PART 3 – My Sister Offered to Return Every Dollar, but Her Panic Made Me Wonder What She Had Suddenly Remembered About the Jacket

I put the phone back against my ear.

"Marla, listen to yourself. Yesterday, you wouldn't even lower the price."

She said nothing.

I could hear her breathing.

It was uneven, as if she had hurried to the phone or had been arguing with someone before calling me.

I waited for her to explain.

She didn't.

Instead, she asked whether Abby had touched the jacket.

I looked at the hallway again.

"No. It's hanging by the door."

"Then leave it there."

Her voice had changed.

It was quieter now, but not calmer.

I felt a small knot forming in my stomach.

"What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing is wrong with me."

"Then why are you demanding the jacket back?"

She let out a frustrated breath.

"I told you. Kayla needs it."

I knew my niece had worn the jacket before.

That was the entire reason Marla had offered it to me.

She had said Kayla used it for one season and had outgrown it.

I remembered the jacket resting on the chair in her house.

I remembered Marla pulling it away from me when I asked whether she would accept less money.

Nothing about that conversation suggested she wanted to keep it.

Now she was talking as if she had made a terrible mistake.

I tried to keep my voice steady.

"If you need it for Kayla, why did you sell it?"

"I wasn't thinking."

"You had plenty of time to think. You counted the money."

That was the wrong thing to say.

Marla snapped at me again.

She said she would return the eighty dollars and that I needed to stop making the situation difficult.

I looked at my purse on the kitchen counter.

The money was gone.

Even if she returned it, I would still have to explain to Abby why the jacket had disappeared.

And I couldn't understand why my sister suddenly seemed so frightened of a piece of clothing she had been happy to sell.

I took a slow breath.

"Marla, I don't understand."

"You don't have to understand."

"I think I deserve an explanation."

"No, Jen. You need to do what I'm asking."

Her words were so firm that I went quiet.

Then she told me not to let Abby wear the jacket.

She said she was coming over immediately.

Before I could ask another question, the call ended.

I stood in the kitchen with the phone in my hand.

The screen went dark.

For a moment, I didn't move.

I was angry.

I was also confused.

But beneath both feelings was something I didn't want to admit.

I was afraid.

Not because I thought Marla would hurt me.

I had known her long enough to expect cruelty when she felt challenged.

This was different.

Her voice had carried an urgency I had never heard from her before.

She wasn't merely demanding her property back.

She seemed desperate to prevent something from happening.

I couldn't work out what that something might be.

I placed the phone on the counter and walked toward the hallway.

Abby was in her bedroom, getting ready for school.

I could hear her opening drawers and moving things around.

Her backpack rested against the wall.

The jacket hung beside it.

I reached for the hanger, then stopped.

Marla had told me not to touch it.

The instruction irritated me.

She had taken my money, sold me the jacket, and then decided she could order me around as if the transaction had never happened.

I could have called her back.

I could have told her that she had no right to speak to me that way.

Instead, I stood there staring at the jacket.

I kept remembering the pause before she had told me she wanted it returned.

The way her voice had sounded when she asked whether Abby had worn it.

She had said good when I told her no.

Then she had corrected herself.

I mean, forget it.

Those words stayed with me.

I returned to the kitchen and tried to finish preparing breakfast.

I put bread on a plate.

I poured milk into a glass.

I checked the clock.

Every ordinary task felt strangely difficult because my thoughts kept returning to the phone call.

I wanted Marla to arrive and explain herself.

I wanted her to return the money and leave.

Mostly, I wanted the morning to become ordinary again.

Then I heard Abby moving in the hallway.

"Mom?"

I turned.

She was standing near the front door.

She had put on the jacket.

The sleeves reached just past her wrists, and the hood rested against her back.

For one brief second, I saw only my daughter looking pleased with herself.

Then I noticed her face.

She wasn't smiling anymore.

Her shoulders were stiff.

One hand was pushed deep into a pocket.

The other was held out in front of her.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?"

She looked at me without answering.

Then she lifted her hand a little higher.

There was something between her fingers.

I couldn't tell what it was from where I stood.

"Mom, look what was in here."

Her voice was so quiet that I almost didn't hear her.

I moved toward her.

She didn't take her eyes off the object.

I had seen Abby frightened before.

She had been frightened during Tom's final days, when she knew something was wrong but couldn't understand why the adults kept speaking in whispers.

I had held her then and told her we would get through it.

Now she looked at me with that same helpless expression.

Only this time, I had no idea what I was supposed to tell her.

Click here to continue reading: PART 4: Abby Held Something Between Her Fingers, and Suddenly My Sister’s Strange Phone Call Was the Least of My Worries