Page 7 of If Anything Happens To Me

The girl shut the bathroom door, and I heard the shower curtain rings clattering across the metal rod.

I wondered who she was, what had really happened to her, and how it all connected to Eloise. I grabbed a notebook off my sister’s desk and wrote things down:

Braided Woods

buried but still breathing

black cat

mesmerized by dying flowers

gold dust (October pollen, bits of yellow leaves)

pewter-blue feather (the color of the sea at dawn)

no police—why?

should I call Detective Tyrone anyway?

yes I should

or maybe I shouldn’t

what do this girl and Eloise have in common?

I stared at the list. I had the feeling that if I could figure out the answer to that last question, I’d be on the way to solving my sister’s murder. The reality of that hit me with a thud. I had never needed to know something more. The items on my list felt like deadweight, pressing down on me, because they seemed so disparate—how could they fit together and give me the truth that the police had so far been unable to provide?

I picked up the Ziploc bags, trying to see if those little tiny gold flakes were really precious metal or just bits of leaves, particles of pollen. And that soft gray-blue feather. Were these clues to finding the girl’s attacker, or traces of nature? I knew with everything I had that these were the elements that tied my sister and this girl together. I put both bags into my back pocket.

Those were my thoughts as I sat on Eloise’s bed for seven more minutes, waiting for the girl’s hot water to run out. During that time, I stared at the photo Eloise had taped to her mirror. It showed the two of us with our birding friends, including the boy Eloise had a huge crush on.

And, standing next to him, the one I did.

I heard the girl turn off the shower. She came out wearing my sister’s fluffy white robe that I hadn’t been able to put away, which still hung on a hook on the bathroom wall. She had washed the dirt and blood off her skin, but I could still see her cuts and bruises.

I went to the linen closet, where one shelf served as a medicine cabinet, and returned with hydrogen peroxide, Neosporin, and a box of Band-Aids. The girl perched on the chair by the desk where Eloise had always studied, and let me dab the cut on her head, dress it with the antiseptic, and cover it with Band-Aids.

“Stitches,” I said. “Pretty sure you should get them.”

“No,” she said. “Police are always at ERs. I told you already.”

“I know,” I said. “?‘No police.’ But you’re going to have a scar.”

She shrugged as if that was the least of her worries. She seemed exhausted. Her eyelids fluttered. I gestured at the pillow. That was all it took. She pulled back the covers and tumbled into bed and was asleep before I could even say “Get some rest.”

I stared at the girl, her head on my sister’s pillow. I knew that sometimes truth was revealed during deep sleep. Answers came in dreams. I hoped that when she woke up, she would know who she was.

And I hoped she would be able to tell me who had hurt her.

The same person, I was sure, who had killed my sister.

My grandmother was sitting alone in the living room, watching a Bobby Flay cooking show. That was Noreen’s doing. My grandmother had never watched TV during the day in her whole life. Before she began to have dementia, she would have been gardening, volunteering at the art museum, reading, or writing her memoirs.

“Hi, Gram,” I said, giving her a big hug.

“Hello, Eloise,” she said, smiling.

I nearly corrected her, but I didn’t. I wanted her to have a moment where she believed Eloise was still with us, still on this earth.

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