Sisters

So many memories I have of you are tangled up with rain.

One of my earliest memories is of you pulling me in a red wagon on the sidewalk in front of our old trailer park where we used to live. I was sleepy and you were pulling me slow, telling me a story beneath a dull gray sky spitting rain. I was trying hard to keep my eyes open, focusing on the tiny droplets of rain that speckled the tops of my blue and yellow canvas sneakers with bright red shoelaces that were always untied. You must have noticed my eyes beginning to droop and you asked me if I wanted to go inside.

People are always asking me questions.

I shook my head no. So you pulled me some more and continued on with your story. That’s what I remember: your scratchy voice mixing with the sound of light rain plunking the inside of my wagon as the wheels rolled along the sidewalk and I tried my hardest to keep my eyes from closing shut.

You are sad when rain falls during the day. You are afraid when rain falls at night. You were always afraid of the dark. So, I spent my nights lying on the floor next to your bed, staying awake until you fell asleep. On stormy nights, I wouldn’t close my eyes at all because the thunder and the drops hammering against the windows scared you so much. You’d reach down from your bed to put your hand on my shoulder and I would give it a pat to let you know I was awake.

“I’m awake,” I’d promise. I stayed awake. I kept my eyes open through the whole night, protecting you from flashes of lighting in the dark, from the trees creaking outside in the wind. I stayed awake. I never left.

But you did.

It was raining the morning after you left. It was during the first days of spring and I was driving to your house across town to take care of your kids, my windshield wipers sweeping sheets of rain from the glass. The sun had not yet fully risen and the sky was a deep charcoal gray with little twinkling sparks of lightning flickering through the heavy clouds. I stopped beneath a Pear Blossom tree in full bloom on the corner of your street. The storm had ripped off several of its branches, scattering countless white petals across the gray sidewalk and wet pavement. I let my car idle longer than usual, and watched as thousands of bright white petals drifted down the street, floating on the surface of rainwater rushing through the gutters. It was the last bit of brightness I would see for a while.

“She left me,” your husband told me when I walked into your house that morning. “She moved out. What the fuck am I going to do now?”

People are always asking me questions. What the fuck am I going to do? He would ask me this over and over in the coming months. Sometimes he was angry. Sometimes he was crying. He would sit on the front porch steps, smoking one cigarette after another, smearing the ash in zigzags on the cement in front of his work boots. Yelling or crying or both. What am I going to do? People are always asking me questions.

The house was full of your absence. Every day I would walk through the door and expect to see you, to find that you had come back, but every day I instead walked into the same strange hollowness. Everywhere I looked, there you weren’t. I’d get the kids out of bed and try to pretend that everything was okay. I tried to keep everything as normal as possible. I’d get the older ones ready for the day and send them to school. I kept the youngest boy at home with me. I took him on lots of walks. I’d pull him in his wagon and we’d look at the neighborhood gardens or we’d go to the zoo. We went to the park daily and we’d take turns running as fast as we could through the grassy field. We ran and ran. We ran until we were out of breath from laughing. My eyes would get red and watery and I blamed it on the wind.

He is just like you, your youngest. He couldn’t sleep unless he knew I was right next to him. Every day when I would put him down for his nap, he would make me promise that I wouldn’t leave, that I would stay by him until he was asleep. He would ask me to sing what he called “the song about raincoats,” so I sat next to his bed and sang “Famous Blue Raincoat” for him. He would be asleep by the time Leonard Cohen forgives his brother: “What can I possibly say? I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you, I’m glad you stood in my way.” He is just like you.

When your youngest was napping, I would stand in your living room and stare out the window. Two Jehovah’s Witnesses had made it a goal that year to convert me to their religion, and they would show up on your doorstep every week to try and show me the light and save my soul. I didn’t mind, I craved the company and would nod along with whatever they said, I would hold their pamphlets they handed to me and do my best to look interested so they wouldn’t leave. I just needed someone to talk to me. I was so fucking lonely.

“Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior?” They wanted to know.

People are always asking me questions.

Everyone had questions for me: Where is your sister? How is your sister? What is your sister doing? So many questions. What the fuck am I going to do now? What am I going to do? I don’t know. People are always asking me questions. Where is mom? When is she coming home? Soon, I promise. People think I have answers. Why are your eyes crying? I’m not crying, I was just running too fast. Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior? What a beautiful idea to believe someone will come and save you. Nobody is my savior, but please don’t leave. Please stay and talk to me. I need someone to talk to me. Do you believe the Lord will save you from the Apocalypse? I don’t know if I believe in anything anymore, but please don’t leave. Did you know the signs of the Apocalypse are all around us? I think someone experiences an apocalypse every day. Every day, someone’s world ends, someone’s heart breaks, someone loses everything. Please don’t leave, I need someone to talk to me. What am I going to do? What am I going to do?

Stop.

Do you see how far I can stretch? Do you see how I can stand in place and yet be pulled in every direction? Do you see how I can be everywhere and nowhere at the same time? Do you see how much weight I can carry on my back and still float away? Do you see me? I am right in front of you.

In a recurring dream I had throughout that whole year, I’m lying down alongside the edge of a cliff and I hear a voice say, “Listen to me. You are disappearing.” The same voice, carrying the same message has been in other dreams of mine. It sounds like you. Listen to me. I try to open my eyes to see who is speaking, to see if it really is you. You are disappearing. I try to open my eyes, but I find that I have sewn my lids shut. I’m so tired. That’s my last thought in the dream. Listen to me. I’m so tired and I don’t want to see anything anymore. You are disappearing.

It was raining the day you came back into our lives. I walked through the wet drizzle and entered the hospital with my clothes damp. I rode the elevator up to your floor, and in my head I went over the list of things I wanted to tell you. There were lots of exclamation points:

I can’t believe you left us! You scared me to death! I can’t do this by myself! You left us! I can’t carry all of this! I can’t! Fuck!

And on and on.

The nurse at the hospital spoke to me through a speaker as she sat behind a thick layer of glass separating us. She made me empty my pockets and hand over my keys, credit cards, coins, belt, my hand bag. She made me lift up my shirt to prove I wasn’t hiding any sharp objects under it. She cringed when she saw my ribs. “Does it hurt to look at me?” I wanted to tell her, but didn’t. “Because it hurts to be me.”

She finally stood up and let me through the door, shutting it quickly and locking it immediately behind me. I went over the list of exclamation points in my head again as she walked with me down the long narrow hall that led to your room.

You left us! I can’t do this by myself! I am so mad! I can’t carry all of this!

Stop.

I opened your door and saw you in that cold, metal framed bed, wrapped up in sterile white sheets with your head resting on a thin white pillow. You looked so small and sad; all alone as you stared out your window at the cold rain falling from a dull gray sky. I forgot about my list and came over to the edge of your bed. I was just so happy to see you. I sat at your feet and gave your ankle a pat. What can I possibly say? “I’m right here.” But this was a different kind of darkness, and I couldn’t protect you from it. So we just sat and stared. I was so tired. You closed your eyes and I kept mine open. I was so tired. What can I possibly say? I guess that I miss you. I guess I forgive you.

* * *

Now, when people ask me how you are doing, I tell them that you are so much better (because you are). I tell them that I am very proud of you (because I am).

And then, almost as an afterthought, they’ll usually ask: “And how are you?”

People are always asking me questions.