The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas

her face. Even though it’s not a color photo, I can tell that Joslin’s hair is bleached blond. She didn’t do her eyebrows to match. They’re still thick, and dark—
like Brooke Shields,
Lori used to say.
    Her expression is what gives her away. Her eyes are wide—too wide. Jos always blinked when the flash went off, so whenever she had to pose for a photo, she’d force her eyes open real wide in a way that always made me nearly pee myself laughing.
    We never owned a camera, so my parents didn’t have any baby pictures of us. My mom kept us home on picture day to avoid the embarrassment of sending us to school without a check to hand to the photographer.
    But I don’t need photos to know that Brandy Butler is, without a doubt, my sister.
    Wanda hands me a Post-it to copy down the address. I reach for the pen attached to the desk on a chain and scribble it down:
34 E Federal Street, Allentown, PA.
    “You never saw this,” Wanda says gently. I meet her gaze and nod.
    “Um.” I struggle to find the words. “What about Annette? Glenn’s wife. Did she come to say goodbye?”
    The sympathy etched on Wanda’s face morphs to full-blown pity. Of course my mother didn’t come.
    “Annette is still listed as his next of kin,” she says. “Far as I know, she hasn’t been around in years. Number we tried reaching her at was a work line. Apparently, she hasn’t been there in a while either.”
    I nod, nod, nod. I won’t let on to this stranger that this is the most information I’ve been given about my mother in years.
    My mom never talked about Gram when I was young, obviously, since she’d led us all to believe her parents were dead. When Gram heard about me, she didn’t seem surprised that I existed. Or that my mother had lied.
    “I’ll tell you what I told your sister.” Wanda leans forward. “I’m not allowed to give out details about inmates’ families, but the number for Black Rock Tavern is public and all, so I can’t stop you from calling yourself and asking about a former employee.”
    What I told your sister.
My knees wobble; I picture someone coming up behind me, smacking me behind the knees with a baseball bat.
    “My sister…asked how to find my mother?” I ask.
    Wanda blinks, as if it would be the most normal thing in the world for my sister to want to see her mother. In any other family, it would be.
    “You okay?” Wanda frowns at me.
    “Yeah, it’s just that—” Just that I’m going to vomit all over myself. “Never mind. Thanks.”
    It’s just that Joslin hated our mother, yet she still found time to look her up. It’s just that my sister knew exactly where I’d be if I came back, and she hasn’t made so much as a phone call.
    At the door, I remember the reason I convinced Callie I needed to stop in here. I turn around, rolling my ankle. I’m shaking. Callie was right to think my sister would only disappoint me.
    “Did my dad leave anything behind?” I ask Wanda. “Like any personal effects?”
    She frowns. “Mostly we just throw that stuff out unless family comes to claim it. Let me put in a call to the officer on his block.”
    I stuff my hands into the pockets of my hoodie to warm them. The AC is making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I think of Callie in the car, the midday sun beating through her windshield.
    I feel bad. But not bad enough to leave here without something of my dad’s, which would make her suspicious.
    Wanda hangs up the phone and tells me to take a seat, the warden’s coming. I reach for the cell phone in my back pocket, thinking it might be nice to text Callie and tell her I’ll be a few more minutes. Then I realize I don’t have Callie’s number.
    I turn my attention to the tiny box of a television protruding from the corner of the ceiling. The local news station is on.
    It’s only because I’m ignoring the vapid segment on the upcoming heat wave that I catch it, a brief headline on the news ticker across the bottom of the