‘How nice, is she going to help us with the garden?’ Nyla clips off the next branch with determination.
‘She can’t.’
She pauses mid-movement, a deep furrow forming between her brows. ‘Is she sick?’
I catch her gaze, then shake my head, and even though I try to smile, I can’t manage it. In her eyes I think I can see that she suspects something.
‘Do you want to tell me about her?’ she asks.
While I think about it, I step up to a shrub and start trimming the branches one by one. At first Nyla waits patiently, but when I stay silent, she turns back to the work as well.
‘When I was ten, we had to put our Labrador Milo to sleep,’ I eventually begin. ‘Camee was seven and couldn’t stop crying.’
I can already see my little sister huddled on her bed, eyes swollen, tears running down her cheeks. It’s definitely not a pleasant memory, but I let it rise up and tell Nyla what happened back then.
The door to her room is only open a crack, and I peek inside. Camee is clutching the teddy bear to her chest that she actually had disappear into a box in the attic years ago, and she’s quietly sniffling to herself. She hasn’t noticed me watching her yet; I could just walk on, but I’m still standing here.
I shouldn’t do it, it would be better for me, but I still knock on the door and push it open right after.
Harshly, she wipes the tears from her cheeks. ‘What do you want?’
I sit down next to her, not really sure what I should say or do. So I just sit there and put my arm around her and feel pretty damn stupid doing it. Ringing doorbells of strangers’ houses with her and then running away, I’m good at that. But this…
All of a sudden Mom appears in the doorway. It only takes a fraction of a second for her to grasp the situation and for the corners of her mouth to lift.
‘Who feels like getting ice cream?’ she asks, clapping her hands. ‘Dad and I were just talking about going to the ice-cream parlor, you know, the one with the horse in front of the door that you can ride on.’
‘That wasn’t even cool anymore five years ago,’ I say, even though I know Camee still loves the bobbing plastic pony. But right now she’s sad; we should be there for her, shouldn’t we?
‘Come on, you two, today is such a beautiful day, we have to go out and enjoy the sun.’ Mom comes over to us and reaches out her hand to Lilly. She doesn’t comment on her tearstained face, nor on the soft whimpering she still lets out from time to time. ‘Come on, honey, we’re going to make it a really lovely day.’
‘But it’s not a lovely day.’ Lilly folds her arms.
‘But of course he is,’ Mom answers, almost indignant. ‘And now, shoo, shoo, or Dad and I will eat all the ice cream by ourselves.’
‘I don’t want ice cream,’ my little sister yells at her. ‘I want Milo.’
For a fraction of a second Mom stiffens, then she turns to me. ‘And what about you? You want some ice cream, right?’
The difference between Lilly and me is that I’ve already learned how things work with Mom, and that it’s easier to just go along. ‘Sure, I’ll take one,’ I say, then I lean down to Lilly. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll bring one for you, Camee. To eat later, if you feel like it.’
I’ve never told this story to anyone. Nyla has listened in silence the whole time and even now she doesn’t say a word, just looks at me with understanding.
‘I can still see the sadness in Lilly’s eyes from back then,’ I say quietly. ‘I did my best and still betrayed her, ignored her grief for Milo just like Mom did.’
‘How were you supposed to know how to handle situations like that if no one ever showed you?’ Nyla says.
She’s got a point. A burning pain grips me. I keep cutting. ‘While I wanted to forget Milo, Lilly apparently never stopped missing him. That’s probably why the dog is on her bucket list.’
‘But why didn’t she get one much earlier?’ Nyla asks, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. ‘I mean, she could have done that without any problem.’
To her it may look that way, to everyone probably, but when I look back on our childhood now, only then do I realize what happened to Lilly back then—and maybe to me, too.
‘Losing Milo broke her heart,’ I try to explain. ‘Probably more than I realized.’
‘You mean she was too afraid of getting hurt again?’ she asks thoughtfully, cutting a branch into small pieces.
She was. ‘There was never any room for fear at home, just like there was no room for grief or weakness.’ Mom and Dad made sure the sun was always shining for us. We laughed a lot, even when there was actually nothing to laugh about.
