I sat in the corner of Mariah’s room
Across the cot,
Covered in fresh dust,
Flipped inside-out,
Lint stuck to my mouth.
The draft from the window
Cooled the fabric of my skin,
While muffled voices
Echoed through my
Flimsy joints,
Yearning to be held
In her rough hands,
Flying along the field,
Smiling again,
Where it didn’t matter
Whether
I was Olle Mae or
Adelaide,
Whether I was clean,
Dirty or frayed–
That’s how much
I loved her
But the fiery sky
Burned my body
And time slowly
Scorched to black.
“We can’t find her,”
Rumbled her papa’s voice.
Mariah’s papa chased her shadow up the stairs and slammed the bedroom door open,
huffing and hyperventilating. The leaves of the oak tree outside the window rustled
unnervingly. Like a storm would pour down and smother everything around it–a
comeback from the bitter heat.
He looked under the cot, out the window, in closets, and then slid against the ruby
wallpaper with slumped shoulders and bent knees. Hours swayed on with him next to
me. Until a robin perched on the arm of the oak tree.
Papa lifted his head, searching the room with his eyes. He turned to me and softened,
as if he never realized I, too, was heart-broken. “You are my Mariah,” he said with a
cracked voice.
Then he flipped me right-side-up and straightened out my dress, my face changing into
umber; My button eyes reflecting his own. “I’ll take care of you until she returns.
Probably out sleeping in the brush. By the creek. Pretending to be an explorer.”
He washed my clothes
And we bathed in the sun,
Mama sighing and shoving
An iced tea in papa’s hands.
“Is this your girl?” A man appeared, holding Mariah in his milky arms. “Found her by the
creek. It look like she fell and busted her head,” he said. He passed her unconscious
body into papa’s outstretched arms.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you! I knew she’d come back, I just knew it! Charlotte! Our
Mariah came home!” Papa turned and shouted through the screen door. Mama ran out
to us, dropping to her knees with fat tears rolling down her cheeks.
She brushed Mariah’s hair back from her face and thanked Jesus. Then she picked me
up and folded me in Mariah’s arms. Maybe one day she will tell me her secrets.