CeeCee

I was only four when it happened.

I remind myself of that, when I can’t sleep at night – how little I was. I want to think that I was innocent, but the darkness drags me down. Some days it fills me completely, my blood thrumming through my veins like the somber drumbeat at an execution. Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

If I was four, then Ceecee must have been seven. I don’t remember her much, most of the memories patched together from old photos in the albums at Aunt Lucile’s house. A huge grin on her face as she blew out the candles on her birthday cake. The chocolate frosting smeared around her mouth as she posed with her arm slung over my shoulder. The smattering of freckles on her nose, and the way she called me Mimi. I know I idolized her.

Things appear different through the eyes of an adult. The photos I used to go over every night before bed as a kid no longer look quite so idyllic. I notice the bruises, the cut lip from ‘falling off her bike’, and the black eye from ‘swing ball’. All kids have accidents, but Ceecee had more than her fair share.

I don’t remember her ever crying. I think that might have been part of the problem. Would things have ended differently if she had cowered before them, instead of defiantly making eye contact and taking what they dished out?

Growing up in a house like ours, you learn tricks to survive. Little things like body language – how to make yourself almost invisible. How to stay in bed like a good girl, even though it’s five o’clock and you haven’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime. The hunger gnawing at your gut, belly cramping and twisting you in knots… but you learn to wait. Sooner or later they’ll pass out and it will be safe again.

I learned those things from Ceecee. How many times did she protect me? Distract them when I spilled my drink or cried, so their fists landed on her and not me? Just a kid herself, yet more a mother to me than our Mom could ever be.

Maybe it was always going to be one of us. Did she have to die, so I could live? When she left everything changed… CPS got involved and Mom kicked Chris out of the house, she was never quite as mean without him there to goad her. Without their drug-fueled benders and wild parties.

While other little girls played hide-and-seek in their closets, Ceecee would throw a blanket over me and shut the door, piling things in front of it and telling me to stay quiet. She told me it was a game, how long I could go without making a sound. Sometimes I fell asleep in there, the stifling heat and piles of musty clothing like a burrow around me. Other times I clenched my hands over my ears and pretended I couldn’t hear the shattered glass and screaming.

I try not to remember those things. I like to think of the better times – eating honey sandwiches in the middle of the night under our bed. The times we went to Aunt Lucile’s for a few days. The times when they simply forgot we existed and went somewhere, leaving us free to dance around the flat and watch television.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t recall the week before she left. Not a single thing. I wonder if it is Ceecee, protecting me still, knowing those memories would be too much to take.

I do remember the aftermath though. The frantic clean-up on our house, Mom shoving things into bin bags and hoovering everywhere. I remember Chris leaving with a large plastic tote, a glimpse of my Care Bears blanket through the clouded plastic. When he came home that afternoon he had a different box – a cardboard one wrapped in brown paper. He gave it to Mom and she sat beside me on the couch and opened it for me.

“It’s a present, Miranda. Look, see? She tossed aside the scrunched-up wrapping and showed me the photo on the front of the packaging. A smiling purple hippo, floating in a turquoise pool.

“Do you like it?” She asked. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. I looked for Ceecee, but she wasn’t there to guide me. So I nodded.

“Yeah, it’s cute, isn’t it? And I have a big surprise for you, too! Guess where we’re going tomorrow?”

I looked at my feet, overwhelmed.

“The beach! Won’t that be fun? You get to build sandcastles and eat ice cream and paddle in the sea. Won’t that be nice?”

“Ceecee come too?” I asked.

She frowned. “Ceecee is already there. She’s at the beach already, playing in the water. And this hippo is for her – do you know what its name is?”

I shook my head.

“It’s called Sissy. Because it’s Ceecee’s hippo. Can you say Sissy for me?”

“Sissy.”

“Yeah, like that. Can you say it again? I bet you can’t say it five times really fast.”

“Sissy, sissy, sissy…”

“Good enough. Now, I want you to listen really carefully. It’s super important, okay?” She grabbed my hand so tightly it hurt, and I squirmed to get away. “Tomorrow at the beach we are going to take Sissy for a swim in the water. And if anyone asks you any questions, you are to tell them “Sissy went in the sea. Okay?”

The next morning I woke up to Chris throwing me over his shoulder, blanket and all. He shoved me in the back of the car, alongside the massive purple hippo. Mom was in the front and she looked scared. She jumped when the car door slammed shut.

I remember standing on the sand in my new swimsuit, unsure what to do. The sand was sharp and the label itched and I just wanted Ceecee back. The beach was almost empty – it was a weekday and kind of windy, not really beach weather at all. I guess that’s why we were there.

When we were completely alone, Chris took the hippo down to the water. I didn’t want to go. Mum carried me, forcing me in up to my waist, splashing the cold water all over me. I started crying.

“Where’s Ceecee? I want Ceecee!” Over and over.

“She went for a swim, remember? She went for a swim in the sea with us.”

I was confused. It didn’t seem right. But they kept repeating it.

“Shall we send the hippo to Ceecee? Go on Miranda, push the hippo, push it out in the water!” I gave the hippo a shove, and they finally took me back to the beach. I stood shivering while the hippo drifted away, floating to find my sister. When it was almost too small to see, Mom started screaming.

“My baby, Oh, my baby!” Chris ran up the beach to fetch help, and Mom wrapped me in a towel and hugged me close.

The next days are a blur. Auntie Lucile tells me there were helicopters and lifeboats and rescuers all over the area for days. I’m sure when the police asked me questions I told them what I was meant to say – that Sissy’s hippo went away to sea. I didn’t have the words for the truth, nor the comprehension of what truth even was. Of course, they never found CeeCee, though the hippo showed up, a few miles offshore.

Afterward at Auntie Lucile’s they gave me a big slice of chocolate cake and told me what a good, brave girl I had been. I ate it all – how could I not? I was so very little and cake was just cake, the implications entirely lost on me.

I can’t eat chocolate cake anymore. I never go to the beach. More and more I wonder about that plastic tote, and where Chris took it. I think about going to the police… but would they believe me? How could a four-year-old be a reliable witness? What evidence could there be after so long?

Sometimes Ceecee visits me in my dreams. She’s wrapped in my Care Bears blanket and she brings me honey sandwiches. She tells me not to make a sound. See how long I can stay quiet. So, that’s what I do. Ceecee always knew best.

But I hope one night she changes her mind. Because I think I’m finally ready. I’m a big girl now, and I have the words. I want to bring her home.