THE TEN BROTHERS WHO FELL FROM THE SKY3 / 3

Chapter 3 Dolores Kessler Arrives With a Casserole and a Plan

CHAPTER 003

"Piper, come down here, please."

Dad's voice came up the stairs, and it sounded wrong. Too careful. He sounded like he was reading from a card.

I stopped on the fourth step. The whole house smelled like onions and something cheesy. Mom never made anything like that. Mom made cinnamon toast and burnt the edges and laughed about it.

It had been eleven months since the funeral. Eleven months and four days.

I went down slowly.

Dad stood in the middle of the kitchen, standing very straight. Both hands were clasped in front of him. He looked like a man about to tell me the dog died, except we never had a dog.

Dee Kessler stood next to him, holding a big glass dish with oven mitts on. A little girl hid behind her legs, chewing on her braid.

"Hi, sweetheart," Dee said. Her smile was huge. "I made my famous chicken casserole. I hope you like cheese."

"I'm not that hungry," I said.

"Piper," Dad said.

"It's okay, Arne." Dee set the dish on the counter. Mom's counter. "She's shy. I was shy too."

I doubted that very much.

Dad cleared his throat. "Piper, Dee and Brianna are going to be staying with us for a while."

"For how long?"

"For a while."

"That's not a number, Dad."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Dee has been helping me with the plant's accounts for months now. And with the house. And, well, with everything. It just makes sense."

Helping. That was the word he kept using. Dee had been coming around since spring, always carrying folders, always touching his arm when she laughed.

I thought she was just the bank lady.

"Where will they sleep?" I asked.

"Dee will take the guest room," Dad said, and his eyes slid away from mine. "And Brianna will share with you at first."

"At first?"

"Piper."

Brianna peeked out from behind her mom. She was small, with big front teeth and a ribbon the size of a dinner plate on her head.

"I don't share," she said.

"Neither do I," I said.

"Girls," Dee laughed, like we were being cute. "We'll sort it out."

She said it so sweetly. But her hand squeezed Brianna's shoulder hard enough that the little girl flinched.

I saw it. Nobody else did.

The first week was like living in a house where somebody had swapped all the furniture while I blinked.

Dee was perfect when Dad was home. She hummed. She baked. She called him "honey" and asked about his day and listened like every word was gold.

When Dad left for the plant, the humming stopped.

"Piper, shoes off in the hall, please."

"Piper, we don't leave cups on the table."

"Piper, that's not how we fold towels in this house."

Please, please, please. Every one of them wrapped in a bow. Every one of them a slap.

On Tuesday, I came home from school and stopped in the living room doorway.

The wall was bare.

Mom's pictures were gone. Mom at the lake. Mom holding me on her hip with frosting on both our noses. Mom and Dad on their wedding day, squinting into the sun.

There were pale squares on the paint where they used to hang.

"Where are they?" My voice came out thin.

Dee came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. "Oh, those. I thought we'd freshen things up. I put them somewhere safe."

"Where?"

"In the garage, in a box. Nice and protected."

"You put my mom in a box?"

"Sweetheart." She tilted her head. "Nobody's putting anybody anywhere. It's just photos."

Just photos.

I didn't say anything. I couldn't. My throat had closed up like a fist.

That night, after everyone went to sleep, I crept down to the garage in my socks. The concrete was freezing. The box sat in the corner under a pile of Christmas lights.

I dug through it with shaking hands.

Mom at the lake. I grabbed it. It was the one where she's laughing so hard her eyes disappear.

I held it against my chest and ran back upstairs.

Brianna was awake when I got into the room.

"What's that?" she whispered from the other bed.

"Nothing."

"It's a picture. I saw."

"Go to sleep."

She sat up. Her ribbon was crooked. "Are you gonna tell on me for something?"

"What? No. Why would I tell on you?"

"Mom says I have to be good or we have to leave again." She picked at the blanket. "Again" sat in the air between us like a dropped plate.

I stared at her. "Leave where?"

"Nowhere." She lay back down fast. "I'm going to be famous, you know. So I need the big room."

"This is the big room."

"No, the other big room. The one with the window seat."

That was Mom's reading room.

"No," I said.

"Mom says I can."

"Your mom doesn't get to say that."

Brianna's chin wobbled, and for one second, I felt bad. Then I remembered the box and the pale squares on the wall, and the feeling went away.

I slid the photo under my pillowcase and turned off the light.

I should have found a better place.

On Saturday morning, Dee came into my room while I was in the shower. I knew because when I walked back in with my towel wrapped around my head, she was sitting on my bed.

Holding the photo.

My stomach dropped through the floor.

"Piper," she said. Her voice was soft as butter. "Come sit."

I stayed by the door.

"I was just changing your sheets." She turned the photo over in her hands slowly. "And look what I found."

"That's mine."

"Of course it is."

"You had no right to go through my stuff."

"I didn't go through anything, honey. It was in your pillowcase." She patted the bed. "Sit."

I sat. My knees made me.

I waited for her to yell. I almost wanted her to. Yelling, I could handle. Yelling meant she was a bad guy, and I could tell Dad.

She didn't yell.

She reached over and smoothed my wet hair behind my ear. Her fingers were cold and gentle.

"You miss her," she said.

I didn't answer.

"That's natural. I'd worry if you didn't." She set the photo in my lap, face up. Mom was still laughing at the lake. "Memories are lovely, sweetheart. But a house only has so much room."

I looked up.

She was smiling with her whole face. Except her eyes.

Her eyes were flat and still, like water in a bucket.

"Keep it if you want," she said, standing up. "Just keep it out of sight. Your father gets so sad when he sees things like that. You wouldn't want to hurt him, would you?"

She walked out and closed the door behind her. Click.

That was the first thing I learned about Dee. She never raised her voice.

The second thing was that I could never, ever let her see me cry.

So I didn't. I stared at the wall until my eyes stopped burning. Then I tucked the photo into my sock and pulled my jeans down over it.

I was ten years old. And I already knew how to hide things on my own body.

That night, I couldn't sleep.

Brianna snored softly across the room. Her ribbon lay on the nightstand like a sleeping bird.

I needed water. I tiptoed into the hall.

A line of light glowed under the guest room door. Dee's voice came through, low and sharp. Not the butter voice. A different one.

I pressed myself against the wall.

"No, he doesn't suspect anything," she said. A pause. "He signs whatever I put in front of him. He's too tired to read it."

My heart started pounding.