Gayla returned with my coffee and a banana wedged awkwardly in a bowl. As she exited, Amma entered, like two players in a drawing-room farce. She kissed my mother on the cheek, greeted Alan, and sat across from me. Kicked me once under the table and laughed.
“I’m sorry you had to see me that way, Camille,” Amma said. “Especially since we don’t really know each other. I’m just going through a stage.” She flashed an overdone smile. “But now we’re reunited. You’re like poor Cinderella, and I’m the evil stepsister. Half sister.”
“There’s not a speck of evil in you, sweetheart,” Alan said.
“But Camille was the first. First is usually best. Now that she’s back, will you love Camille more than me?” asked Amma. She started the question teasingly, but her cheeks were flushed as she waited for my mother to respond.
“No,” Adora said quietly. Gayla set a plate of ham in front of Amma, who poured honey on it in lacy circles.
“Because you love
“Amma, don’t say such a thing,” my mother said, blanching. Her fingers fluttered to her eyelashes, then back determinedly down on the table.
“Then I’d never have to worry again. When you die, you become perfect. I’d be like Princess Diana. Everyone loves her now.”
“You are the most popular girl in your whole school, and at home you are adored, Amma. Don’t be greedy.”
Amma kicked me again under the table and smiled emphatically, as if some important matter had been settled. She swung a corner of the garment she was wearing over her shoulder, and I realized what I’d thought was a housedress was a cleverly wrapped blue sheet. My mother noticed, too.
“What in the world are you wearing, Amma?”
“It’s my maiden cloak. I’m going to the forest to play Joan of Arc. The girls will burn me.”
“You’ll do no such thing, darling,” my mother snapped, grabbing the honey from Amma, who was about to soak her ham further. “Two girls your age are dead, and you think you’re going to the forest to play?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.” Amma smiled in a cloying exaggeration.
“You’ll stay here.”
Amma stabbed at her ham and muttered something nasty. My mother turned to me with her head cocked, the diamond on her wedding finger flashing in my eyes like an SOS.
“Now, Camille, can we at least do something pleasant while you’re here?” she asked. “We could have a picnic in the backyard. Or we could take out the convertible, go for a drive, maybe play some golf over in Woodberry. Gayla, bring me some iced tea, please.”
“That all sounds nice. I just need to figure out how much longer I’m here for.”
“Yes, that’d be nice for us to know also. Not that you’re not welcome to stay as long as you want,” she said. “But it would be nice for us to know, so we could make our own plans.”
“Sure.” I took a bite of the banana, which tasted like pale green nothing.
“Or maybe Alan and I can come up there sometime this year. We’ve never really seen Chicago.” My hospital was ninety minutes south of the city. My mother flew into O’Hare and had a taxi drive her. It cost $128, $140 with tip.
“That’d be good, too. We have some great museums. You’d love the lake.”
“I don’t know that I can enjoy any kind of water anymore.”
“Why not?” I already knew.
“After that little girl, little Ann Nash, was left in the creek to drown.” She paused to take a sip of her iced tea. “I knew her, you know.”
Amma whined and began fidgeting in her seat.
“She wasn’t drowned though,” I said, knowing my correction would annoy her. “She was strangled. She just ended up in the creek.”
“And then the Keene girl. I was fond of both of them. Very fond.” She stared away wistfully, and Alan put his hand over hers. Amma stood up, released a little scream the way an excited puppy might suddenly bark, and ran upstairs.
“Poor thing,” my mother said. “She’s having nearly as hard a time as I am.”
“She actually saw the girls every day, so I’m sure she is,” I said peevishly in spite of myself. “How did you know them?”
“Wind Gap, I need not remind you, is a small town. They were sweet, beautiful little girls. Just beautiful.”
“But you didn’t really know them.”
“I did know them. I knew them well.”
“How?”
“Camille, please try not to do this. I’ve just told you that I am upset and unnerved, and instead of being comforting, you attack me.”
