Photo by Jamo Images on Unsplash
The summer my sister disappeared, our lawn shriveled during a rainless July. Dad shut off the sprinkler because we were strapped for cash. We sold our home on the far side of a brittle cornfield and moved into a four-story apartment complex, my sister’s belongings stacked into a basement storage unit, barricaded behind chain link. My new room was a blank box, echoing with an emptiness that disrupted my sleep.
I became the girl with the missing older sister. I sensed everyone had more fun talking about me than to me. Dad insisted I’d make friends, that living in an apartment was like living in a hotel. There was a pool. A tennis court. An open lawn for barbeques and badminton. There were retired couples and lonely grandmothers. Dads pushing toddlers in bright plastic vehicles every other weekend.
My parents couldn’t afford to send me to camp that summer, so we recued a dog. A wiry mutt named Mabel that I was tasked with wearing out. Mabel yanked me toward anything imbalanced—a leaning lamppost, a mailbox unbolted on one side. She dragged me toward the dumpsters where a sliver of a taillight sparkled in the nearby grass. I slid the red shard in my pocket, and Mabel barked like she approved. I’m not sure why, but it felt like a clue, or a missing piece, belonging to a puzzle I longed to solve.
***
The fall after my sister disappeared, a woman’s body was found in the local landfill. There was talk of women’s lives being tossed out like garbage. Mom wouldn’t let me outside after dark, and the dark kept descending earlier. When the discarded body was identified, no one knew how to react. The woman was from out of state. She was last seen hitchhiking hundreds of miles away. Mom would squeeze my hand at night and say, “it’s just a matter of time.”
Dad said the apartment was temporary. He said he needed time to figure things out. Mostly, he needed a job, but Mom said he didn’t have the right education. He didn’t wear the right shoes, the right shirts. Mom said he wasn’t trying, so he quit looking for work and hired a private investigator with all the savings we had left.
***
The winter after my sister disappeared, a man moved into the woods behind our apartment and slept in a green tent beneath a cluster of pines. Most nights, Dad and I sunk into our couch, shivering under separate blankets. He controlled the remote, I microwaved the dinners. I spent those late hours wondering how the man in the tent stayed warm. I wanted to know what he ate.
Mom told me to remain watchful. She asked me to avoid the trees and shade. I didn’t tell her about the bulky footprints that wound around the perimeter of our complex, stopping short of the parking lot. I wanted to believe the man in the tent was only remembering how it felt to be wrapped in solid walls. I wanted to believe the glow from our living room provided a kind of warmth. From the outside, I hoped our cold, bare apartment appeared whole.
***
The Spring after my sister disappeared, Mom picked up graveyard shifts at a 24-hour diner. When she wasn’t waiting tables, she was buried in bed, resting beside a pile of prescribed pills. After school, I’d stand in the doorway watching her until I caught a glimmer of movement. One afternoon, she sprang up with a pained expression as if she had rolled over something sharp. She gasped and said, “You look just like her.” The next day, I cut my hair short, bought baggier clothes.
I started walking Mabel farther down the dirt road, passing the community gardens and onto a trail that spat us out beside the little league fields. Mabel continued to jerk me toward anything unusual. A dead squirrel. A crushed can. A dented vacuum hose. One day she pulled and pulled until we found five police cars parked and idling. Officers roamed the fields with bright orange boxes. A jogger paused beside me and said, “We all know what they’re doing. Or not doing.” I nodded like I understood.
***
It’s been a year since my sister disappeared. We are still in the apartment, stepping over boxes. Every month the private investigator tells us he’s closer to finding her. Every day she slips farther away. Dad picks up odd jobs, mostly trimming and edging other people’s lush lawns. I know he misses his sprinklers and yard, but we don’t talk about the things we no longer have.
There are no more bulky footprints. No more bodies. I hear the hushed comments beyond our door and catch the sidelong glances from neighbors and aunts. Even so, I like to imagine my sister living a parallel life on the opposite coast. Maybe she’s hiding on the fourth floor of a bleached-out apartment, surrounded by stacks of fresh belongings. Maybe she takes long walks down dirt roads and remembers our life in the house beyond the brittle cornfield. I hope she knows she’s the reason we sold it.
Mabel keeps tugging me forward. She sniffs out scraps and fragments that I collect, but am unable to piece together. Sometimes I see police cars parked beside the little league fields. Officers continue to wander the stretch of woods that lead toward the landfill. It’s been a year—two, three—and I don’t know what they’re looking for anymore. I’ve stopped waiting for them to find it.
Abbie Barker is an online creative writing instructor living in New Hampshire with her husband and two kids. Her work has appeared in Cincinnati Review, Cutbank, Berkeley Fiction Review, Pithead Chapel, Monkeybicycle, Superstition Review, Best Microfiction 2022, and other publications. Abbie’s stories have received nominations for The Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and have been longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions. Read more at abbiebarker.com and find her at @AbbieMBarker and @abbiebarkerwriter
JMWW 