She was working the front desk at the motel outside Dayton where Mom used to warn us never to stop for gas.
That’s what the woman behind the office window told me after I finally tracked her down.
Not dead.
Not successful.
Not “mad at me.”
Just gone.
Apparently after our fight she stopped answering almost everybody. Picked up night shifts. Started living month to month. The manager said sometimes she’d sleep in room 12 between doubles because driving home wasn’t worth the gas.
I honestly thought the woman had the wrong person.
My sister raised me.
Packed my lunches.
Sat through parent conferences pretending to be my guardian at twenty-one years old.
And I called her a nobody in front of people.
The manager kept talking while handing me a stack of junk mail they still held for her.
Collection notices.
Past-due electric bills.
One envelope from my law school.
Opened already.
Inside was a financial aid rejection letter from my junior year.
Across the top my sister had written in blue pen:
“Took care of it. Don’t tell Trey.”
My stomach dropped so hard I had to sit down.
Because that was the same semester she told me she “finally bought herself a nicer car.”
She never bought a car.
She took out another loan so I could stay in school.
Then the motel manager asked if I was the brother who became the lawyer.
I said yes.
She looked at me for a second and said, “Your sister used to come into the office crying after your interviews were on TV.”
That part still messes me up worse than anything else.