Page 10 of Every Sweet Thing Is Bitter

If he’s trying to rile me up, it’s working. I glance at the closed office door. Is it a crime to rush in and spirit her away? Is she technically being held? Charged with a crime? My stomach churns at the thought of Grace being burdened with a criminal record at seventeen. She’s too young to realize how damning it will be. “What exactly happened?”

“She and a friend borrowed her father’s car without permission. Mitesh Jadhav’s daughter.”

“Is Karishma here too?”

He nods, continues thumbing through the manila folder. When he rolls up the sleeves of his flannel shirt, he reveals a Bible verse tattooed across his forearm, the lettering too faded for me to decipher. Something from Philippians. Evidently he skipped Leviticus.

“They’re kids, sheriff,” I say. “They’re bored kids who live in a shitty town with shitty people.”

“I know all about what bored kids in that shitty town get up to.”

“Have you called my father?”

“No. Haven’t called Mitesh neither.” He spits into a nearby trash can.

“Let me take them home,” I say. “We can pretend this never happened.”

“It don’t work that way.”

I feel like an enraged cartoon character with steam pouring out of my ears. “ ‘Whosever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn him to the other also.’ Just let them leave, please. Nothing good can come of calling my father down here. For them or for you.”

Josiah looks at the door, then back at me. “Grace is a human hurricane,” he says, “and a bad influence on Karishma to boot. I’ve dealt with shoplifting from Grace, truancy too, but now she’s fooling with folks’ cars and dragging her friend into it. Karishma’s a good kid.”

“Grace is a human hurricane who’s lost her mother.”

“Karishma lost her mother last year. Don’t remember her stealing a car to cope with it.”

“Grief is a funny thing,” I say. “Some people are good with it and the rest of us go mad trying to put our lives back together.”

“So the law doesn’t apply to folks who are going through a tough time?”

“Normal people don’t break laws without a good reason.”

“What does that make you?”

“Sheriff, I’m not a normal person, but it’s no reflection on my sister. She’s a troubled girl. That in itself isn’t a sin.” I can’t tell if I’m getting through to him. It feels like throwing stones into a pond but never seeing a splash. “If I remember right, Josiah meansGod heals. Neither of those girls will heal or have a normal life if you slap them with a criminal record while they’re still in high school. They don’t deserve to wind up like me.”

He bows his head. “Fine. You can take them home. But if Grace ends up in here again, it’s done. I’m out of second chances to give.”

Josiah vanishes into the back room and returns a minute later with Grace and Karishma in tow. Karishma looks sheepish. Grace raises her chin in defiance as Josiah looms over them, hands on his hips, reveling in his petty display of power.

“Next time you’re in here, Grace, you’re not leaving until you post bail.”

“Of course, sheriff.” As soon as Josiah turns his back, she gives him a mock salute.

It unsettles me to see how alike we look, brown hair so dark it looks black and big Barbra Streisand noses and tawny eyes. My poor mother. She disowned her oldest daughter only to watch her youngest turn into her spitting image. Grace does not notice our similarities, but Karishma does. Her eyes dart between us.

With Josiah’s permission, I escort the girls back to the car. We’re halfway to Annesville when someone finally speaks. “My dad is going to kill me,” says Karishma to neither of us in particular.

“So don’t tell him,” Grace says.

“He has to come pick up the car at the sheriff’s office.”

“Oh. You won’t …?”

Karishma draws her knees to her chest. Every time she blinks, she disturbs the overgrown fringe of bangs covering her forehead. I can’t tell where her hair ends and her eyelashes begin. “I won’t tell him you were there.”

“It’s just—like, you know I don’t want you to take all the blame. But your dad is more reasonable than mine.”

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