The Secret Sister by M. DeLuca (leveled readers txt) 📗

deep, waiting for the smoke to blast me into oblivion. To a place where there was no image of Birdie cringing under a sweating pig of a captain in the stuffy cabin of some rusty tanker up north, while the rest of the crew punched, cursed and jostled each other into a lineup outside her door.

A couple of weeks later I pulled myself up from my stupor. After a few days without a hit I saw the grime in every crack on the ceiling, every spore of mold that spread in damp patches down the wall and I couldn’t turn that dark feeling off. I knew eventually I’d have to get myself up and out of that prison.

One evening Lester and Patti actually went out. Made the effort to drag themselves to Tray and Anita’s dump of a place two blocks away. I’d seen them there before, with a crowd of deadbeats slouched on the steps outside, drinking beer, smoking and waiting for the next hit.

I ate a hasty supper of leftover hot dogs then walked to Birdie’s apartment building, avoiding Tray and Anita’s place. Once there I sat by the cedar bush to watch for her.

The pink curtains were gone, but someone moved across the window. Hope soaring in my heart, I raced over to the door just as a guy leading a chocolate lab stepped out. I slipped around him and into the lobby before he could protest.

Birdie’s floor was silent so I sat by the elevator, waiting for her door to open. I didn’t want to knock and get her in trouble so I stayed still like a zombie, my head reeling because I needed a hit of something but I had no way to get it. I must’ve been tired because I fell asleep. When I woke up, the moon was full, like an orange disc in the hallway window. I gazed at it, hypnotized, as if I’d somehow slipped into another life. Someone had placed a bottle of water and a bag of chips next to me. I wolfed them down, cramming handfuls into my mouth even though I tasted nothing but oil and salt. Then I remembered Birdie. Maybe she’d left them. Maybe it was a sign that she was okay.

I scrambled to my feet, ran to her door and smacked it hard, slapping the wooden panels with the flat of my hand.

“Birdie, it’s me. Open the goddamn door!” I screamed over and over.

Nothing. Not even the sound of breathing. I smashed at the door again, this time with my fists, calling for her, my voice cracking with the pressure of tears. The door next to Birdie’s smacked open, bouncing off the wall. A guy in a plaid robe stuck his head out.

“Nobody lives there, so stifle the noise or I’ll call the cops,” he yelled, slamming his door shut again.

I fell to my knees and flopped forward onto my stomach. If I could only look under that door I might catch her making tea or doing her laundry or painting her nails. But all I saw was the moonlight streaming through her window and all I could feel was the bone crushing, choking sadness that comes when you realize you’re totally and absolutely alone in the world.

36

As I’d expected, Brian Metcalf’s place was cute as a dollhouse. A tiny white stucco bungalow with two triangular peaks on the brown shingle roof, neat beige timbers crisscrossing the exterior, a mini glassed-in porch complete with two cedar rockers and flower boxes stuffed with pink and white petunias below the front window. Two manicured globe cedars stood on either side of the front steps and a brass mailbox with matching carriage lamps gleamed a cheery welcome.

“Brian’s pretty frugal when it comes to investments,” said Guy, opening the car door for me. “Said he picked this up for a hundred and ninety grand, sunk twenty into it and now he reckons it’s worth two seventy-five at least.”

Brian’s house was the exact opposite of Gord and Nancy’s. Small and cozy, with eco-friendly bamboo floors, leaf-printed calico drapes and natural cedar furniture. Brian and his wife Judy welcomed us inside with a whispered hello, index fingers plastered to their lips. Seemed baby Scout (who actually called their kid Scout?) had finally decided to take a nap, so we tiptoed around the woven straw bassinette into the living room. I glanced at the rosy-cheeked baby. Perfect, peachy and untouchable, she reminded me of Birdie’s dream baby. I turned away, anxious to forget the episode in the diner and the words I could never say to Birdie, that her baby wouldn’t have stood a chance if it had lived. That it was better to get rid of it than risk another baby condemned to a life with a mother who was still a child.

Swathed in cream organic cotton, baby Scout would be pampered, protected, fed lactose-free soy milk and peanut-free, vegan organic food. Dressed in reused, recycled, non-toxic, organic clothes. Its life would be dust-free, additive-free, germ-free, danger-free and possibly fun-free until it grew into a timorous child whose sheltered life was dominated by a long list of food-borne and household allergens. I could see it all by scoping out the kitchen and the assortment of boxes and jars scattered across the counter.

And Judy looked like she’d just blown in fresh from the set of a kids’ show. Makeup-free with scrubbed apple cheeks. Even, white teeth behind pink lips. Tousled shiny curls never tainted by color or charred by the heat of a flat iron. Bold, dark eyebrows and baggy jeans topped with an embroidered white cotton smock, easy to flip open at a moment’s notice for an emergency breastfeeding. And so sweet she set my teeth on edge.

I wasn’t good with women like Judy. They threw me off with their unfailing kindness and sweet, doglike patience. I could handle Sabrina and her hard edges, but Judy was infinitely more threatening when she tilted her head, radiated maternal bliss,