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It was a smile that got me through my less than stellar childhood.
It was a smile that I saw through my phone when I was still up in Jersey, and she had been away at school in Georgia.
It was a smile I got to see at the coffeeshop every single Sunday when she finally moved back to the area just a year ago, a smile that somehow made the humdrum drudgery that was my life completely tolerable.
It was so bright that it was blinding.
And since it had been gone, my world had been so much darker.
Pitch, in fact.
And so fucking cold.
I had always been me, guarded, distant, jaded, cynical, a bit of a bitch. But, I think, things had taken a turn when I got the call that night, when she was no longer around to balance me, to remind me of the good that there still was in the world.
I knew if she could, she would tell me to knock it off, to ovary-up, to stop being such a Negative Nelly.
It might not always be rainbows and sunshine, but the rain is lovely too, Lele.
I wasn't so convinced.
I'd been in a constant storm for half a year; I had yet to find any beauty in it.
Maybe that is because you're not looking for it.
That was exactly what she would tell me if she could.
Maybe she was right.
She usually was.
But what the fuck was the point of finding any beauty when she was laid up in a bed, not able to share it with me?
I reached out, sliding my hand under hers and curling it around. It was cold, but her hands always were.
Cold hands mean a warm heart.
Fuck if that wasn't true in her case.
I sat there for a long moment, nothing but stillness inside and out.
It was silly.
Juvenile, really.
But I was still waiting to see if her finger would twitch.
That was all I would need.
To stop the upcoming process.
To get not to make that decision I was dreading.
To take my sister off life support.SIXLennyI tell time in my memories not so much by the years or the grade I was in at school, but by whose house I was staying at any given time.
Which man's house I was staying in at any given time.
My mother changed men like most people changed sheets.
My first memory was of a man named Brian's house. Brian was an electrical engineer, handsome, funny, and, well, too good to put up with my mother's shit. Even at five I could see that. Even at five, I felt embarrassed for her when Brian would say he was going out for the night - without her - and she had dropped to her knees sobbing, holding onto his leg like a small child throwing a fit.
We came back from the convenience store the next day to find the locks changed and our bags on the front porch.
Brian was getting free before she wrapped him up tight enough to suffocate him.
By the time I was eight, she was on her second marriage and, well, umpteenth man.
And then nine months later, after spending too much time staring at my mother's belly, wondering who the hell was going to take care of a baby when my mother could hardly take care of herself, let alone me.
But there was no stopping it.
There was Letha.
Letha, unlike myself, was lucky enough to be born to a father who gave a shit about her, who provided for her, who put up with my mom's shit for years for Letha's sake.
And Letha, yeah, she bloomed in the light of her father's clear affection.
He didn't care for me.
I was a sullen girl, surly, prone to bursts of obstinate silence, and, well, an extension of my mother who he grew to hate more with each passing day.
My mother, what could be said about the woman who, before all the marriages made it unrecognizable and confusing, was called Leigh Thomas.
I guess it would be fair to point out the things that had always mattered most to her - her looks.
When she was younger, before the plastic surgery stole away the things that had always been a part of her, she had been almost unfairly pretty with her shining blonde hair, blue eyes, delicate feminine face, and perfectly thin frame that was most prized in that time, back before curves became all the rage again.
On top of that, there was her damsel in distress personality that was catnip to all the men she came in contact with.
Oh, thank you so much! If you didn't happen by, my little girl and I would have been stranded here all day! You are an absolute lifesaver! I wouldn't have known a tire iron from a baseball bat.
Meanwhile, she had been varsity in softball in high school, and not only had a tire iron in the trunk, but totally knew how to use it.
