Chapter 19: Say It for Mama

I called the sheriff's office before Lottie's truck had even cleared my gate.

The deputy who answered was the one from the porch.

"Boxes in a truck bed aren't a crime, Hattie," he said.

"She told a four-year-old they're going to a big lake."

"A mother can move her child, unless a judge tells her she can't."

"Then tell me how to get a judge."

"Hire a lawyer, and be the child's parent." He sighed. "I'm sorry. You're her aunt, and she doesn't know it."

"She knows it."

"On paper, Hat. Not on paper."

I hung up and sat on the porch step in the dark.

Jesse found me there at ten.

He sat down on the step below mine, and neither of us spoke.

A set of headlights came up the road slowly, crept past the gate, and stopped.

A woman got out of an old sedan.

She was thin, around thirty-four, in a gray sweatshirt, with Lottie's chin and none of her shine.

She stood at the end of my drive with her arms wrapped tight.

I knew her.

She was the sister who had walked out of the diner on Lottie.

"I don't know how to ask," she said.

"Come up," I said.

She came up the drive slowly, with her shoulders hunched.

She sat on the edge of my father's rocker and held her phone with both hands.

"I've been thinking about it for three weeks," she said. "She's my sister. I helped her move back. I told myself she was just lonely."

"What changed?"

"I helped her pack on Monday."

She looked up.

"She's leaving Friday.

"She's rented a place in Wisconsin, on a lake, under her middle name. She sold the horse trailer.

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