Tomorrow River

on to mine and said, “Where’s your sister? I’ve got something important to tell-”

I didn’t even let her finish her sentence. I ran off. Woody and I looked forward to watching that Oddities show all year long. I saw Mama searching for us later in the night, probably to apologize, but I stayed far away as possible, that’s how mad I was that she wouldn’t give us that admission money.

Opening up the medicine chest, I remove a bottle of pills. There’s a few left.

Papa shook this exact bottle and told me one morning in the kitchen, “These will help Mother feel calmer.”

“Really?” I asked because I thought that would be miraculously wonderful. Maybe then she’d stop screaming at Papa and he’d stop screaming at her and they could go back to the way they used to be. Enthralled. Not giving each other the cold shoulder one minute and being boiling mad the next. So it was with excitement that I watched Papa crush the relaxing pill with the back of a spoon and stir it into Mama’s favorite teacup along with her cream and two sugars. That went according to plan, for a while anyway. Our mother definitely had less fight in her. She took to her bed most afternoons. Until the day she found out what he’d done. I will never know how for sure, but I suspect Woody might’ve told her. There was a horrendous to-do.

Mama threw the teacup on the kitchen floor and it broke into pieces. She whimpered, “You’re doing this because I quit the Ladies Auxiliary.”

“My grandmother founded the club. And my mama was president for how many years? What is so wrong with a wife obtaining worth in serving the needs of her husband and home? What’s gotten into you?” Papa hollered.

“Oh, Walt. What’s gotten into you? You’re trying to snuff out my spirit the same way your father has yours,” she said, looking at him the same way Jesus is looking at Judas Escariot in our picture Bible.

Papa scoffed, “Nonsense. I’m giving you the pills for your own good. Isn’t that right, Shenandoah?”

I didn’t pause, didn’t even consider not agreeing with him. I said, “That’s right, sir.”

Remembering that argument, I pocket the pill bottle and rush out of his bathroom. “I’m doing this for your own good” is the exact same thing Papa shouts over Woody’s and my root cellar crying.

I come to a stop in front of our bedroom door, set my face against the shiny wood, and call to my sister, “This cleaning shouldn’t take me much longer. Soon as I’m done, I’ll come back and sing you something from South Pacific, all right?”

I want so badly to picture my once-lively twin jumping up and down on the bed the way she used to, clapping her hands and squealing, “South Pacific? That’s Mama’s and my favorite album!” But try as I might, all I can see in my mind is Woody the way I left her. Lying still on the quilt, barely moving. The goodness knocked right out of her.

Chapter Nine

You know how I’m beginning to feel?

Like a piece of saltwater taffy getting pulled this way and that. Stretched to my absolute limit.

If my mother was here, I could whine to her-“Tell me what to do next. I’m so mixed up.”

But she’s not here. Even if she was, my asking for help wouldn’t do me a bit of good. I can hear in my head her certain reply. “Shenny, I can’t tell you how to solve problems. You need to find your own answers. It’s important that you grow up to be a strong woman,” she’d say like she was imparting some kind of sacred knowledge. “An independent thinker doesn’t rely on others.”

I’d shout back at her, “And to thine own self be true, right? You sound like one of your record albums. A broken one.” I’d be spitting mad. “Ya know what I think? ‘The lady doth protest too much!’” because really, she was being such a hypocrite. Papa always tells her and the rest of us what to do. After one of our spats, I’d storm off, spend the rest of the day fuming up in the fort about what a bad mother she was and how pathetic people from the North are. And Shakespeare-he was an idiot, too. I’d thumb my nose at the pecan fudge she’d bring out, sneer at the heart she’d scratched on top. I’d wait for my father’s car to wind up the drive after a day at the courthouse, scramble down the fort steps and leap into his arms, so relieved to get whatever problem I was having out of my head into his much wiser one.

But counting on Papa to provide me with a solution to my confusion is no longer possible. His socks don’t even match.

What to do? What to do? A quote Mama made me learn by heart, one that she thought might help me when I was troubled about this thing or that comes swooping into my mind:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?

That’s right. I can’t just sit around and get shot in the heart by outrageous fortune. I need to dive in head- first.

I’ll start off by getting another scarf of Mama’s to soothe Woody.

I also have to fulfill my promise to our good friend Sam Moody. He’s been asking me if I found a note since the night Mama vanished. I thought he was wondering if Papa had received a ransom note. Sam has a lot of big city police experience. If he had been in charge of finding her instead of imbecilic Sheriff Nash, I bet former Detective Moody would’ve been asking everybody the day after Mama disappeared: Did you notice anybody at the carnival lurking around with a blindfold and a gunny sack? Did you see anybody suspicious drag Miz Carmody off into the bushes?

Her being absconded with seemed so right that I gathered up my courage and went straight to Papa, asked him, “Sir? Did you by any chance happen to receive a ransom note?”

I took his swooning as a no.

Sam got a little teary when I reported that back to him. He told me, “I wasn’t talking about a ransom note, Shenny. Keep looking.”

There’s only one place where I might find all three things. The scarf for Woody, Sam’s note, and something that would mean the world to all of us. A hint to Mama’s present location. There might be something in her diary.

Only here’s what Mr. Shakespeare called “the rub.” I have been forbidden to enter their bedroom under any circumstances.

So which of my thine selves am I supposed to be true to exactly? Shen, the good sister? Shen, the loyal friend? Or Shen, the obedient daughter?

If my mother was here, what would she tell me to do? She wouldn’t. She would probably quote Shakespeare again. Yes.

To sleep, perchance to dream.

Well, that seems clear enough.

I don’t know where His Honor is right this minute, but I’m fairly certain he’s not in here. I’d hear him snoring or yelling out in his sleep if he was. I rap my knuckles against the sturdy oak door. Once. Twice. “Sir?” Cracking it open an inch, I barely say, “Your Honor?”

I haven’t been in here in the longest time.

Except for a shard of sunshine cutting through the wine velvet curtains, I can’t see real good, but well enough to tell that their four-poster bed is empty. Socks and shirts are spread across the wood floor and there’s a smell of crusty food and, just for a second, Chanel No. 5.

Oh, Mama.

You know how you come across something? Like a ticket stub from a movie you really liked or a four-leaf clover that you pressed between wax paper so you would be able to feel lucky any old time you wanted to? But to your surprise, when you dig them up, instead of making you have a happy memory, those parcels from the past get you filled to the brim with so much wanting for something that you might never have again. That’s how I’m feeling, just like that.

Our mother placed the family pictures on the wall across from their bed so she could look at them before she