Chapter 5 #2
I had the sudden urge to tell her to—to demand that she—say my sister’s name.
I hated it when people talked around her.
I knew it wasn’t fair, but it felt like they were giving her a second death.
There was her first death in the forest, and then her second, longer and more drawn out, as the world learned to forget her.
A kind of erasure that occurred every time someone refused to say her name or steered a conversation away from the mention of her.
Iona offered me the jar of Nutella in what I realized was meant to be a comforting gesture.
I took it, mostly so that I had something to look at that wasn’t them when I spoke.
“It’s the opposite, actually. Usually, people try to talk around Adeline and death and anything that could possibly remind me of what happened.
But the thing is, everything reminds me of her.
I see her everywhere, and people can tell, so they tiptoe around me, treading so lightly, like if they say the wrong thing, I’m just going to completely fall apart. ”
Shiloh gazed at me from her place sitting perched on the desk, one leg drawn to her chest and the other dangling. I wondered when I would stop feeling so small and unsettled whenever she looked at me. If I would ever get used to her. “And will you?” she asked. “Fall apart, I mean.”
I sensed that the question was a test, but I didn’t know how to pass it.
I could bluff, say I was strong enough to endure anything, but that wasn’t quite true.
The truth was I did fall apart. Often. But not completely, or if I did, I knew how to put myself back together again.
“It’s not that I don’t have bad days. It’s that I’ve learned how to figure my shit out despite them.
That’s half of grief, I think. Figuring it out. ”
It came out less certain than I’d hoped—more a question than a statement—but somehow I knew, from the silence that ensued, the expression that passed over Shiloh’s face like a shadow, that I’d passed her test. The girls seemed to sense it too.
Naomi reached out to squeeze my hand, and Skye gave Riley a smug smile. “See. I told you she’d fit in.”
Naomi and Shiloh began to pick up the trash from dinner—the wreckage of crushed soda cans and beef jerky wrappers. I did my part, but I was dead tired and achy after the long drive.
All I wanted was to crash, sprawl out in bed (the girls had been kind enough to offer me a queen mattress to myself).
But I knew my mom was waiting to hear from me, so I asked Chloe for my phone—annoyed that I even had to—and called her.
When she didn’t pick up, I decided to call the house.
The ringer gave six long peals. And then Adeline spoke:
“This is the Volk residence. If you want, you can leave a message, and we’ll think about calling you back.”
The phone gave a long beep, and I sat there, frozen.
I listened to static on the line, reeling from the sound of Adeline’s voice (I hadn’t been expecting her; I didn’t often call the house) and unsure of what to say.
“Um…hi, Mom, it’s Roslyn,” I said, once I managed to speak.
My throat was so tight and pinched it was hard to get the words out.
“We stopped at a motel for the night somewhere in…”
Shit. I couldn’t even remember exactly where we were.
“Lemont, Illinois,” Iona mouthed from across the room, trying to help me out.
“Lemont,” I repeated, trying my best to sound like I knew what we were talking about.
I realized then that I’d made a horrible mistake.
I’d told my mom we were going north, to camp on the lake.
“I, um…We decided to camp on the Wisconsin side of the lake. I got it wrong before. Anyway, we’ll be driving up tomorrow, and we’re having fun.
” Skye and Chloe giggling in the background probably made that part convincing, at least. “Not too much fun, though. Everyone’s, you know, wearing their seat belts and being good.
We’ll hit Wisconsin tomorrow, I think. If you get the chance, could you drop by the diner and tell Conny I’ll be gone for a few days?
She’ll be pissed, but she’ll take it better from you, in person.
I don’t want her to worry. Well, um, love you.
Text when you can. Or call. The service might be a bit spotty near the campground, but yeah. I’ll be around.”
I put the phone down, feeling a little dejected. I didn’t want my mom to worry about me, but I did want to be missed.
Naomi looked to me. “You all right?”
“Yeah,” I said, and even to my own ears it sounded high-pitched, painfully chirpy, and utterly unconvincing.
“It’s just weird, you know. Being away from home.
I’m probably too old to be homesick, but I never went to camp or did any of that sort of stuff, really.
And I haven’t really been out much since Adeline.
” I realized only after this embarrassing admittance how pathetic I sounded.
“So this is different. But in a good way.”
Naomi smiled at me, and I could tell she was trying to be kind even though the light didn’t reach her eyes.
I wondered if she was just tired, or maybe sad about something she was trying to set aside.
“I was so carsick after my first day with the group that Shiloh had to pull over twice so I could throw up on the side of the highway. I was so embarrassed I thought about making a break for it, then and there, running through the trees to god knows where. I think I just wanted to escape.”
Iona, who I hadn’t realized was listening, added her own story. “I cried myself to sleep every night for the first week after I joined. I missed my mom so much I thought it would actually kill me. But it does get easier—you’ll see.”
The idea of things getting easier implied that things were…difficult. But why? Just what were the girls doing out on the road that had kept them away from their homes and families for what I sensed was more than just a few weeks? Maybe more than a few months, even.
Naomi, perhaps sensing my anxiety, gave my hand a small squeeze. “Don’t worry. You’ll adapt, and we’ll be here to help you every step of the way.”
“Adapt to what?” I didn’t mean for the question to come out as bluntly as it did. But the moment it landed, I knew I’d struck something. I could tell from the glances Chloe and Skye exchanged, the way Iona stiffened.
Naomi, however, didn’t miss a beat. “Adapt to leaving your life behind, your family, your home. It’s not an easy thing.”
“Well, I mean, it’s just a couple weeks. Right? Kids go to summer camp. I’m pretty sure I can handle this.”
Riley smirked from across the room.
The conversation dissolved with that, the girls dispersing themselves to get ready for bed, crowding the bathroom all at once, sharing face creams and lip balms, sorting through a suitcase that didn’t seem to belong to anyone in particular, pulling on oversized T-shirts, merch from bands I’d never heard of, and silky vintage nightgowns to sleep in.
At one point, I was fairly certain I caught Skye using the same lime-green toothbrush that Chloe had used just minutes before.
She didn’t realize her mistake, or didn’t care.
Amid the chaos, across the suite, Shiloh stood unmoving by the window, gazing through the slit between drawn curtains. Naomi dragged a desk chair to the side of the window and tried to persuade her to sit. But Shiloh waved her off.
“You can rest,” said Naomi in a low tone. “I don’t think we have anything to worry about tonight.”
Shiloh kept her arms folded tight over her chest, her eyes on the window. “You don’t know that. Better to be prepared.”
“I can keep watch tonight,” Skye offered.
“Please,” said Iona. “The last three times you kept watch, you fell dead asleep, and we had to pick up the slack.”
“What are we watching for?” I asked, because it seemed the most obvious question, and for a long beat, it went unanswered.
All the girls’ gazes turned sharply to Shiloh, who said, “Girls traveling alone on the road tend to draw the wrong kind of attention. So we like to stay alert. But we’ll be all right. You should get some rest.”
I climbed into one of the two queen-size beds in the suite.
Skye and Iona sandwiched themselves into the other.
Naomi claimed the pullout couch, and Chloe slept on a narrow folding bed by the door.
Riley somehow made herself comfortable in the bathroom with an armful of spare blankets and pillows.
Shiloh was the only girl to opt for the RV.
She left the motel room right before Naomi cut the lights.
“Sleep well,” she said, and was gone into the night.