The little girl couldn’t sleep.
She hadn’t slept through the night since her father died four months before. She would imagine him walking in with a big smile and a present and then sitting on her bed, telling her all about his train ride to Philadelphia or Harrisburg and promising he would never leave the house again. Then she would realize it was all in her mind and start crying and hide under the blankets so no one would hear the sobs.
Her father had adored her. She was his favorite, more than her younger sisters, certainly more than her stepbrothers and stepsisters from his first marriage. She hadn’t even met any of them. They were all grown-up and had moved away. When her father remarried, none of them came to his wedding, or so she’d been told. Then when he moved his new family into the biggest house in town, one that he built from the ground up, they stopped writing him altogether.
Now, though, it wasn’t heartache that kept the little girl awake but the sound of loud voices downstairs. Her mother was crying, and some men with heavy feet were walking around the living room giving orders. The little girl got out of bed, went out to the landing, and peered below. Half the furniture was gone. Her mother was sitting on the couch crying, her face in her hands, while a man with a badge and long coat directed two men to remove her father’s favorite desk.
“Momma. What’s going on?”
Her mother looked up with the most pained face the daughter had ever seen. The same way she looked at the funeral.
“Pink,” said her mother, her voice cracking. “You need to get dressed.”
“Where are we going?”
Her mother closed her eyes tight and shook her head. “Momma? Where are we going?”
“Just get dressed, Pink.”
It was not so much an order as the only thing her mother seemed able to say. “Should I pack a bag?”
Her mother closed her eyes even tighter and nodded. Tears streamed down her face. The little girl watched as the man with the badge and long coat tapped her mother on the shoulder and motioned for her to move away from the couch.