Page 78 of Every Sweet Thing Is Bitter

“Karishma, Grace needs you. If you love her at all—and I know you do—you’ll help me help her. Tell me what it would take to get you to come with me.”

Her frantic eyes dart like dragonflies, from the sidewalk to the students’ bottleneck and then to the weather-worn American flag atop the flagpole, before finally settling on me. She chews the inside of her cheeks for a long time before she finally speaks.

Karishma’s conditions are simple: one hundred dollars and a cheeseburger with extra tomatoes. She reminds me about the extra tomatoes several times. When she unwraps the burger from its greasy paper, she expresses disappointment at only having five tomato slices. She extracts one from between meat patties and places it on her tongue like a sacramental wafer.

As we pull into the empty nature preserve parking lot, she shifts in her seat and chuckles nervously. “You swear you’re not murdering me, right?”

If I was planning to skin her and wear her flesh as an overcoat, I might just get away with it all the way out here, where no one would hear her scream. The preserve promises no breathtaking natural beauty, only a few crudely maintained trails cutting through the brown sandhills. Informational signs advise of the local flora and fauna. We park closest to one showcasing a blown-up picture of a tarantula, the hairy abomination cradled in a woman’s palm to prove even hideous creatures are worthy of love.

She mistakes my silence for sulking. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, with your mom and all. I’m being insensitive.”

“I have thick skin.”

“I know you came by my house last night. My dad was really weirded out.”

“What’d he say?”

“Nothing. He’s—well, you don’t know him that well. My dad isn’t great with people, especially strangers.”

Especially Byrds.I roll down my window for reprieve from the greasy air. “Did you buy Grace any vapes?”

Karishma removes another tomato slice from her burger, folds it in half, and sucks it into her mouth like a spaghetti noodle. “Why are you asking? It’s just a vape.”

“I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble. I’m not buddy-buddy with the cops.”

“I’m eighteen. She’s not. I’ve bought her a couple.”

“Did she lose one recently?”

It’s too on the nose. Karishma’s alarms have been raised, but she is not quite wily enough to sell me the necessary lie. “I don’t think so.” She plays it too cool. Like every teenage girl, she thinks she’s a good liar, and maybe she is about trivial things, finishing a homework assignment or coming home after curfew. But she has never lied about anything with real stakes. I think back to when our paths crossed at the church. If she had lied to her father about the joyriding or simply pretended it didn’thappen, she wouldn’t have been there. That tells me she isn’t good under pressure. It’s a matter of finding the right buttons to press.

“I think you know something about my mother,” I say.

“No.”

“I think Grace told you what happened.”

She wants her laugh to sound incredulous, but I only hear jangling nerves. “This is weird, Providence.”

I don’t like this. I don’t relish the opportunity to intimidate a teenager. It’s like I’m back in prison, preying on a weaker inmate to preserve my rank in the hierarchy, feeding the sadistic streak I wish I didn’t have. “Grace waited to report our mother missing because she killed her. Harmony didn’t know where the car was because she didn’t drive it. Grace did. Grace ran over our mother, and she was too panicked to realize she left her vape in the car when she abandoned it, and I think you, me, and her are the only three people alive who know this.”

When she lifts her eyes, their strength surprises me. She holds my stare unblinking. “What you think happened didn’t happen.”

“Then tell me what did.”

“I can’t.”

“Bullshit. There’s no reason you can’t tell me.”

She discards her burger carcass into the paper bag between her feet. She pushes it as far from her as possible, like the mere sight will make her vomit. “What you think happened,” she begins, enunciating every word, “didn’t happen.”

“You were there. That’s why you won’t say anything.”

It’s a bluff. I don’t think she had anything to do with it—or at least, that’s what I think until she turns away. I have the fleeting thought that I should lock the car doors to keep her from bolting off into the sandhills, but then she’ll really think I’m going to hurt her.

I am walking blindfolded through a maze, looking for answers about my mother, and every turn I take brings me closer to disaster than peace.

“What is it worth to you?” she asks.

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