The Eraser In My Brain Moved And My Sister Disappeared Chapter 06
When we got home, Dad carefully laid me on my little bed with the floral sheets.
His movements were very gentle, as if he were afraid of hurting me.
He pulled the blanket up to my chest, then paused and tugged it back down a little so my face was showing.
“This way… you’ll have some air.”
Dad reached out to brush my bangs aside, but my hair was full of ice.
It had frozen hard.
No matter how he tried, he could not brush it aside.
“I’m sorry. I should have come looking for you yesterday. This is my fault.”
Dad’s hands kept shaking.
It was as if he had aged many years in an instant.
“Why didn’t I look for you last night? I knew you were sick. I knew.”
He kept hitting himself in the head, then buried his face in his hands.
“Dad, don’t hit yourself. Please don’t.”
I wanted to stop him, but I could not.
I did not understand.
Why had Mom and Dad become like this?
Was it only because I was dead?
When the neighbors helped Mom into the house, she saw me lying on the bed, and her whole body started trembling again.
She shook off the neighbor’s hand and stumbled to my bedside.
“It’s fake. All of this is fake.”
She murmured to herself, her eyes unfocused. “My Sienna is playing a joke on me. She’s obviously hiding. Yes, she’s hiding.”
She suddenly turned around and began searching every corner of the house like a madwoman.
“Sienna, come out. I won’t scold you anymore. I’ll fix your doll. I’ll make your favorite honey barbecue ribs. Come out.”
Dad stepped forward to pull her back, but she shoved him away.
“Don’t touch me. Someone must have hidden her. My Sienna is such a good girl. She would never fail to come home. Someone must have hurt her.”
Mom’s eyes were bloodshot as she grabbed Dad’s arm with a death grip.
“Call the police, Dave. Call them right now. Some evil bastard must have taken my daughter and hurt her.”
“Gwen, calm down,” Dad tried to soothe her.
“Calm down? How am I supposed to calm down? Isn’t the child lying there your daughter too?”
Mom screamed, and tears poured down her face again.
“I’m calling the police. Right now.”
She broke free from Dad and stumbled toward the home phone, dialing with shaking hands.
Dad stood where he was and, in the end, did not stop her.
Sunny quietly walked to my bedside and stood on tiptoe to look at me.
She reached out with her small hand and carefully touched the hand I had left outside the blanket, then quickly pulled back and ran away.
A little while later, she came back holding the rag doll Mom had torn apart.
The doll’s body was split open, stuffing spilling out, and one eye was missing.
Sunny placed the doll beside my pillow, then tried hard to tuck the loose
stuffing back inside and pinch the ripped fabric together.
But the cloth had already been torn apart.
No matter how hard she tried, the stuffing kept leaking out.
Her eyes reddened with panic. Her little hands were bright red from the cold, but she stubbornly kept trying again and again.
“When I fix the doll, Sienna won’t be mad anymore.”
“Sunny won’t play hide-and-seek ever again. Sienna, please get up.”