I pause, delete, and start that second sentence again.
I sigh and drop my phone. Tipping my head to the ceiling, I suck in a deep breath. I must stay like that longer than I realize because when I look back down at my phone, there’s another message from Mom.
I grit my teeth so hard my jaw starts to ache.
“Fuck this,” I say to Prince, nudging him off my lap, possibly a little more roughly than is necessary. He growls at me but then finds a cushion that is apparently just as comfortable and settlesagain. Getting up, I rush into the kitchen and find my mom’s emergency bag of cannabis gummies. I pop one in my mouth and start chewing.
I feel discomfort simmer in the pit of my stomach and as I stare out across the yard at my cabin, I find it’s impossible to ignore what this unsettled feeling is really about.
Because my mom is right. I should be happy for Jessica. I should be helping facilitate it rather than scheming about how to make it stop. I should be researching ways in which other 12% CFers have intimate relationships and minimize the risks of infection, not trying to just make the problem go away. I know my attitude on relationships has changed over the last few years, and I know I’ve got these new expectations and boundaries for myself, but why am I applying them to my sister, someone who deserves love more than anyone?
“Fuck this!” I say again after swallowing. The rage tightens my throat and has my voice cracking.
And I know what lies at the root of my despair.
Fear.
Fear of losing my sister.
Fear of not being able to make her better when she gets sick.
Fear of not being enough to keep those I love close to me.
Wait. What? What the fuck?
I grab another two gummies and chew on them like my life depends on it. Then I fill a glass of water and down it while still standing at the sink. Doing this a second time, after the glass is empty, I set it aside and find Prince’s leash on counter.
A walk with this little fluffball that has so improved my sister’s life will help. A walk under the stars will help. A walk in the dark – and the gummies I just devoured – will help bring me back to myself and what really matters – supporting my sister and my mom, providing for them and helping them be happy, even ifthat means challenges and hurdles – and I will work out some of this rage and tension and yes, fear, out of my body.
“Come on, Princey, let’s go!” I call out, but by the time I walk back into the lounge, I can hear his soft snores, his little body curled up and tucked in on itself.
Or I could do something else.
I walk into the dining room. We only use it now and then, seeing as we have a table in the kitchen that is plenty big enough for us all, and sometimes we just prefer to eat in front of the TV when Jessica is in the middle of one of her movie binge-watching sessions. This is why the room has been commandeered by Jessica and Taylor and their latest painting obsession, which has seen them use up all of the supplies I had.
It doesn’t take me long to find what I’m looking for – a clean canvas, a piece of cardboard I can use as a palette, tubes of acrylic paint in the colors I want, and a couple of clean paintbrushes – and I balance it all on a folded-up easel. The gummies start to take effect by the time I’m outside in my yard, with one of the kitchen chairs set up in front of the easel holding the canvas. I sit down and look up at the sky, feeling the warmth of the cannabis start to dull the sharp edges of all that tension and rage and fear.
Smiling up at the sky, I wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, for the black to become so much more than just one colorless void and for the stars to start telling me stories.
It doesn’t take long. Or maybe it does and I’m just more stoned than I realize, but after what feels like only a few minutes, I reach for some tubes of paint and squeeze two little blobs on the cardboard, one black and one white. A second later, I pick up a brush and dab it in the black, and then hold it up to the canvas.
Just before I make contact, I look up at the stars again and I hear their message, loud and clear.
“We’re here,” they tell me. And I don’t know who it is. The stars, my ancestors or some other magical kind of spiritual being, but they’re telling me very precisely, very deliberately, that they’re here, with me.
That I’m not alone.
