“Why couldn’t you handle taking care of Franny anymore? Why did you dump her off at the first place you could find?”

“You don’t understand,” she said, her voice muffled as she continued to hide her face from me.

Maybe I was tired or still half asleep, but I was not willing to give in to her as easily as I usually did.

“I do understand. This is about you because everything is always all about you.”

She dropped her hands. Even in the dark, I could see her face turn pale; I had caught her offguard. She said nothing and that made me even angrier.

“I wish you would have just left me behind.”

I wondered how long those words had been sitting inside of me, like a round of ammunition, waiting to be shot out.

“Oh, Matilda. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve wished the same thing. But for whatever reason, you are the one I am stuck with.”

She walked back into the kitchen and then I heard the jingle of keys and the door slam behind her.

I don’t really know where she went or how long I sat alone in that dark, empty room. All I know is that after a while I got up and went upstairs to my bedroom. I’d grown tired of waiting.

In the morning, the only evidence of the night before was an empty container of ice cream left on the kitchen counter. There was a big brown spot where she had left her spoon. I walked past my mother slowly, because I wasn’t sure what she might do or say. I waited for her to apologize, to tell me that she didn’t regret bringing me along and that she never wished she had left me behind. When that didn’t come, I opened the cabinet and found the peanut butter. I took out a butter knife, swirled it around in the jar until I got a thick rounded wedge, and spread the peanut butter on a slice of bread. Still nothing.

As she started to pack her things, I cleared my throat and she looked up. Interrupted. “What is it, Matilda?”

I didn’t know how to respond, how to tell her that I felt cracked open and needed her to glue the pieces back together. She handed me a permission slip for a school trip I had forgotten I had given her, and when I didn’t take it, she left it on the table. I opened the refrigerator door and felt the cool air hit my face when I reached for the strawberry jam. When I pulled my head back out again, she was gone.