Tomorrow River

the Oddities Show but she was taking a ride on the merry-go-round with our friend Sam Moody. He was straddling a white horse and Mama was a few rows back in a swan. They should’ve been smiling, but they looked like they’d just lost their best friend. Good, I thought, I’m glad they’re sad, because I was still feeling so het up about Woody and me having to crawl under the tent to see the freak show like some poor children.

When that merry-go-round memory came back to me up in the fort that night, I didn’t even bother pulling on my sneakers, just a balled-up shirt and shorts. I reached for my flashlight and hissed at Woody as I undid the get- down hatch, “You’re actin’ like Sarah Heartburn, but since it looks like you’re gonna go on and on and not let me get a minute’s sleep until I do so, I’ll go look for Mama. She’s gotta be around here somewhere.”

My sister tried to stop me, but I shook her off. I didn’t let on to her, but all of a sudden it seemed possible that Papa wasn’t talking from out of the bottom of a bottle. Maybe our mother really wasn’t where she was supposed to be. What if she and Sam, neither one of them being gregarious of personality, had gotten off the ride and made their way back to his cabin to finish discussing their book of the week in peace and quiet? What if when they got done conversing, Mama dozed off? Realizing how world-coming-to-an-end horrible that would be, I told Woody, “If Papa comes back, do not leave this fort no matter how much he begs, ya hear me?”

I slid down the fort steps and charged barefoot through the front woods all the way over to the Triple S. Hopping up Sam’s cabin steps, I waved my flashlight the full length of the porch, but did not see my mother sprawled out in the swing. She might be inside, I thought. Sam had that table fan and it was so sticky that night. I pounded my fists on the front door.

Sam called out, “Who’s there?”

“It’s me.”

He opened the door sweaty and with a shotgun. “Shenny? Where’s Woody?” Sam looked out over my head into the darkness.

“Is Mama here?” I dived straight into explaining what’d happened back in the clearing. By the time I got done telling him about Papa yelling about his wife being gone and Mars yelping and Woody weeping, I was crying some, too.

“Your mother,” Sam said. “Did she say anything to you earlier in the evening? Did she leave you a note?” His scared was making my scared even worse.

“I… I don’t know nothin’ about that.” I backed away. “If Mama should show up, would you make her come home as fast as she can? Tell her that His Honor… that… he’s very disappointed,” I said, and took off.

I was in the middle of the station lot when Sam called out, “Be careful.”

Those warning words made goose bumps rise up on my arms, because I immediately understood that Sam didn’t mean to be careful like I should watch out for reckless drivers when I crossed over the road or shouldn’t let any branches scratch my face on my way back home through the woods. He was warning me to be careful like-be full of care. I will never forget it. The way the neon of his station sign washed my arms red, the dog barking up the road, my heart that had galloped up to my throat. That steamy night is when I realized that Sam knew. That Mama must’ve told him private family business. I still don’t know how much she divulged, but what would possess her to go skating on thin ice like that?

“Shenandoah,” Papa says now, getting me by the upper arms. “Are you sure you’ve told me everything about that night?”

I put on my best poker face. “Yes, sir. Like always. Everything I can remember. I swear.”

He never believes me. And he shouldn’t. Because I always leave out a few details, including the part about me running off to Sam’s cabin in hopes of finding our mother there. No matter what Papa does to me, I can’t tell him about Sam and Mama’s friendship. My sister and I swore on each other’s lives that we would never say anything to anybody.

“Your sister?” Papa says, terser. “Has she told you anything?”

My poor grieving father, he’s so out of touch. “You do remember that she doesn’t talk anymore, don’t you?”

He draws his arm back. “Are you mocking me?”

“No… no… I was just trying to…” I close my eyes, ready to feel the sting on my cheek.

The last time he cross-examined me like this he ended up loosening one of my molars. He didn’t mean to.

“Open your eyes.” He has come so close that he’s about pressing his lips against mine.

I turn away from his overpowering bourbon breath just in time to see my twin through a crack in the red velvet bedroom curtains. It’s like watching a scene out of a matinee movie. Woody’s sprinting across the yard like a heroine getting chased by an invisible villain.

Thinking fast, I jiggle from foot to foot and point across the hall. “Your Honor… I apologize, but… I can’t answer any more of your questions right this minute. There’s an urgent matter I need to attend to. May I be excused to use the little girls’ room?”

He draws back, looks at me like I have suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “I… I’m… of course you can, I didn’t-” Papa collapses back onto the bed. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s right, that’s all right,” I tell him.

This has been going on for some time now. One minute he’s stormy, the next minute my calm papa. Mercurial is what he’s become. “Why don’t you take a lie down?” I rake my fingers through his tangled hair. “I’ll come back later and if you want, I’ll shampoo you with that Castile soap you like so much and get out your razor. We really must tidy up,” I say, baby-stepping backwards and hoping with my whole heart that he does not take his head out of his hands. If he should look up, he’ll see Woody through the window.

She cannot take another night of kneeling. She just can’t.

Chapter Eleven

My sister has been running off for months.

I wasn’t all that concerned at first. I thought she was just needing a change of scenery, you know? That she was feeling as cooped up as I was in the jail that Lilyfield’s become. Only recently have I begun to realize that her escaping is more in line with what Miss Emily Dickinson described when she wrote, “A wounded deer leaps highest.”

When my mother quoted that to me the first time, I asked her what it was supposed to mean because it didn’t make sense. If an animal is hurt, they’re more apt to curl up in a ball and lick their wounds, not go jumping all over the place. Mama told me that what Miss Dickinson meant was, “The worse something hurts inside us, Shen, the harder we try to get away from it.”

I have got to break into the secondhand shop to get her another of Mama’s scarves. Woody can use it like a bandage. She’s going to need it after I get done tearing her limb from limb.

“Would you quit chasin’ that chicken and get over here,” I shout to the other side of the creek, which hasn’t settled down at all since we crossed it this morning. If anything, it’s gotten itself more worked up. It’s practically rabid. Looks like there’s a storm coming.

“What’s wrong?” E. J. drops his ax and hollers back.

“She bolted!”

He comes barreling down the slope and across the stepping stones, skipping every other one. “How’d she get by you?” he says, arriving breathless at my side.

Neither one of us will forget that horrible day she got away and we looked and looked and it grew dark and we never found her. E. J. and I had to run over to the Jacksons’ cottage to ask for help, but wouldn’t you know it, right after I’d told Mr. Cole in tears, “Woody’s missing. You better go get the sheriff,” my twin came into the yard, looking bedraggled with her shoulder messed up. Mr. Cole took one look at her and said, “Her arm’s hangin’ odd.” Real fast, he took her wrist in his hands and he relocated those bones back into place. I screamed my head off at the sound, but my sister barely flinched and that got to me most of all.

“Did she shimmy down the trellis again?” E. J. asks.

“She musta.”