Sisters in the Wind(67)

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I dreamed of swimming underwater. There was another person next to me, meeting me stroke for stroke in the dark. Whoever it was, they were near enough that our feet touched when I frog-kicked. When I surfaced, it was sunny, and I was alone.

At breakfast the next morning, my stomach flipped each time someone entered the kitchen. I ate two bowls of oatmeal with warm milk and brown sugar, crispy bacon, followed by a bowl of fresh cherries. Still no Diego. Maybe he planned a birthday surprise.

I’d left him at the picnic table the night before. He’d wanted to stay outside a while longer. I’d walked back to the farmhouse, managing a shower before collapsing in my bed.

I wasn’t alarmed until Missus asked during lunch if anyone had seen Diego. My stomach lurched. Instead of fluttering butterflies reminding me of last night, my belly was filled with heavy stones. It got worse when I noticed Boyd staring at his sandwich.

I followed Boyd after lunch to the horses’ stalls.

“Where’s Diego?” I said.

He gripped the rake tightly enough that his fingers went white. I grabbed another rake, not to help Boyd muck the stall but to force an answer he was avoiding.

“He said something last night about Emily,” Boyd mumbled.

“Tell me,” I demanded.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Lucy. I know you don’t like me anymore, but I don’t want to be the one to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

My heart quickened when his red and watery eyes finally met mine.

“He said he cheated on Emily with you.”

Boyd might have driven the rake into my gut for how hard my breath left me. Cheated? Diego hadn’t mentioned Emily in many weeks.

“He said he needed to talk to her. If it was over, he wanted her to tell him why. But if there was any chance…”

I wouldn’t let Boyd get away with an incomplete sentence.

“Say it.”

“Lucy.” It was a plea to go easy on him.

“Tell me exactly what he said, Boyd, or I swear to God I’ll swing this rake like your head is a baseball.”

“Diego said if there was any chance that she still loved him, he wanted her to know that he was still in love with her.” Boyd started to cry. “I’m so sorry, Lucy.”

I dropped the rake. I had no fight in me. In an instant, I had become exhausted. I felt older than seventeen. Last year, I’d turned sixteen and kissed Boyd. Emily had gone into labor and had a baby. Diego was devastated when she hadn’t returned to the farm. She hadn’t said goodbye to any of us.

Good people say goodbye, Diego had said.

It had taken one year for Diego to dishonor his own code.



* * *



Boyd repeated what he’d told me—minus the cheating part—to Missus, who then contacted the social worker. Diego was reported missing, a likely runaway. Emily and her aunt were notified by the social worker, according to Missus. Even the police were looking for him.

Boyd left me alone, which I appreciated. I was especially grateful he kept quiet about Diego and me. Nobody else knew that Diego and I had had sex, or that Diego believed he had cheated on Emily with me. I was the other woman; I’d thrown myself at Diego knowing he still had feelings for Emily.

I asked Missus if we could cancel or postpone my birthday celebration until Diego returned. She had already made the chocolate cake with chocolate frosting but agreed to serve it without the singing. I received a birthday card, money from the Hoppys, and the gift of chores done by my foster siblings.

After dinner, she asked me to help plant a tree in the hammock grove. The hole was already dug. She had a sugar maple for the spot. I shoveled dirt to fill the spot and rolled the five-gallon drum of water from the golf cart to the tree for watering.

Last year, my birthday had been a pleasant eye-opener that, perhaps, this foster care placement would be okay. I’d been surrounded by good people, great food, and plenty of books—even though the books were dusty hardcovers that smelled of mildew. I’d had my first kiss. And I had wished that Devery could’ve been at Hoppy Farm with me.

This year my wish for my seventeenth birthday was for Diego to return with an explanation that involved getting closure from Emily so he could continue something with me.



* * *



Nothing felt the same with Diego gone. I stopped going to the swimming hole. Even the nightly bonfires lost their appeal. Instead of spending time with everyone else, I retreated to my library, where I read until bedtime.

After a few weeks, I decided to search for Emily. I used one of the two computers in the study room. I knew her last name and her aunt’s first name, Enid. They were somewhere in Alpena, or near Alpena—which meant anywhere on the east side of the state. I found an obituary for Emily’s dad from several years prior, which listed a surviving sister, Enid, from Tawas City. Emily liked sewing. She used Missus’s sewing machine to alter clothes—making maternity tops out of thrift-store nightgowns and tailoring new waistbands in Lexi’s pants after a twenty-pound weight loss. I found a newspaper article online about a quilt show in downtown Bay City listing award winners. There was an Enid Johnston from Pinconning who’d won an honorable mention in the Crazy Quilts category. When I called the public library in Pinconning to ask about any quilting clubs, the librarian gave a phone number for the lady in charge, who welcomed me to attend their next gathering.