CHAPTER ONE
FOUR YEARS EARLIER
Tossing and turning and trying not to remember. That was what she was doing. Tryingnotto remember.
But she remembered every second. And it overtook her the way a flood overtakes a dam. It happened over two decades ago. But it felt as if it happened yesterday.
The silence of her mother. That was what she remembered most. How silent her mother had become. She thought she was asleep, but she wasn’t. She was just quiet. Even when they were going at it full blast, their mother didn’t say a word. She just sat there, hands in her lap, like she had disassociated herself from them. As if she was so tired of the dysfunction that she didn’t care anymore.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t go. I said I should go because I’m older than you.”
“But she’s my friend, not yours.”
“Alright Maudetta. Alright Jalene.” Their father glanced at them through the rearview mirror. “You two had better stop that bickering and I mean right now. Nobody wants to hear all of that noise!”
“But Daddy,” Maudetta responded, pleading her case, “she’s my friend.”
“She’s my friend too.”
“But she was my friend first,” Maudetta said to her older sister. Then she looked at their father, still pleading. “Jalene’s always taking what’s mine and that’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair,” their father said, looking through that rearview mirror again. “Get used to it child. Now shut up!”
They knew when their father was on the edge, so they shut up.
It was a rainy night in Georgia as they left their aunt’s wedding to head back home to Delaware. By the time the bickering erupted again, over that same upcoming sleepover, they’d been on the highway for nearly five hours. It was three in the morning. Their mother was on the front passenger seat, and still as quiet as a lamb. Maudetta and her older sister Jalene were on the backseat restless because of how long it was taking and how long they still had to go. And because they both desperately wanted to go to Alfreda’s sleepover, they weren’t giving an inch. But Alfreda’s mother had already said there was only room for one of them because of all the other girls attending. And she left it up to the sisters to decide which one it was going to be.
But their father was so over it that he was getting more and more belligerent. “If you two keep on,” he said, “I’m gonna pull over to the side of this road and show you what I’m telling you. Now shut up!”
Jalene was eight years old, two years older than her sister, and she knew how to play to their father’s affections far better than her younger sister ever could. “I’m so sorry, Daddy,” she said. “I’ll be quiet. I don’t know about Detta, but I’ll be quiet. It won’t happen again.”
“So that means I get to go to the sleepover then?” Maudetta asked her sister. Jalene might have been more polished when it came to manipulating their parents, but Maudetta was by far the smarter one. “I’m asking,” she added, “since only one of us can go.”
“And I’m the one going,” Jalene said.
“No you’re not,” said Maudetta.
“Yes I am.”
“But she was my friend first.”
“And she’s my friend last.”
“But that’s not fair,” Maudetta said again.
Their father, by now so angry that he could hardly contain his rage, twisted his slender body toward that backseat, took his big hand and slapped his younger daughter. “Didn’t I tell you to shut the fuck up, Detta?! Didn’t I tell you to--”
“Daddy?Daddy?DADDY!”
It was a bloodcurdling scream from the top of Jalene’s lungs.
When their father turned back around, he realized that he had forgotten that he was driving. Their car was now kicking up dirt as it sped across the medium heading straight for oncoming traffic.
“Daddy, do something!” Maudetta screamed as her father flung the steering wheel to his right in a panicked overcorrection that flipped their car so many times that when they finally landed upright, they ended up back on the highway they had left and slammed into the guardrail.
But that violent hit to the guardrail didn’t stop them in their tracks, but it caused them to spinout with such velocity that cars were slamming on brakes and swerving wildly to avoid a collision.
For many cars, it worked. But they were still hit by several other cars and began to spin out even more.
