LITMIR.BIZ

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words came out strangled through his clenched teeth.

      ‘Now,’ he repeated, stomping his foot as he turned back toward the woods. Shelley hunkered down, looking as though she might cry.

      ‘It’s okay. We can come back later. We’ll play pretend inside,’ Shelley tried to coax her brother. Ben rocked back and forth, finally dropping down to the ground.

      ‘But Mommy takes me every day,’ he moaned, anxiously rubbing his own cheeks until they looked red and splotchy.

      ‘I’ll bring you later, I promise. I just … not right now, okay? I want to go inside and wait for your mom.’

      ‘I’m staying here,’ Ben huffed. He crossed his arms over his chest.

      What am I going to do with this kid? My eyes travelled back to the woods. The path looked normal now, just a dirt-trodden trail I’d followed a million times as a kid, but as I considered going, the path turned wavy again.

      I need to get inside now. As I bent down to pick up Ben, I forgot about that whole ‘lift with your knees’ bit. Lifting him from the ground, I let out a painful groan. To make matters worse, he started to kick and twist in my arms.

      ‘No! I’m staying out here!’ He threw his head back, nearly slamming against my teeth as I whipped my own head back to get out of his way. I trudged back up the hill, Shelley in my shadow and Ben flopping doggedly in my arms.

      Back inside, I released him from my arms, panting. Worried he might try to run back out, I collapsed on the living room carpet beside him. Shelley sat down too, giving herself distance from Ben.

      ‘I’m sorry if I disappointed you. I know your mommy and you have a routine. But, when I was a kid, I fell down and hurt my head in those woods. Now, every time I think about going down there, I get really sick and nervous. Do you know what it feels like to be nervous, Ben?’

      Ben looked exhausted now, curling up in a ball on the floor. The tantrum had sucked the life right out of both of us. I need Madi here to help me, I thought, dejectedly.

      ‘I get nervous a lot,’ Ben whispered. He surprised me by scooting close to me, and the next thing I knew, he was curled up on my lap.

      ***

      We ate dinner at the table. Noodles again. My sister didn’t come home, and she didn’t call back either.

      Ben loved the noodles, although by the time he was finished, there was more pasta covering his lap and chair, than he could have possibly consumed. Shelley, on the other hand, was nice and neat, wiping her mouth more than necessary, and tucking her napkin onto her lap like a fancy lady. They couldn’t be any more different from each other, but they were hooked at the hip, despite their age difference.

      Ben seemed fine now, the temper tantrum temporarily forgotten. What will happen tomorrow when he wants to go again? I wondered. But then I thought, Madeline will be back by then. I’ll let her take him.

      After dinner, I gave them both a bath. They insisted on taking one together, assuring me that it was okay, and they always did that. It felt strange, being around children like this, and being the one in charge. I couldn’t help feeling as though I was one of them, just playing the part of grown-up in our own made-up play.

      Ben and Shelley didn’t wash much; they splashed around, squirting each other with green and pink rubber duckies, until the other screamed and got mad. By the time they were through, the tile floor in the bathroom was covered with a thin coat of water. I sighed, drying up the floor before lifting their bodies, like slippery noodles, out of the tub. Madi and I used to be the same way, fighting constantly but loving every minute of it. My heart ached as I thought about my sister – where in the hell was she?

      My anger and frustration were becoming something else – concern. Why would Madi leave without telling me? Did she go talk to John, did they get into a fight?

      Again, I realized that I barely knew him. Hell, I barely know her anymore. We’d been close when we were kids, but whatever sort of bond we’d once had had come untethered over the years. When your relationship consists mostly of monthly texts and Facebook updates, it loses its fortitude.

      I tucked the kids into bed around ten o’clock. Shelley wanted to watch Elmo on her Tinkerbell TV set, but Ben insisted on me reading to him. I turned the DVD on for Shelley, and then I chose a book from one of the bookshelves in the family room for Ben. It was a tattered, old book called Where’s Goldie? The fading sticker on the front said it cost only sixty-nine cents. Sure enough, when I opened the cover, I found my own name inside, scrawled in sloppy cursive.

      Peering at the shelves, I realized most of the books were either mine or Mom’s. I used to be territorial with my books. Well, I still was, actually, but back then, I used to scribble my name on everything. I took the book back to Ben’s room, relieved to see that Shelley was already asleep as I passed by. The tune to Elmo’s World rang out through the speakers.

      Ben was pleased with my book choice and bragged that he always knew where to find Goldie, the naughty little yellow bird that hid from her perpetually perplexed owner, Maggie.

      I had to do three full read-throughs before he even closed his eyes. I lay beside him for nearly a half hour, listening to the sounds of his soft breathing, like the purr of a happy cat. That tantrum today had sucked the life out of me, but Ben seemed perfectly fine now.

      I listened for sounds outside, hoping I’d hear the Jeep pulling up in the driveway. My stomach churned as I realized I was alone again. With the kids asleep and Madi gone, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Something was wrong, I could feel it.

      I might not know my sister as well as I once did, but she still wouldn’t leave me, of all people, in charge of her kids without saying something first.

      Finally, I pushed myself out of bed, careful not to wake up Ben. I crept down the hallway, and walked through the house, turning off excess lights. Back in the living room, I flipped on the porch light for Madeline. All those late nights I’d waited up for her, so eager to hear stories about her night – parties with alcohol and boys who knew how to kiss … it wasn’t until later, in our twenties, that she confessed her stories weren’t true. Some of them, yes. But mostly, they were embellished. She wanted to impress me, but more than anything, she wanted the stories to be true. As a teenager, Madi could be a liar and a fantasist sometimes. Was that what was going on now? Would she show up at the door, like she did all those years ago, with some wild story to explain her absence today?

      Sitting down in her office chair, I spun around in circles, feeling childish. I held my phone in my lap, staring down at the blank screen. My landlord had left a voicemail earlier, but I didn’t feel like hearing his wheezy voice right now.

      I thought about calling my sister again, but then I thought better of it. I was acting like one of those babysitters that call every twenty minutes and ruin the parents’ night out.

      But I’m not the babysitter. She didn’t even ask me to watch them. For the first time all day, I wondered if I should be seriously worried. If I should perhaps phone the police.

      I considered the possibility that something really was wrong, some sort of desperate emergency. But I knew it wasn’t family related – Mom and Dad were both dead, the few aunts and cousins we had lived thousands of miles away, and we barely spoke to them anyway.

      It must be something to do with John, I decided. But what if she got into an accident or got hurt somehow…?

      Slowly, I strolled up and down the hallway, looking at our family photographs. Last night, it’d been too dark to see them all, but now the hall was lit, old photographs of my mother and father illuminated on its walls. There were so many pictures of the four of us – Mom, Dad, Madeline, and I. There were a couple of our grandparents, too, and toward the end of the stretch were pictures of my sister and John, and baby pictures of Shelley and Ben.

      In their wedding photo, John and Madeline

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