My Sister's Keeper

Chapter 3

3

THE LAST THING I EXPECTED was to be accosted by a couple of women. One was blond with dark eyebrows, the other had dark hair piled high in a bee-hive with a tattoo on her neck—some kind of Chinese symbol. They wore jeans, t-shirts with the sleeves and midriff area ripped off, and metal studs in both their navels and lips—like many of the women you'd run into at Wal-Mart. I saw Martha's hand moving slowly toward her cell phone.

I cleared my throat. "We're working undercover here. You'd better run along if you don't want to get in trouble."

The blond smacked a wad of gum and pointed a finger at Martha. "Just keep your hands where we can see them, Sweetie. And you—" She looked at me. "What did Sam Jones tell you, Baimbridge?"

Sam Jones? "He—told us to stay away."

"Right. And he don't like it when you don't listen."

"We...just—"

"You are endangering the lives of every officer down here. If you don't want to be charged with interfering with an investigation, then do as you're told."

Martha and I said little on the way back to Mom and Dad's. We'd had the hell scared out of us and agreed that in the future we needed to take along some kind of protection. Next time, it might not be the police.

When we arrived back at the house, Mom was loading her car for what she called her missionary work—a visit to some shut-in's to deliver food and see to it that they had everything they needed.

She saw that our plans had changed and begged us to go.

Twelve miles southwest of Wilmington she turned up a dirt road, passed two abandoned doublewides parked in what appeared to be a makeshift trash dump, and stopped at a small farm up on a hill.

I'd been here before—dozens of times going back to my childhood. I think this was Mom's favorite case. She'd stopped doing for most of the others, but not this one. The man that lived here was named Winston. I'd always liked him. He was younger than the rest and treated everybody special.

He'd been burned horribly in a fire. His skin had melted like a wax doll set too close to the stove. His nose and his ears were mostly gone, just enough left to show where they'd been. His eyelids always looked tight and red, and he blinked all the time. He had no hair anywhere that I could see except a tiny patch on the right side of his head. No eyebrows. No eyelashes. And no lips.

Martha and I thought his mouth looked like it belonged on a fish. I had nightmares about him that went on for more than a year after seeing him for the first time. But now I hardly notice.

He made his living raising livestock for the local meat markets. Cattle, pigs, goats, and chickens. He smoked Borkum Riff tobacco in a pipe, an aroma I could still smell in my clothes long after we were gone. To this day I love to smell it.

It had been at least ten years since I'd been there. He welcomed us in as he always did and seemed genuinely pleased that Martha and I had come. He wanted to hear all about what we'd been up to since he'd seen us last and acted like he truly cared. He was thoughtful, positive, inspiring, and way too generous. I think Mom usually took home more than she brought, but maybe having someone to talk to was more important to him than the food.

He had a quick sense of humor and was the most intelligent person I'd ever met. I don't think I ever went there that I didn't leave glad I'd been.

I think Mom cared a lot about Winston, too. She always cried when we left. Sometimes for days.

After a couple of hours, he and Mom went for a walk and it was obvious why she'd kept coming back all these years. It was good to be respected, needed, and appreciated.