She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,17

it from the moment we left our house until we pulled up outside of Auntie Jo’s apartment building, the same one where we lived now.

We pulled up outside the red brick apartment building, and Auntie Jo came out, an ever-present cigarette lodged between the fingers of her left hand.

I knew what came next.

Momma’s door opened, the two woman hugged. Auntie Jo poked her head in through the opening, smiling at me.

“Josephine,” Daddy grumbled.

She said nothing to him.

This is when things changed.

This is where it was different.

I remembered Daddy getting out of the car, lifting me out and setting me on the ground. I remembered both Momma and Daddy getting back in the car and driving off down the road, watching them disappear over the hill before taking Auntie Jo’s hand and going into the building with her.

I remembered all of that as if it happened yesterday.

That is not what happened next, though.

In this dream, something else happened entirely.

Daddy opened my door, removed something from the seat beside me, then closed my door. I watched him carry that something around the car and hand it to Auntie Jo.

Momma and Daddy got back into the car, and we were moving again.

Daddy swore at all the red taillights ahead. He made a right-hand turn without slowing down. The inertia pressed me into the side of my chair.

Neither of them looked back at me, which was rare. One or both usually did in these moments.

We went over a bridge, followed soon by a tunnel, the car gaining speed.

I felt us going faster, the car speeding up, growing louder.

Daddy did look up then. I saw his eyes in the mirror, but he didn’t look at me. He looked at something beyond me, something behind us. Momma glanced at him, and I saw her look, too, only she looked into the mirror on her door.

Daddy swerved, passing a car moving much slower than us. Our car got louder, faster.

“79 is coming up,” Momma said.

Daddy’s eyes in the mirror again. “Too far.”

His eyes drifted to me in the mirror then, if only a second. I saw the white SUV pull out of a side street directly into our path. He did not.

Momma didn’t, either. She didn’t have time to scream.

When I woke from the dream for the third time, I didn’t dare go back to sleep. I stared at the ceiling until the light of morning reached through my window and tried to grab me under my mound of blankets.

5

Two weeks before Christmas, we had a bit of a warm spell. The previous week’s snow disappeared, leaving behind the brown, mushy earth and faded grass slumbering comfortably beneath. The sky bore only a passing resemblance to day, filled with thick, dark clouds eager to get winter back underway. Auntie Jo insisted I wear my winter coat, a thick monster of a thing made of wool meant for temperatures as low as minus ten. I unbuttoned the coat as soon as I left the apartment and considered taking the ridiculous thing off altogether. It was nearly forty degrees out and climbing as I stood just inside the large iron gates of the cemetery.

Four more envelopes appeared after the first, always on the eighth of the month, always labeled Pip, and always found on my bed, somehow left there while the apartment was vacant. The last arrived on Monday, only two days ago. I considered skipping school and hiding in the apartment, but my teacher, Ms. Thomas, frequented the diner and would no doubt ask my aunt where I was. I considered pretending to be sick, too, and nearly did until I realized I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be alone in the apartment with whoever was leaving those envelopes. I knew it wasn’t Stella. I suspected it might be Ms. Oliver, and that thought was enough for me to abandon the plan altogether.

Each envelope contained exactly five hundred dollars.

I knew I couldn’t give the money directly to Auntie Jo. She would ask where the money came from, and I couldn’t tell her I found it on my bed. I couldn’t tell her the money came from my savings, either. She knew how much I had. I also couldn’t let her see the envelope with Pip written on the front, because that would just lead to more questions. Ultimately, I took the money out of the first envelope, wrapped the cash in newspaper, and left the bundle in Auntie Jo’s locker at the diner. She found the money