Sister Dear (2 page)

And there was Ben. Sweet, thoughtful Ben. The man who'd
wanted to marry her, who said he would love her always. Even after her arrest, he'd promised to wait for her if the worst happened. Allie couldn't live with herself if he'd sacrificed everything—his rising political career, his reputation, and his life for a decade or more. She'd broken it off, knowing it would wound him terribly. When he'd finally left, when she saw him for the last time, it was as if the very core of her being had been torn away, leaving a vast, gaping emptiness she couldn't fill, despite how hard she tried. Allie closed her eyes. She'd convinced herself it was the logical thing, what made sense. She had done her best to forget him. It hadn't worked in the least.

The days and months blurred. Entire seasons dissolved, shapeless and gray, like the ink of fine calligraphy smeared by the rain.

The squawk of the prison intercom barely registered in Allie's brain. Sharp insults and threats were routine, eruptions of violence expected. Even along the brown scrub grass and wooden benches of the prison yard, there was no escape. Allie always tried to disappear—pressing her body close to the concrete walls, becoming a chameleon against the barren landscape.

The women in Arrendale weren't afraid of punishment; most had nothing left. Some bonded with other inmates for favors; others paid for protection with cigarettes, food, and stamps. For those prisoners who had lost everything, inmates with little hope of parole, life was almost unthinkable.

Clutching her hands in her lap to keep from shaking, Allie watched as a woman collapsed in the cafeteria, stabbed in the jugular with a plastic fork. The next week, a fellow inmate in her dormitory was choked to death, purple fingerprints visible on the woman's throat when the guards discovered her body. Allie was haunted with grief for weeks after a young girl, only four years older than Caroline, tried to hang herself with a scrap of fabric.

Despite it all, despite the desperation that seemed to permeate the very air she breathed, Allie had survived.

In another few minutes, her younger sister, Emma, would arrive, as bus service didn't run from Alto to Brunswick. Tomorrow she'd meet her parole officer at noon. And like every parolee, she would receive a check, courtesy of the Georgia Department of Corrections, enough to buy shampoo, a bar of soap, and a comb for her hair.

Allie blinked up at the clock, almost afraid the time might start going backward. She forced her eyes away, squeezed them shut. If she tried hard enough, her mind formed a picture of her grown daughter's face. In her daydreams, she'd imagined their reunion a million times, rehearsed every possible scenario. She worried about the right words to say, how to act, and whether it was all right to cry. The enormity of it was impossible to contain, like holding back the ocean with a single fingertip.

All that mattered now was seeing Caroline.

The buzzer sounded long and loud; its vibration shook the floor. The burly guard sighed and lumbered to her boot-clad feet. She stood inches from Allie's shoulder, her breath hot and rank from a half-eaten roast beef sandwich.

Locks clicked and keys rattled. The barrier, with its heavy bars, groaned under its own weight. An inch at a time, the metal gate heaved open. Soon, there would be nothing but empty space standing between Allie and the rest of the world.

She felt a nudge.

In that moment, Allie heard four words, precious and sweet.

“You're free to go.”

TWO

ALLIE

2016

As the gate closed behind her, Allie blinked, her eyes adjusting to the bright blue midday sky. Heat rose in waves off the blacktop. Sunlight reflected from windows along the campus.

Standing outside the gates of Lee Arrendale was surreal. Allie thought about running, maybe all of the way to Brunswick. She would sprint until her lungs burst and her heart exploded, feeling the rush of wind on her cheeks, putting miles between her and the prison.

Of course, she didn't have to run. Her sister stood there, waiting. Lithe and slender, dark hair catching in the breeze, wrapped in a white dress that hugged her curves, Emma stood out against Arrendale's red clay and gravel.

“Finally!” Her sister opened her arms to offer an awkward embrace. As Emma pulled her closer, Allie caught a whiff of coconut, of the ocean and sun. She smelled like home. “Let's get out of here,” Emma said, pulling back with a lopsided smile. “This place gives me the creeps.”

Allie sucked in a breath of air. After ten years of following orders, standing at attention, and being counted, the pure silence of the
open road sounded like a chorus of angels from heaven. There were no overhead announcements, no inmate complaints, and no scrape of shoes along cement. Just the late model BMW's wheels on asphalt, the steady whoosh of air from bumper to taillight, and the heat through the window warming her arm and hand.

Allie glanced over at her sister. Emma had been the constant in the last decade, her only regular visitor. Morgan Hicks, her best friend, had vanished along with everyone else the moment the police announced the arrest.

Her prison sentence changed everyone. Even living outside the imposing walls and curling barbed wire, Emma morphed into someone else. Someone reliable. Responsible. Allie's rock.

Gone was the boy-crazy teenager who'd sneak out on school nights and drink Boone's Farm on the beach. The girl who took double dares and learned to surf at fourteen. The girl who hadn't ever hesitated to flirt with men twice her age.

Allie had been the safe one, the rule-follower; her sister, the rogue. But every month since her incarceration, Emma drove from Brunswick on Highway 95 to Savannah, then made the remaining trek to Alto. No matter how stilted or strange the visit, Allie was grateful that Emma made the effort. The twelve-hour round-trip took planning, not to mention the cost of an overnight stay.

At first, Allie's parents, Lily and Paul, came on holidays and brought Caroline, who seemed to sprout an inch every few months. The visits, short and uncomfortable, became intolerable for her parents when her daughter developed an uncontrollable phobia to prisons and chain-link fencing. Caroline broke out in hives, the skin on her neck and face getting blotchy and red. According to her mother, she would complain of stomach pain—piercing, stabbing agony—in the hours before a scheduled drive.

It had hurt, but Caroline's aversion didn't surprise anyone. The
prison, even on visitation days, was a loud and frightening place. The population, restless and violent, often swelled to collective anger, especially in the summer's heat. Lockdowns were frequent. Shouts reverberated through the walls. Days were filled with the clank of metal on metal, locks clicking into place, the grind of mechanized gates.

When they drove by the turnoff to Commerce, Allie shuddered and turned, tucking her meager belongings behind the seat. The wheels hit a bump in the road and rumbled over deep ruts. The plastic crinkled, then settled into place.

Allie glanced down at her sister's purse, wedged between them. The designer leather satchel, packed full, held Emma's cell phone, an embossed address book, and lipstick. An empty Starbucks mug sat in the cup holder next to an extra pair of Wayfarers.

A long time ago, Allie enjoyed the same indulgences. But for a decade, she had existed without any of it. Maybe, in some ways, she was better off, with all the time in the world to think. She laid her head back and let her gaze drift, absorbing the passing fields, rolling green-and-gold hills, and towering pines.

It was thirty-two miles outside the barbed-wire gates of Arrendale State Prison, in Jackson County, when Allie finally wanted to speak. She wanted to ask about Caroline. She was desperate to know everything, hear every detail. But she swallowed the million questions for just a few moments more, letting the silence envelop the space.
Breathe
, Allie told herself.

“Like the car?” Emma asked finally, glancing in the rearview mirror. “It's a few years old—snapped it up after one of my friends told me it was sitting on the lot outside town.” She winked. “A bit of a step up, don't you think?”

Allie swallowed back the sand-dry roughness in her throat. “Definitely.” She tried to smile. “Where's the Chevelle?” Allie asked,
thinking back to her sister's first car, a sleek throwback to the seventies. She ran a hand along the seat, supple and firm, thinking back to the shiny vinyl interior of the old vehicle. “I miss it.”

“Junkyard.” Emma laughed at the comment, pursing her glossed lips into a wry bow.

“Too bad.” Allie fiddled with the edge of her shirt. Her own daughter was old enough for a learner's permit. She'd be driving soon, if she wasn't already.

“How is Caroline?” Allie asked, the question bursting from her mouth before she could stop it.

Emma's grip tightened on the wheel. Her sister turned her head slightly, flashing a too-bright smile. “She's doing fine,” she said, her voice strained but even. “Everything's really good.” But then Emma trained her eyes straight forward, as if she could only see the lines on the empty road ahead. She swallowed, licked her lips, and lifted her chin. “I think Mom and Dad are going to try to bring her by.”

Try.
It wasn't what Allie wanted to hear, but she had learned to be patient. After ten years inside Arrendale, anticipation, which used to be excruciating, was now a dull ache. She could wait a little longer for Caroline.

After a few minutes, Emma changed the subject, offering details about Caroline's school, a guy named Jake she'd had a crush on this year, the clubs she'd joined. Emma kept talking, filling the space above, in, around, and below, the invisible question hovering in the car between the two of them.

How was Caroline? Really?

Was she okay? Was she safe?

But Allie let her sister talk. She'd waited forever already. They'd be home soon and she would find out for herself.

As with all family matters, Allie knew the truth was complicated—more intricate than a spider's web and just as sticky.

THREE

CAROLINE

2016

Caroline believed there was safety in numbers. A circle of friends, like a pride of lions, offered protection and relief from the torture that was high school. The tiled walls, the endless eyes, the scanning and scrutinizing.

Caroline held her breath to slow her racing heartbeat. In her head, she counted back from ten. She began to perspire and wiped a hand across her damp forehead. She wrinkled her nose. Classroom doors yawned open into the hallway, sending out air scented with dry-erase markers and pencil shavings.

The catcalls and gossip floated in streams above her head. Words bounced off lockers, twisting in midair. And words, Caroline knew, could hurt. Words could kill. Not in a take-your-life kind of way, Caroline thought. More like a reputation-bombing, forever-outcast sort of way.

One shot. Aimed right.

Bang.
You were dead.

Caroline swallowed back a quiver of worry. She'd seen it happen. When Mansfield Academy's elite zoned in on a particular target, it
was all-out war. The victims were random. A nerd with braces. A girl with thick charcoal eyeliner whose clothes always faintly smelled of curry. An awkward freshman unlucky enough to trip over his own Chuck Taylors.

Worst of all, there was no warning. No flashing lights. No danger sign in the road. By a small miracle, Caroline had been saved. In the seventh grade, Madeline Anderson had plucked her from obscurity and drew her into Mansfield Academy's inner circle. Selected Caroline from hundreds of other girls who drove Range Rovers, had trust funds, and spent spring break in the Caribbean. For Maddie, the girl who lived to shock her mother and her Stepford-wife friends, Caroline's family scandal worked perfectly.

Caroline wasn't sure who wanted the relationship more. Being friends with the most popular group of girls at her school was a rush unlike any other. When Maddie flicked her long golden hair off one shoulder, heads turned. When Maddie linked arms and drew her close to whisper, Caroline felt the heat of envious stares. When Maddie laughed, her ocean-blue eyes sparkled, right at Caroline.

They were like sisters. Or at least the sister Caroline never had.

If she could become Maddie's twin—her clone—she would have done it. Instead, she did the next best thing. Caroline memorized everything about Maddie. Her walk, talk, and personality. She even wore Maddie's signature outfit—two-hundred-dollar jeans, slouchy designer tops, and strappy sandals.

Every day she channeled her inner Maddie.

It was so much easier than being herself.

She was, after all, the daughter of a convict. She didn't have a dad, which sucked too. Her aunt Emma had raised her. Loved her so much—a little too much sometimes. It could be stifling, but there was no way Caroline would ever hurt Emma's feelings. Emma
had given up everything to raise her and make sure she didn't want for anything.

Emma tried, anyway. No one tried harder.

Her grandparents treated her like fine china. Conversations were always awkward and punctuated with “wonderful” and “great.” They never knew what to say to her or how to relate. It wasn't their fault, really. No one knew.

And no one would ever mistake Caroline and her best friend for sisters, no matter how hard she wished. Where Maddie was blonde and tiny, Caroline was statuesque and dark. Over the summer, Caroline had grown another three inches. Her straight frame softened. She'd developed cheekbones and hips. A chest. Her hair grew lush, black, and long.

The changes were so dramatic—and almost overnight—that her aunt threatened to start using time-lapse photography. “I'm going to wake up one morning and not recognize you,” Emma teased.

Good
, Caroline thought. She didn't want anyone to.

Under her shiny exterior, the big smile, the laughter with Maddie and their group of friends, Caroline spent every day waiting. Wondering when it would all collapse.