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“My stepfather?”
“Well, no loss if you don't remember him. You were the sweetest girl, and everyone just felt so sorry for how they treated you once we heard about...well. Everyone just turned a blind eye, but we all knew your stepfather was not a very nice man.”
“What was his name?” I asked.
She chewed her narrow lower lip. “Like I said, I've never been good with names. I'd hear him yelling at you and your mom, but I didn't exactly spend a lot of time chit chatting with him. He was not my kind of people.”
“It sounds like he wasn't my kind of people either,” I said, trying frantically to gather all the facts I could and remember everything I could to process later. “You could hear him? So I must have lived close by? Can you point out where I lived?”
“Don't you remember?” she asked.
“It's a long story,” I said.
“Well, I'm not going anywhere. I've got time,” she said with a cackle. “Anyway, you lived in that next place over.”
She pointed to a boarded up trailer.
When I looked at it, nothing seemed familiar.
“No one’s living there now,” I said. “Do you know where my mom went?”
“I guess she went with your stepdad.”
“Do you remember her name?”
“Now, she wasn't real friendly either. Not like you. We always wondered where you got your sweetness from.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Before I could ask anything else, the door to the house behind her opened. “ Louisa, are you talking this young lady’s ear off?”
An older lady, but still young compared to my new friend, stepped out of the house. She came down the stairs, giving me a slightly confused but friendly look, as if she didn't know why I was standing in her front yard.
“She had a lot of questions and I was trying to answer them for her,” Louisa explained.
“You’re answering questions for her,” the new lady said in a bemused voice.
“I'm trying to find someone who used to live around here,” I explained, figuring it was easier than explaining my amnesia to everyone I ran across.
“Well, Louisa is probably not your best source,” the lady said with a smile, putting her arm around the elderly lady’s shoulders affectionately. “My mother has Alzheimer's. Sometimes she thinks she recognizes someone...”
My heart plummeted.
“No,” Louisa protested. “I know my memory isn't great, but I remember her! That's that sweet Shannon girl!”
The lady looked back up at me. “All right, Shannon. It was nice meeting you.” Her tone said that I should just play along.
“Did you live here six years ago?” I asked the lady, trying again.
She shook her head. “I just moved in when Mom got real sick last year. I'm sorry, honey. I hope you find whoever you're looking for.”
Me too.
* * *
It was a text from a number I didn’t know.
What the hell did you do to Kennedy?
