Diane Chamberlain - Secrets She Left Behind

“Hi!” I said, probably too loud.

“You better be up,” she said.

“I’m up.” I smiled even though she couldn’t see me.

“Just checking.” She checked on me every morning. “Do you feel better today?”

I had to think. I almost forgot I was sick yesterday. “It was only a twenty-four-hour bug.” That’s what Mom called it. I felt pretty good now.

“I’ll text you later,” she said. “Or you can text me.”

“Okay!”

I hung up and went into the bathroom to take my shower. That was what the chart on my corkboard said for me to do first, but I didn’t need to look at it for every little thing anymore. I was getting smarter.

I met Kimmie at a Special Olympics party. We started out just friends. She was pretty, but not the kind of pretty of any other girl I knew. We danced at the party. Special Olympics people dance really good and are nice. We played games and ate cake and things. The next time I saw Kimmie was at a swim-team practice. She came with her mother and father to watch my friend Matt swim. Her mother was a white lady with yellow hair and her father had brown hair like mine. After swim practice me and Kimmie went in the corner and talked. I made sure to stand four shoe lengths away, which was hard because I had bare feet. And she kept moving closer to me. I didn’t care, though.

“How come you’re America Africa and your parents are white?” I asked her.

“I’m adopted,” she said. “My birth mother is black and I don’t know about my birth father, except they think he was probably part Caucasian and part Japanese or maybe Indian.”

“What does birth mother mean?”

“The woman who gave birth to me. You know, had me. Like your mother had you.” She pointed to Mom, who was talking to my coach.

“Who’s that lady, then?” I pointed to her mother.

“She’s my adoptive mother,” she said. “And the man is my adoptive father.”

“You’re complicated!” I smiled to let her know that wasn’t a bad thing.

“I know.” She smiled back at me.

I knew a lot about Indians. Like she shouldn’t really have said Indian. She should have said “Native American.” “Is your Indian part Cherokee?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Indian. Like from the country India. But they don’t really know exactly where my birth father was from. I just am who I am.”

“I am who I am, too,” I said.

“I think you’re cute,” she said.

I got an instant hard-on. That happened sometimes. I wrapped my towel over my bathing suit so Kimmie couldn’t see how it poked up. I started thinking maybe I didn’t like her as just a friend anymore.

Now, she’s almost the only thing I think about.

After I got all ready, I went downstairs. I hoped Maggie was up. I was so happy she was home!

When I got to the bottom stair, I saw Mom talking to a policeman in the family room. No, no, no! Not again! I didn’t know if I should run back upstairs or what to do. It was like this: first I was a hero, then I wasn’t a hero, then I was a hero again. Sometimes I couldn’t remember which I really was. That’s why I freaked. I decided to sneak into the kitchen so I could get cereal, but Mom saw me.

“Andy, come here, sweetie.”

I didn’t want to turn around. I stayed where I was, looking at the kitchen door.

“It’s okay, Andy,” Mom said. “Remember Officer Cates? He just wants to ask you a few questions about Miss Sara.”

I turned around real slow. I recognized him. He was nice. But I answered three hundred questions after the fire. I knew over a whole year had went by, but I was tired of questions. “I don’t know anything,” I said.

“Hi, Andy,” Officer Cates said. I all of a sudden remembered his first name was Flip. Funny.

“Come sit down,” Mom said.

Her voice told me I had to do it. I sat down on the couch near her. She put her hand on my forehead.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Fine.”

“He had a stomach virus yesterday,” she said to Officer Cates, who made an icky face. “Do you want to stay home again today?” Mom asked me. “It might be good to take it easy.”

“I’m okay,” I said. “Is Maggie up yet?”

“Not yet,” she said. “Listen, Andy. I’m very worried. No one’s seen Miss Sara since she left while she was watching you yesterday.”

“Maybe Keith saw her,” I said.

“No, he hasn’t,” Mom said.

“Can you help me out, Andy?” Officer Cates asked. He had a pad and a pen. Police always had them.

“I don’t want to go to jail,” I said. Jail had a little room with a window in the door and mean boys. I would never forget it.

“You won’t be going to jail,” Mom said. “This has nothing to do with you.”

She didn’t think I was going to jail that other time either.

“Tell me exactly what Mrs. Weston said when she left the trailer yesterday,” Officer Cates asked. Mrs. Weston was Miss Sara.

“She was going shopping.” I wasn’t sure about the “exactly” part, but she said something like that.

“Did she say when she’d be back?” he asked.

Mostly what I remembered was the Mega Warriors.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Did she say where she was going shopping?”

I shook my head.

“Did she say grocery shopping or some other kind of store?”

“Grocery shopping, maybe.” Maybe not. I should’ve paid better attention. My leg started jiggling up and down. Officer Cates wrote something on his pad.

“Did you see Keith yesterday?” he asked.

“At his house?”

“Yes.”

“He wasn’t there.”

“Not at all?”

I shook my head. I was sure I didn’t see Keith there.

“What was Mrs. Weston doing while you were there?”

“I don’t know. She was in another room mostly. I was asleep part of the time.”

“Did you see her do anything at all?”

“She got me soda and crackers.”

Mom put her hand on my knee to stop the jiggling.

“Did she talk to anyone on the phone?” Officer Cates asked.

I shook my head. “Oh. Mom,” I remembered. “Mom called.”

He looked at Mom. She nodded. “I called to tell her we’d be late picking Andy up,” she said.

“How did she sound?”

“Annoyed, actually,” Mom said. “I didn’t blame her. She probably wanted to go shopping and was worried about leaving Andy alone. We were three hours later than we thought we’d be.”

“Do you remember exactly what she said?” I liked that he was asking Mom questions and not me.

Mom shook her head. “Something like, ‘you said you’d be home by one-thirty.’ Something like that. I felt terrible. She…we haven’t been close this year and I know it was a big favor to ask her to watch Andy.”

“I could’ve stayed home alone okay,” I said.

“Did she seem angry to you, Andy?” Officer Cates asked.

“No.”

“When she got off the phone with your mom?”

I waited for him to finish the question. He looked at me funny.

“I mean, did she seem angry at all?” he asked. “About anything?”

I shook my head. “She was happy.”

“Happy?” He and Mom both said it at the same time, and I laughed.

“Happy Maggie was coming home,” I said.

“She was?” Mom asked.

“Like how you cried yesterday morning ’cause Maggie was coming home,” I explained. “She kind of did that, too.”

“She was crying?” Officer Cates asked.

“Not exactly.” I knew I had to be very truthful talking to the police. “I didn’t see her cry, but her eyes were red like they get when you cry.” I suddenly remembered the box. “I remember something else she did,” I said.