Free Girl in Reverse (9781442497368) by Barbara Stuber Page B

in a box for you if she’s already dead?”
    I say nothing. I can’t talk above the clink and clatter of my heart.
    â€œAnd . . . this can’t be her unless she lived on after dying of a bullet wound that didn’t bleed and then somehow put her picture in your box and then traveled across the ocean and had you after she was already dead.”
    â€œYou’re the one who said they were body parts.”
    â€œRight. But I didn’t say of what  !”
    â€œYou are not making sense,” I say.
    â€œNo, you aren’t. Plus 1934 is before the Korean War.” Ralph scrutinizes the picture.
    I turn the other pictures over. One is a shaggy camel with saddlebags and reins hanging down. Another is a crowd of gypsies in a dusty pit. It’s impossible to distinguish their faces. “Why did she give me these? I mean it. Why?” Ralph squints into the magnifying glass. Says nothing. “Regular babies have albums with pictures of them inhaling birthday cake and standing all proud in their poopy diapers with popcorn stuck up their noses. But I’ve got pictures of dirt and camels and frozen hideousness. Not exactly cuddly and sentimental. No wonder they hid it from me. It’s sickening.”
    Ralph arranges the body parts one above the other—head, hollow back, hand, toes. “Maybe these make a Chinese totem pole.”
    I put my head down. Bewildered. “Is this some sick joke? A game?”
    Ralph says, “Well. Who can you ask? Who would know?”

Chapter 12
    I wake up Wednesday with the Sisters of Mercy Children’s Home so real in my mind that I feel like I’ve slept there. The school nurse thinks I am staying home with cramps. Mother thinks I am at school, but actually I am about to do something impossible.
    I get off the bus, cross the street, and walk up the sidewalk to the front door. Rock salt crunches under my shoes. The yard is a mat of icy grass and oak twigs. The cement floor is swept, with a little bowl of kitty water not yet frozen by the door.
    I will ring the doorbell and count to ten. If no one answers, I will leave. I push the bell and count fast. Okay! But as I turn, the door opens. “Ha! Lillian! Oh my goodness.” She starts to reach out and then pulls back, her hand on her heart.
    Out of my mouth rattles, “Hello, Sister Evangeline.” We stand together a long moment, then she motions me inside.
    Votive candles still burn in the alcove by the visitor’s room—a smoky, welcoming spirit. There’s the big old desk with the gooseneck lamp we couldn’t touch. I look up the silent staircase to the landing, turn to her, and say, “I remember that the hem of your habit was always wet.”
    Evangeline looks amazed. “Yes, from the dew when we hung the wash.” I picture the backyard clotheslines, the corridors of waving sheets. “And from mopping the floors and watering our garden.”
    I study the row of coat hooks. Only two occupied. Sister and I lock eyes. Hers are greenish and tired looking. A wave of longing seems to move between us. “I’ve kept up with you, Lily. I know you have a brother and that you do well in school. I . . .” She stops. Maybe she can tell she’ll knock me flat with another word.
    â€œYes . . . Ralph is m—my little brother.”
    She nods. A black kitten pads toward us, weaves around my ankles and the folds of Evangeline’s habit. “This is Joy. Black cats are better than white ones around nuns,” she says. “Her mother, Mystery, lived here when you did. Cats make good pets for a home where so many come and go. They don’t miss a thing and their purr is the perfect lullaby, at least for some.”
    I pick up Joy and scratch her ears and, of all the insanethings, wonder if Mother will find cat hair on my coat and figure out where I’ve been. “Who lives here now?” I ask.
    â€œJust