“Sissy,” she whispered, her entire body seeming to sag in relief as her sad eyes met mine.
“What happened?” I asked, pushing inside the room.
I laid Etta down on the bed so I could wrap my arms around my sister.
“I don’t know,” she replied, her forehead resting against the side of my neck.
My arms tightened and I rocked her a little from side to side, the same way I did with Etta when she was upset.
“I don’t know what happened. I woke up and I didn’t remember anything.”
My head began to pound.
“I went out. I’m always careful when I go out.” Her body shuddered. “I’m a fucking senior. I’m not an idiot. I’m always careful.”
“Okay,” I said, unsure how to respond. “Okay. Who were you with when you went out?” She wasn’t letting go of me so I didn’t let go, either. I’d stand there in that spot all night if I had to, my muscles so tensed that I was practically vibrating.
“I went by myself.”
I cringed, but didn’t respond. Miranda had always been independent. She’d never needed a large group of friends or a posse to feel comfortable. She was just fine going to a restaurant or a movie on her own; if anything, I think she preferred it.
“And where did you go?” I asked when she didn’t say anything else.
Her chest heaved against mine, and if it hadn’t been silent in the room and I hadn’t been listening intently, I wouldn’t have heard her whispered “I don’t remember.”
I held her even tighter as the implications of her words set in. She’d gone out by herself and woken up alone in her room, but she had no idea where she’d been or what had happened. Hours and hours of her life just gone.
I swallowed hard and smoothed a hand down the back of her short hair.
“Were you sick when you woke up?” I asked, my voice trembling. “Do you hurt anywhere?”
Miranda was silent for a long moment.
“No,” she replied.
Relief hit me first. Overwhelming, full-body relief. But crashing on top of that, with the power of a sledgehammer, was the knowledge that my baby sister was lying. I wasn’t sure if she was lying to both of us or just me, but I knew deep in my bones that she wasn’t telling the truth.
“Thank you for coming,” she said, lifting her head from my shoulder.
“Shut up,” I replied, trying to lighten the mood, just a little. “I needed a break anyway.”
We both knew that was a lie, too. I’d barely just started my new job after weeks of not working. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to have a job to go back to. It didn’t matter, though. Family trumped everything.
“I’m so tired,” she said, dropping to the only chair in the room.
“Climb in with Etta,” I ordered, stepping over to scoot Etta over against the wall. “She doesn’t take up much space.”
“No,” Miranda argued quietly. “You’ve been driving all night. You sleep there. I’ll—”
“Ranna,” I murmured in warning, my big-sister voice coming out to play. “Get in bed.”
And just like when we were little and she knew that I was in charge, my sister nodded and climbed into bed next to my daughter, curling around her with a sigh. I pulled Etta’s blanket out of our bag and tucked it around their shoulders, swallowing the bile that rose in my throat as I wondered who’d done the same thing the night before.
The bed was tainted, I knew that much. I sat down in the chair across from them and beat back the need to pull them both up and burn the entire thing.
Who the hell had brought my sister home the night before? Who had left her with no memory of what had happened and scared the shit out of her?
My mind raced as I sat there, listening as Miranda’s breathing evened out. I was so angry I could barely see straight, and as the night wore on I went over and over possible scenarios. Someone must have seen her. She lived in a dorm, for Christ’s sake. People were in and out of the hallways all the time. It had to be nearly impossible for someone to carry Miranda’s passed-out body into her room without someone noticing.
Right?
I wanted to weep. I wanted to scream when Miranda jerked awake twice and then tried to hide the fact that she’d had a nightmare. I wanted to pull every sleeping college student in that building out of their beds and make them tell me where they’d been and what they’d been doing the night before. I wanted to pound on the walls and trash the tiny room.
I wanted to go back and teach Miranda that there was safety in numbers. I wanted to tell her that the college she’d chosen sounded awful and she should pick another. I wanted to have come to visit a week earlier so she wouldn’t have been out alone.