“How often did he hit you?” I asked.
Lizbeth chewed on her bottom lip with a shrug of one far-too-skinny shoulder.
“Enough.”
I slowly and carefully reached across the table. She let me touch her chin. I tilted her head back so I could see the bruise in the growing light of day.
My heart cracked.
“This has faded. It must have been worse.”
She swallowed, the muscles in her throat working. Ellie sat next to her like a wooden statue, fixated on one point on the wall. I would have given the Frolicking Moose to know her thoughts right then.
“I don’t have it that bad, to be honest,” Lizbeth rushed to say. “I could have handled it, but . . . it’s Ellie I was worried about.”
Ellie’s jaw tightened. Her nostrils flared. She didn’t say a word.
Jim had always been more distant from Ellie. He hardly spoke to Lizbeth, but Ellie frustrated him constantly. Mom had always defended her, which had only isolated Ellie further.
“He was taking it out on you?” I asked Ellie. By some miracle, my voice remained controlled.
Ellie didn’t answer, but her eyes met mine. The steel I saw there didn’t surprise me. I’d seen it in Mama before. After the divorce. Scrounging for a job. When Jim muttered something rude under his breath about her body as she walked by.
Steel core.
Tears welled up in Lizbeth’s eyes and rolled down her freckled cheek. “He was going to kill her, Bethie. He lost it one night. Just snapped. So we ran into the woods. He followed. So . . . we just kept going.”
Her voice cracked. The sound of my childhood nickname carved a fissure deeper into my chest. Bethie. Just the way Mama used to say it.
If possible, Ellie tensed even more.
“He was so angry.” Lizbeth’s voice shook. “Throwing bottles. Screaming. I-I got her out of the barn, and we ran. We just ran. Ellie had ditched some clothes and shoes in a haystack a few weeks before, so we grabbed them and left. We never looked back.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“He hasn’t paid the phone bill in months.”
Another twinge of guilt stabbed me. No wonder I hadn’t heard from her in a while. I had wondered. I just, stupidly, hadn’t pursued it. Hadn’t thought to, either, with the Frolicking Moose occupying all my time.
I too easily recalled the way Jim would scowl at Mama when she got dressed up to go out country dancing with us.
“He’s just jealous, Bethie,” Mama would say as she brushed more mascara on. “Thinks I’m going to take you girls dancing and come home pregnant with another man’s child, or something.”
Lizbeth sank lower in the chair, frowning. “He’s not a bad guy. He’s just . . . he’s going through a lot.”
Ellie tensed when a car drove by. When it didn’t stop, she relaxed.
“Home is four hours from here,” I said, ignoring Lizbeth’s sharp tone. “That’s nearly two hundred miles. How did you get here?”
“Ellie is really good outside.” Lizbeth rubbed her thin, pale arms. “We’ve been walking at night and trying to sleep during the day. She’d start fires if we needed it to stay warm at night. We hitchhiked a couple times, but we mostly just walked.”
My eyes widened almost to the point of pain. “You hitchhiked? Do you know how dangerous that is?”
Lizbeth shrugged. Ellie shot me a perturbed glare, and I backed down. Comparatively, perhaps not much scarier than facing their drunk father. Almost two hundred miles of mountains and high desert separated us from Jim. The thought of them crossing it alone made me sick to my stomach.
It must have been really bad.
“Did you remember how to get here?” I asked Lizbeth. Ellie had never been here before that she’d remember, but Lizbeth had, when she was ten and Mama got a bug to see me. She drove up without warning, just popping up at the house where I lived with Dad and Pappa. She and Lizbeth took me to dinner, then drove back home.
But now I wondered if there was more to that trip than met the eye. Had she been escaping Jim?
“Barely,” Lizbeth said, pulling me out of my thoughts. “I knew the town name, but we had to figure it out by asking. I remembered the name of your dad’s coffee shop from the pictures you sent at Christmas last year.”
“How many days have you been gone?”
“A week.”
Ellie reached out, grabbing the leftover half of a croissant on the plate that I’d loaded for them.
“I’m sorry,” Lizbeth said, distress in her eyes. “We’re dropping in here so unexpectedly. But I thought maybe your dad could help us. He was nice to me that one time we came. Or maybe you could help us hide for a little bit while this blows over or . . .”
I swallowed hard. “Dad can’t help you. He died eight months ago.”
Lizbeth’s eyes widened, first with surprise, then possibly fear. Dad had been a large, intimidating man. Bigger than most, but kinder and softer than a butterfly. I suspected Lizbeth had always sensed something safe about him, even if he was just the father of her half-sister. Plus, Jim hated Dad. To the point of fear. Lizbeth had made a calculated decision in that brilliant mind of hers.
This girl was more than just books and science.
My throat ached. I wanted this conversation to be over with. Mostly because it proved just how awful a sister I had turned out to be. Amongst other things, like college student and coffee shop owner.
“You didn’t say anything,” Lizbeth said, hurt in her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell us he died?”
“I know. I didn’t say anything.”
Ellie lifted one eyebrow.
“Of course I’ll take you in,” I said, eager to turn the subject. “It will be nice to have someone else around here.”
“We won’t stay,” Lizbeth promised, resolute. “Dad might look here. We don’t want to bring him to you. Just help us find somewhere to go until this blows over, or something. Maybe I can find a job and—”
“Support two people on the income of a sixteen-year-old who should be in high school?”
“I’m smart enough to figure it out.”
The impetuous decision to leave Jim’s house had saved Ellie’s life, but to travel two hundred miles to a distant half-sister? Surely there was someone closer to them who could have helped.
Who could have called the cops, or something.
But then what?
A sudden tightening of her jaw told me that Lizbeth had already thought this out. Without me, they were headed straight to the foster system. The same system that had raised and destroyed Mama. If book-loving Lizbeth would rather brave two hundred miles of mountain wilderness on a chance my dad would help them out, it must be pretty bad at home.
Ignoring my rising panic about debt, bills, and credit card payments that would soon be turned over to a debt collector to harass me into the grave, I squeezed her cold, trembling hand.
“We’ll figure everything out. First, you two need a hot shower, some fresh clothes, and a really, really long sleep in my comfortable bed. The portable A/C machine kind of sucks, but it’s better than roasting to death. Sound good?”
Lizbeth sighed, gratefully transferring the position of leadership to me. She had always been a kind soul, born to speed through math equations, read books, and float on the idea of every romance she could find. Where Ellie had always thrived in rugged, unusual circumstances, Lizbeth preferred predictability.