Page 2 of We Already Dug the Grave

Just that single word. Hush.

I dressed, brushed my teeth, and sat at the table, eating my heart-shaped pancakes. At 7:15, Frances and I hugged Mama goodbye while Daddy started the car.

Mama’s arms wrapped around me, and the memory of the banging door, the muffled drowning, flooded back. Heavy. Cold. Loud. So loud.

“I want to stay home,” I whispered into her neck.

“I know, baby.” Mama pressed her palm against my cheek. “But you can’t. Not today.”

“Please, Mama.” Tears sprang to my eyes, but it was okay, because Daddy was already outside in the car. “My stomach hurts.”

“I know. But you’ll be okay.” Mama stood, her eyes darting away from me. “And you’ll make sure your little sister is too. You’re a good girl, Milly.”

From the driveway, the car horn beeped. Frances grabbed her Minnie Mouse lunchbox from the counter. “Bye, Mama,” she called as she walked out the front door.

Mama nudged me to follow her. “Everything’s going to be fine. Now go on. Don’t keep Daddy waiting.”

Sometimes when I think about that last hug, Mama kneeling with her arms around me in the kitchen, I imagine that she held on to me a little longer than usual.

But I’m not sure.

* * *

My life changed forever later that afternoon.

Summoned over the intercom during lunch hour, I marched toward the office to find my sister sitting on the bench outside the office doors, staring down at her feet that swung like pendulums on toothpick legs. “Frances?” I smoothed back the blond flyaways that had escaped her ponytail. “What’s going on?”

She bit her bottom lip and shrugged. My gaze went from my sister to the office door and back.

“Stay here.” I slung my book bag to the ground and stomped into the office, where our school secretary, Ms. Loeb, stood behind her desk. Only, Ms. Loeb didn’t wear the quick smile she gave all the students. Instead, her mascara trailed down her cheeks. The inky tracks fanned across her face like the map of tributaries I’d been forced to study in science class.

Mr. Jansen, the headmaster, pulled his lips into a fake smile when he saw me, which, I knew, meant something was wrong. That wrongness catapulted me into the memory of last night: the cold in my hand, the bang in my ears. And the pancakes this morning.

Then there was a policeman standing in the back. He introduced himself as Officer Gregors. Officer Gregors’s voice was deep but soft. Kind, like his eyes. “Milly, everything is going to be okay.”

“Why are you saying that? What’s going on?” I looked into each of their faces, my cheeks growing hot as I remembered how Mama had said the same thing.

This time, Mr. Jansen spoke. “We have something important to tell you, and I’m going to need you to be brave.”

“All right,” I said, though nothing, in that moment, felt all right.

Minutes later, I hated Officer Gregors and Headmaster Jansen and Ms. Loeb with her rivers of mascara tears. They were all liars.

I thought of how Daddy said he loved us and how Mama had stacked pancakes on my plate then promised that everything would be okay. They were liars too. Because if they weren’t, and if everything was going to be okay, Mama would’ve let me stay home, and this wouldn’t be happening.

I bolted for the hallway, to the bench where Frances still slumped like a rag doll, and I slid my arm over her shoulders. The truth was right there on my tongue: We are in trouble. But when she looked at me with our mama’s dark eyes, I heard myself repeat everything I’d just been told.

“Everything’s okay, Frances. I promise. We have some aunts who want to meet us, that’s all.”

I was no better than the grown-ups.

I was a liar too.

Chapter 1

Now

Alabama sunshine streamed through the streaked window, lending a cheeriness to the worn dining room. But it did nothing for the smell.