“No he doesn’t, because Patches can’t talk.”
“But he does. Momma says he’s getting old because of all the white on his face now, and old people like kids to sing to them. Ms. Agnes asks me to sing for her all the time.”
I had an argument ready for the first part, but when she puts it like that…well, she’s right. I guess there’s no harm in letting her sing for a little bit.
Besides, I’d rather listen to her than what’s in my head right now.
Scene 2
Sullivan, Age 17
“Go back to your room.” My eyes have long since adjusted to the darkness, but I don’t even have to turn around from facing the wall to know who’s sneaking in my room tonight.
“Why are you so grumpy?” Emmaline huffs. “And I always sleep here with you when I have a nightmare.”
Funny how her nightmares always seem to happen the same time as mine. I wonder if she’d still have any if she didn’t hear me through the wall we share. I leave her first question alone and answer the second. “That’s before you had a birthday today. Now you’re getting too old to do it. It’s not proper.”
“But you’re my brother.”
I roll over and brace my elbow onto the hard floor just in time to see the shadow of her foot knee-high on the wall. Is she seriously about to stamp it to make her point? “I’m about to be eighteen, and you’ve got to grow up sometime.Come on, Emma…do you think you’re gonna still do this when you’re married?”
“You still have six months before your birthday, so that doesn’t even matter. Besides,” she says with a sniff. “I’m never getting married. Especially not to any boys around here.”
Her disgust is a relief to me. All these boys are pieces of shit and none of them are good enough for her. Apparently taking my silence for acceptance, she smiles triumphantly and drags her blanket over beside me.
“Nope.” I block the way and try not to notice her hurt feelings, evidenced by her quick intake of breath. “From here on out, you have to sleep in the bed.”
Emma blinks, and her pupils look so big and dark in the moonlight. “But why?”
“Because I said so.” It’s not like I can tell her the real reason. It’s different now, and has been for a while. Patches isn’t here anymore to be a barrier between us, and it just doesn’t feel right for her to be so close. I can’t stop the random hard-ons in my sleep, and since I never know when one’s going to happen, the last thing I need is to accidentally get hard around my little sister. That’d be fucking embarrassing. Besides, at least I know nothing will ever happen to her when she’s in my bed.
“And you’re still gonna stay there on the floor?”
“Yep.” I settle back into my spot. I’ll have a sore back in the morning, but better a sore back than making my family suffer through one of my black moods. It’s not their fault I can’t make myself better.
“But why?” Her arms cross. “The bed’s right here and much better.” When I don’t offer anything more, she rolls her eyes and flounces over to the bed. “Fiiine.”
And just like all the times before, I know there’s onlygonna be about two minutes of silence before the singing starts up. For someone who isn’t Pa’s kid by blood, she sure enough takes after him with all the singing they both do. So does our little sister Cecily. Momma’s just happy that she didn’t take to Charlotte LaRue like Emma did.
“No singing.” My demand is half-hearted, and we both know it. It wouldn’t be the same if she didn’t sing for at least five minutes.
She ignores me and serenades me with some silly tune about a goose and a fish, something she probably made up then and there. I close my eyes and resist a chuckle at the nonsensical story she creates.
As I’ve gotten older, I remember more and more about the cabin where I was with stupid fucking Blackwood when he brought her and Momma there. I remember holding my hands over her ears and singing to her so she wouldn’t wake up and hear the bad things happening around her.
Maybe some part of her remembers me doing that to comfort her.
And maybe, just maybe, her songs aren’t for herself.
Maybe they’re for me.
Scene 3
Emmaline, Age 18
“I wanna go fishing, too,” eleven year old Cecily complains. I don’t blame her. Now that Sullivan’s home from his last trip for a few days, we all want to spend time with him.
Me more than most, because when he disappears for days on end, I worry that this might be the time he leaves for good. He’s always been unsettled, but it’s been worse lately.And maybe if it’s just the two of us who go fishing today, I can finally get him to talk to me.
