Tears burning hot down her face, Helen burst into the party. Cousin Harry, dancing in the middle of the yard with his new wife, looked over his shoulder with a frown. Mother was nowhere to be seen, but Tommy and Mark were playing marbles on the patio, Tommy turning to look as Helen came running in. Choking on her sobs, she shouted at them, feeling helpless and angry. “You left me all alone! I was hiding — nobody found me! I win! It got dark and I was cold and you left me there! You’re supposed to look after me!”
Silence. Across the yard, the wedding band slowly stopped playing their slow, romantic tune.
“I want my mother!” cried Helen. “Mother!”
Aunt Elizabeth was the first to speak. “Little girl,” she said carefully, bending down to Helen’s height. “Are you lost?”
“No, Aunt Elizabeth.” Helen caught her breath. “We were all playing hide and seek and Mark was It but he didn’t find me and I was all alone so I came back.”
“She wasn’t in the game!” called Mark from the patio. “It was just Tommy and me and the cousins.”
“I was too!” screamed Helen. “Celia, wasn’t I? Annie?”
“I don’t know,” demurred Celia. Annie was sitting on Aunt Ida’s lap, half asleep, and she didn’t stir.
“Little girl,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “What’s your name? Where do you live?”
Helen stood very still. All around her faces were twisted and confused. Mark and Tommy were rolling marbles back and forth, smirking at each other. Cousin Harry was whispering something in his new wife’s ear, rubbing the small of her back with his thumb, back and forth. Helen scanned the windows of the house, cozy with their white curtains. Some pale, watchful faces — Grandma, Cousin Emily — but no Mother.
“I’m Helen,” said Helen, her voice trembling and painful in her throat.
“Okay, Helen,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “Do you live in this neighborhood? How do you know Mark and Tommy?”
“I live at home with Mother and Mark and Tommy. They’re my brothers.” Why didn’t Aunt Elizabeth know that? Were they playing a joke?
“She’s lying,” said Tommy. “We don’t have any sister.”
“Yeah,” said Mark. “We’ve never seen her before.”
Helen turned to look at them. Their faces were like her own but bigger and rougher. They didn’t have their bullying shapes on and their mouths weren’t twisted up for teasing. Their eyes were wide open and clear, questioning.
“You’re supposed to look after me,” she said. “That’s what big brothers do.”
“Sorry,” said Mark. “We don’t know you.”
Helen turned back to Aunt Elizabeth, who was mouthing something at Cousin Harry.
“Come, now, Helen,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “Let’s go inside and telephone your parents.”
“No,” said Helen. “My mother’s here. I want her.”
Cousin Harry gestured at the band and they began to play again, a raucous dancing tune. Harry spun his wife around and around, kissing her on one cheek and then the other. Annie woke up and pulled Sarah and Jack into the middle of the lawn, jumping and spinning in their fancy clean clothes. Helen kicked her shoe against the grass, looking at the stains on her socks and ankles.
“Let’s go inside, honey,” said Aunt Elizabeth. She wasn’t smiling anymore. “This is a big party for my son Harry. Let’s get you sorted out so it isn’t spoiled.”
“I don’t spoil things,” said Helen, tears pricking at her eyes again. “I just got lost. Why don’t you know me, Aunt Elizabeth?”
“Little girl, I am not your aunt. I don’t know if you are a friend of Mark and Tommy’s, playing some kind of joke, but it isn’t funny anymore. This is a special day. Let’s go inside.” Aunt Elizabeth put her hand on Helen’s back and steered her towards the door. Helen dug her feet in and pushed back.
As she stood there, leaning against the ever more forceful hand, the music grew louder and louder. Tommy and Mark weren’t paying attention anymore. Celia was standing by the table, drinking a cup of punch and looking at her shoes. It wasn’t Helen playing a joke — it was them. They were all tricking her, making fun of her for being too good at hiding, angry at her because she won the game and nobody else could.
That was it. They were jealous of her. Of her beautiful hair and her special place in the culvert. Mother would make them stop.
This thought relaxed Helen, and she stopped pushing back. Aunt Elizabeth, who was talking, didn’t notice, and kept shoving. Helen flew forward, losing her balance and landing on her stomach on the grass, her party dress crushed in the mud, one shoe coming off.
“Oh, little girl,” said Aunt Elizabeth, standing over her. “Come on, get up.”
Helen could do nothing but cry. Her chest was empty of air, aching like she’d never breathe again.
Aunt Elizabeth hauled her to her feet and, grabbing her hand, walked her towards the house. Desperately Helen looked over her shoulder and met the gaze of Cousin Harry. Harry, who had always loved Helen, read her stories, played games with her stuffed animals on the floor at Christmas. Harry her most admired cousin, who joked with Mother and held Helen on his lap. Harry was glaring at her, his brow tight together. She saw herself as he saw her, a dirty angry urchin child, getting mud and snot and blood and leaves all over the best day of his life. His bride’s head was resting delicately on his shoulder, and as Helen looked at him, he put one hand to her soft cheek and spun her away, turning his back.
Helen let Aunt Elizabeth take her into the house. It didn’t look much different from how it had earlier that afternoon, but now Helen felt uneasy, aware of the dirt her one shoe was getting on the carpet, the pictures lining the walls in which, for all her frantic searching, she could not find herself.
“Just come and sit in the kitchen and we can sort this out,” said Aunt Elizabeth, still steering.
Helen was silent. There was nobody sitting in the front room. As they came into the living room, Mother looked up from the couch, smiling vaguely and then, prettily, frowning.
“Elizabeth, what’s going on?” she said, her voice a sweet, pure sound. Forgetting the dirt and the blood on her hands, Helen ran forward, throwing herself on her Mother and burying her face in the blue and white fabric of her dress.
“Mother,” she said, “Mother, they’re all playing a trick on me. Tell them to stop.”
“Elizabeth,” said Mother slowly, her hands hovering above Helen’s back. “Who is this?”
Of what came next Helen understood very little. There was no longer any use in crying, since its purpose had been to draw the attention and sympathy of Mother. For Tommy and Mark to play a trick was one thing, even for Cousin Harry and Aunt Elizabeth to wholeheartedly participate, but for Mother to join in was unthinkable. It was Mother who whispered to Helen, in the middle of the night when she thought she was asleep, that Helen was her favorite child, her most beloved, the one who most reminded her of him. And now there was nothing in the air between them, no warmth, no symbiosis of smell and thought.
Helen stood in the corner of the room and scratched the flakes of blood off her hand.
“Who is she, Elizabeth?” asked Mother, shaking her skirt out over the cold hearth, her face twisted in disgust. “Such a dirty child. Where did she come from? And such odd hair.”
“I don’t know, Mary. She ran into the party, saying Tommy and Mark were her brothers, that they abandoned her in a game of hide and seek.”
“I wonder where she got that idea? What an odd child. She doesn’t look anything like me.”
Without intending to, Helen spoke. “I look like him. Like Daddy. That’s what you always told me. Even though he’s gone. I remind you of him.”
As fast as she could blink, Mother was standing in front of her, red up her face and down to the pretty square neckline of her dress. The slap was so hard and so loud that Helen didn’t register it until it was over. Mother was stalking away, back towards Aunt Elizabeth.
“I don’t know what kind of joke you’re playing, and I don’t know what you know about my husband, but that talk is unacceptable,” said Mother, her voice high and tight. “Elizabeth, take this child away from me.”
“Mary, she’s only a little girl. I was taking her to the kitchen to call her parents. There’s no call to hit her,” said Elizabeth. Helen remembered being pitched into the mud. Without meaning to, she slid to the floor, drawing her knees up to her chest, her face burning, her legs aching, her eyes dry and swollen.
“Oh, stop it, Elizabeth,” said Mother. “She’s clearly trying to play some kind of trick on me.”
“Please, Mary.” Elizabeth sighed. “Come, Helen, let’s call your parents. I’ll get you a glass of milk.”
Numbly Helen got up and followed her into the kitchen. Mother sat in the living room, faced away from them, head held stiff and high. Her hair, brown like Mark and Tommy’s, was tied up in an elaborate rose-shaped knot at the back of her head, held together by pearl-encrusted hairpins. Helen saw her favorite one, the one with the sixth pearl, the one that she had pushed into the center of the rose that morning. It glimmered like a star as she walked away, that extra pearl that she and her mother had marveled over together, stroked with their fingers. Helen put her hands in her own yellow hair and pulled.
“Stop that, child,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “I’m sorry my sister hit you, but you shouldn’t say such things to her. She’s a very delicate woman. Come, wash your hands and I’ll get you something to drink.”
The water felt cold on Helen’s hands, even though the knob was decorated with a little H. She rubbed the smooth pink soap bar on her palms and watched the blood and dirt drain away. When she turned back to the table, Aunt Elizabeth had a tall glass of pale milk standing on the table, and the chair pulled out. Helen sat and touched the glass, but it was freezing, almost painful to the touch.
“I don’t like milk,” said Helen. It was the first lie she’d told since the culvert, and she regretted it instantly. Lying could not help them recognize her. Mother would know that the real Helen loved milk, as would Grandma. “I love it, I mean,” said Helen. “Thank you, Aunt Elizabeth.”
“Please, don’t call me that, Helen,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “Now, what is your last name? Do you know your street address?”
“No.”
“No?” Aunt Elizabeth frowned, looking unimpressed. “Not even an initial?”
“No.”
“What do your parents do?”
“My dad’s dead. My mom works in a flower shop.”
“Helen, stop that.” Aunt Elizabeth stood, and went to the telephone. “You’re not a part of this family.”
Helen felt her left leg go completely limp. She tried to move it, to push against the leg of the table. It just stayed there, dead and heavy like a sandbag. She tried to speak, but only a quiet puff of air came out, and Aunt Elizabeth was turned away and couldn’t see her mouth opening and closing.
“Because you’re being difficult, young lady, I’m going to call the police and let them take care of you,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “I hope you’ll cooperate with them.” She paused. “I don’t see why you’re being like this. If you’d just tell me your last name you could be home with your mother and father in fifteen minutes.”
Helen’s other leg went limp, then her right hand. She tried to reach for her milk and managed to lift her arm about an inch, knocking over the glass. The milk, white and unhealthy looking, spread like a fungus across the red table. Some of it was dripping off the edge of the table and onto Helen’s lap. She tried to brush it away with her remaining hand, but it was so cold it burned her.
Aunt Elizabeth was speaking quietly on the phone. “Yes, it’s my son’s wedding. I don’t know who she is. She just showed up. Says her name’s Helen. About seven or eight, I’d guess? Blonde hair, very long and almost white. Dirty. Like she’s been sleeping in the woods. No, none of us have ever seen her before.”
Helen’s left arm was tingling, growing numb and limp like the rest of her, and as Aunt Elizabeth turned to scrutinize her she felt the sensation spread up her back.
Aunt Elizabeth covered the phone with her hand. “Helen! Get a paper towel and clean that milk up this instant.”
Helen’s back and neck were limp now, soft as rubber and heavier than cement. She knew before it began what was going to happen. As she pitched sideways off the chair, she noticed, high up on the wall, a little drawing of a blonde girl surrounded by her family. She drew that. She drew that for Grandma. Then she hit the tile floor, and as Aunt Elizabeth dropped the telephone and raised her voice, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.