phone lately.

  ‘Here they are!’ My sister was standing in the middle of the kitchen with her arms spread wide, and all I could think was: This is where my mother should be standing.

  An image of my mother in her stained cooking apron, tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for her famous lasagna to finish baking in the oven, sprung up from my memories.

  ‘Where are the kids?’ I brought myself back into focus.

  There was no one in the kitchen, besides my sister and me.

  I walked around the empty space, taking my time. The wood cabinets were still painted white, just like mom used to keep them, but these were newer, not the same … yes, there were shiny new handles on the cabinet doors. I opened one of the drawers and closed it back. I could feel my sister watching me.

  The sink had also been replaced by one of those modern vessels I’d only seen on TV. Tenderly, I ran my hands over the navy-blue countertops, my nose recognizing the green dish soap mom used to use. What was it called … Palmolive?

  ‘Are they hiding?’ I glanced back at my sister.

  I was surprised to see that her expression had changed. Her lips were curled down, her eyes hard and serious, like two little black beads. Her initial excitement to see me had morphed into a mask I knew too well … she was worried about something.

  ‘I don’t have any children. I made all that up. The pictures, the stories…everything was a lie.’

  ‘Huh?’ I tilted my head to the side, waiting for the punchline.

  But she still looked strange, her eyes floaty and her voice flat. Is my sister capable of telling such a massive lie? It’s not like I would know the difference—after all, I’ve never actually seen Shelley or Ben in person… My heart was thumping in my chest as I waited for Madi to explain.

  ‘Ahhh!’ I jumped back in surprise as the cabinet doors beneath the sink sprung open with a sharp bang. One at a time, two small children popped out and ran straight for me. I chuckled at my niece and nephew, surprised.

  Behind me, Madeline was cackling now, just like she used to when she drank too much Seagram’s when we were teens. After all these years, I’d almost forgotten how much she loved to play pranks.

  ‘I see you haven’t lost your sense of humor,’ I said, rolling my eyes, and then I mouthed the word, bitch, over my shoulder, so only she could see it.

  I knelt, taking both children in my arms.

  The smaller of the two, my niece Shelley, lifted her feet in the air as she hung on my left arm. Ben was excited to meet me too and wrapped both arms around me. With the weight of them both, I had to steady myself.

  ‘So, you must be Shelley and Ben. I’m excited to finally meet you guys. I’m your Aunt Emily.’

  ‘We know that already, silly woman,’ said Ben. He let go of me, pacing back and forth next to little Shelley, while making a high-pitched squeal that set my teeth on edge.

  His strange squealing didn’t surprise me much – Madeline had told me that he struggled with hyperactivity, and recently, a doctor had told her that he might be on the autism spectrum.

  Shelley was more subdued, and keen to stay in my arms. I stood back up on my feet, lifting the tiny girl onto my right hip, then shifting her to my left in an awkward pose. I was surprised at how heavy she felt. I’d held a baby once or twice, but I’d never held up a toddler with one arm like this. Again, I felt my eyes welling up, as I stared into the face of my sweet little niece. She had my sister’s pointy chin and big smile, but those eyes … those bright blue eyes matched mine. I swallowed down a lump in my throat, trying to hold the tears at bay. It felt so good meeting these children – these extensions of my sister and I – for the first time. Suddenly, it seemed so ridiculous that I had waited this long to be in their lives.

  ‘And your imaginary husband … did you make him up, too? Where is John this lovely evening?’ I teased, glancing over at my sister.

  Madeline’s bright red cheeks and toothy smile faded almost immediately. The worried look returned. I was half-expecting another stupid joke to follow, but when my sister pursed her lips and changed the subject, I knew something was wrong.

  ‘Let’s show Aunt Emily the bedrooms, shall we?’

  Shelley and Ben wanted to show me their rooms first, of course. Overcome with nostalgia, I let Ben give me the tour of his bedroom, the same room where my sister had slept when we were kids. The Debbie Gibson posters and purple speckled paint were gone, replaced by neat brown and blue wallpaper, pictures of boats and trains on the borders.

  ‘Mom’s going to let me paint it soon. I don’t want these baby pictures no more. I want Five Nights at Freddy’s covering my walls.’ Ben raced back and forth in front of his TV set, running the tips of his fingers along the wall. There was a clear wear pattern in the carpet where I suspected he paced a lot.

  ‘Do you know the game Five Nights at Freddy’s? Want to play it with me?’ Ben asked, his words loud and strung together.

  ‘He’s obsessed with it,’ Shelley whispered, squeezing her tiny hand in mine.

  Before I could answer Ben’s question, Madeline replied, ‘I’m sure Aunt Emily would love to, but not right now. We’re going to finish showing her around the house first.’ Ben made that high-pitched squeal again and saddled up to a laptop that set on his desk.

  We left him there, already focused intently on his game, while we moved on with the tour.

  Next was Shelley’s room. It was only one door down from Ben’s, but this room was smaller. This was the one I was most excited to see because Shelley’s room used to be mine.

  Expecting to see a huge change in décor, I was shocked to see the same pink plaster, with tiny unicorn paintings on its surface. I’d painted those unicorns myself when I was only eleven years old.

  ‘You didn’t paint over them…’ I reached out to touch one of the unicorns. With its blue-black eyes and a long golden horn, it was sneering in a way that now almost seemed grotesque.

  ‘Of course not,’ my sister said.

  ‘I thought Mom would kill me when she saw what I’d done,’ I whispered, still running my fingertips over the bumpy paint.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t. I knew she’d love your little masterpiece,’ Madeline said, quietly. I didn’t have to see her face to know there was a trace of resentment there.

  While she was always my father’s favorite, I was my mother’s baby. So, it was no surprise that when they split, we both took separate sides…

  You let her get away with everything! I could still hear my sister’s startling screams echoing through the hallway. She loved me to death when we were kids, but our teenage years were strained.

  The bedroom closet had white pocket doors that also looked the same. They were pushed halfway open, and without thinking, I reached for the handles, eager to see inside it.

  ‘I did paint over your stuff in the closet, though.’

  My hands froze on the handles. ‘I’m glad,’ I mumbled as I turned away from the closet.

  ‘I love your bedrooms!’ I was trying to be one of those perky aunts, with overdone enthusiasm, like the ones you read about in wholesome novels, but in truth, this whole situation felt awkward and strange. I wasn’t us
ed to being around kids, and even though I was thrilled to meet them, I couldn’t help feeling like an actress playing the part of ‘Aunty Em’. I should have come home when Ben was born, and then Shelley, and there were plenty of chances in between too – birthday parties, and the funeral – but I wasn’t ready to face this place, not yet, at least.

  ‘Shelley, why don’t you go play with Ben? Or take some of your dolls out of the trunk? Your aunt and I are going to have some coffee and a little chat. Please don’t fight with your brother. I would hate for Aunt Emily to see you guys get in trouble.’

  Ben had drifted back into the hallway and he was clinging to Madeline’s leg. ‘Go on now, you two.’ She gently nudged them. They galloped toward Ben’s room, pushing and shoving one another in a race to see who could get there first. I smiled at them, overcome by my own memories of sibling rivalry.

  Grateful to have a moment to speak alone with my sister, I followed her back down the hallway toward the kitchen. I hadn’t seen the rest of the house yet, and I was eager to see which bedroom Madeline had chosen for her and John, and which bedroom she’d put me up in for my stay.

  ‘The kids are beautiful. I wish I could have met them sooner,’ I said to her backside as she walked.

  As soon as we were back in the kitchen, she set to work pulling out coffee mugs and plugging in her Keurig machine.

  ‘John left me for another woman.’ Her back was still to me when she blurted out these words, and I saw her hunch down in a defeated posture.

  I took a seat at the table, flinching as the chair squealed loudly across the tile floors. I wasn’t sure what to say. I was shocked, to say the least.

  Mournfully, I watched my big sister glide around the kitchen, taking a package of cookies down from the cabinet and choosing a coffee blend for both of us.

  This was the thing about Madeline and me – we were comfortable in our silence together, even after all this time. I could tell her I was sorry and ask a million questions, but I knew she would tell me when she was ready.

  After the cookies and coffee were on the table, she told me, in a hushed whisper, that John had been having an affair.

  ‘Did you know?’

  Madeline shook her head. ‘I had no idea. He told me two Saturdays ago, out of the clear blue, that he was leaving me for his secretary. Her name is Starla. What kind of stupid name is that?’

  ‘Pretty freaking stupid,’ I agreed. ‘I’m so sorry. Have you filed for divorce?’

  She took a sip of her coffee, and said, ‘Not yet, but I’m going to. I haven’t even told the kids. I covered for his sorry ass. Told them he was going on a business trip for a while. I thought maybe he would change his mind … but he hasn’t even called or come by once since his little crude announcement.’

  ‘He hasn’t even come around to call on the kids?’ I was shocked. I didn’t know John well. Sure, he’d seemed pleasant at the wedding, but that didn’t mean much. I tried to remember what I knew about him but it wasn’t much. He was essentially a stranger to me. Madeline rarely talked about him in her texts. There was one time she called me … what was it that he said in the background? I couldn’t remember. He’d been irritated about something, shouting about one of the kids. But she’d always given the impression that things were good between them.

  Madeline shook her head in disgust. ‘He took a duffel bag of clothes and his bottle of cologne, and then told me he was staying at Starla’s for a while.’

  What an asshole, I thought, clenching my teeth as I thought about those sweet little kids and my sister struggling to work and take care of both of them.

  ‘What can I do? Tell me how I can help.’ I took her hand in mine, my jaw still tight with anger.

  ‘Well, I could use your emotional support, for one. But most of all … the kids go back to school next week. I need more time – time to figure out what I’m going to do. Time to plan my next move. Also, I have to sell this house, Em. I can’t afford the utilities or the property taxes, not on my income.’

  ‘But the mortgage is already paid for.’

  Madeline stuck up a hand to stop me. ‘I still can’t afford it. Well, I could if…’

  ‘If…?’ I pressed.

  ‘If I had a roommate. Or, I was thinking I could open it up again, like Grandma and Grandpa used to do…’

  My heart filled with dread as I realized what she was asking.

  ‘I can’t move back here. I can’t. There are too many bad memories here, Madi, you know that…’

  ‘But there are good memories, too, aren’t there?’

  I nodded slightly, unsure if there really were…

  My sister’s eyes were filmy again. She was staring at an old-fashioned cat clock on the wall. Following her gaze, I suddenly realized that it was the same one that had always hung there. You can never go home again – those words pinged around my head like ping pong balls, but I quickly shook them off.

  ‘I can stay for a while. I’ll need an internet connection for work.’

  ‘Already have one,’ my sister gushed. Her face was red and cheery again, like a heavy load had just been lifted from her shoulders. I didn’t want to get her hopes up too much – I couldn’t stay that long.

  ‘Thank you, Em. I knew I could count on you.’ My sister threw her arms around me for the second time today, nearly knocking over the coffee between us in the process.

  I rested my chin on her shoulder, staring out the kitchen window behind her. The sun shone brightly again, and through the trees, I could see a sparkle of water glistening between them. Those woods held nothing but horror for me, memories of the time I got hurt out there circling back for the first time in years…

  Even though I was sitting here now, doing the right thing, I wanted to grab my own duffel bag and run from this place.

  Maybe the saying means you can go home, you just shouldn’t.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The night trickled into the early morning hours, my sister and I chatting on the couch in the den. We chatted for hours after the kids went to bed, about John, about my lackluster love life. My sister asked me questions about work and college. Has your life turned out the way you thought it would?

  It was strange how even after all this time, and distance, things between us felt the same. My sister was the only person who could pluck a thought, just like that, from my brain. The night had taken on a dreamlike quality, the wine she kept pouring making me fuzzy and strange.

  By the time I stumbled back out to the car to retrieve my bag, I was overcome with sleepiness. The long drive to Bare Border and the hours of catching up had gone straight to my head. A rush of wind ripped through the trees surrounding the property, creating a thousand tiny whispers in the night air…

  Like a timid child, I yanked my bag out of the trunk and ran back inside with my head tucked down to my chest.

  Madeline was waiting for me in the doorway. She looked tired too, and she pointed down the east hallway as she rubbed sleep from her eyes.

  ‘I put you up in the guest room. The Mello Yellow Room.’

  I nearly choked when she said that – either from tears or laughter, I didn’t know. I’d forgotten we called it that because it was so yellow, like our favorite citrusy drink when we were kids. Mom had painted the room herself, and she’d chosen this god-awful mustard-colored paint that gave the room its name today.

  Well, it’s my sewing room. So, it doesn’t matter if you girls like it or not, my mother had huffed. She would sit back there for hours some days, her posture perfect and stiff as the machine whirred and droned out its own methodical beat.

  There was a pang in my chest as I dragged my bulky bag down the dark hallway, which was on the other side of the house as Madeline and the kids.

  With the kids asleep and my talk with Madeline over, the house resumed its crypt-like silence. The door to the old sewing room creaked open and I felt around for a light switch.

  When the lights popped on, I gasped. Mello-Yellow was no more; the walls had b
een repainted a soft petal pink.

  As I tossed my heavy bag on the full-sized bed in the middle of the room, my chest thickened with fury. How could you, Madeline?

  The room was mostly bare. It was obvious that it was rarely used anymore.

  Besides the bed, there were a small heart-shaped nightstand and a stout chest of drawers in the corner. I walked around the room, eyeing the pale pink walls.

  My mother had painted this room yellow. With her own hands.

  Now she was dead, and her hands would never create, paint, cook, sew, or hold me again.

  And you just had to paint over it, didn’t you, Madi?

  It had been a long time since I’d felt this sort of anger toward my sister. I’d nearly forgotten how easy it was to dislike her sometimes…

  It was now, in this moment, that I realized I’d never gotten over the fact that it was her and Dad on one side, and Mom and I on the other. After twenty-five years of marriage, Mom had found out he was cheating. Instead of kicking my father out of the house that they had raised their children in, she had packed up her own belongings and left town. Madeline and I were adults by then, but still – their divorce had shaken me to the core. I was furious with my father; I wouldn’t even speak to him for months. But my sister, on the other hand, shamelessly defended his actions.

  He deserves to be happy. You know he’s never been happy with her, Emily! This is good for both of them, don’t you see that? My sister tried to reason with me, but she always made it sound like Dad was doing Mom a favor by cheating on her, or that Mom was somehow responsible for his misdeeds. She took his side and I took Mom’s. We drew our lines in the sand and tossed handfuls of nasty words across the middle…

  But it turned out Mom didn’t need me to defend her because six months after moving into her own apartment, she suffered a massive heart attack. I would never say this to my sister, but I’m certain she died of a broken heart. Losing my father killed her – literally. And even though, deep down, I knew it was completely irrational, I blamed that man for her death. I blame him still.