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LIFE IS SHORT
PRESENT
It’s strange, when roles you spent your whole lives playing, reverse.
I watch as my younger sister closes my dishwasher, pressing the buttons to get the load started. With her back to me, it’s easy to stare at her naturally red hair, swinging down her back with each move she makes. I remember playing with her hair as kids, wishing I had her hair too.
The Little Mermaidwas one of our favorite movies, after all. In truth, it was one of the few VHS cassettes we had at our house to keep us entertained.
When Denise turns to look at me, she smiles, having caught me staring.
“What’s your deal?” she asks, unafraid to sound like the Bostonian she is. I’ve dulled mine down, only ever hearing it come out when I’m speaking too fast or when I’m pissed the hell off.
“I’ve always loved your hair,” I remind her, leaning forward on my kitchen counter.
We’ve just finished having dinner, our kids with their fathers. It’s rare to have this alone time together, now that we’ve had our own families. And sometimes it’s hard to connect the two hungry kids we were to the successful women we are now.
“I love yours,” she starts. “Sometimes it’s strange to see, but I love it.”
“I look like Penny.”
“You look like mom.”
Denise is fearless that way, only ever wanting to give me the truth, even if I prefer a softer version of it. People think I’m tough. They don’t know what it’s like to be Denise’s sister.
She’s a sassy little shit talker.
“Does Penny look like mom?” I ask, knowing what I see but wondering if she sees it too.
“You didn’t name her Penelope for no fucking reason,” Denise states, tossing my dishrag at me. We stand there a moment, both lost in our memories.
“I’m glad we had each other,” I tell her, a rare moment of recollection for me.
Denise stares at me a moment, and I watch as her eyes grow misty.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I start, straightening and holding my hands out. “I don’t need you blubbering in my kitchen.”
“You took the brunt of so much,” she says, sniffing before she wipes at an errant tear. “I was spared from a lot because of you. You took such good care of us.”
Words I don’t want to hear permeate and settle in my mind, reviving old ghosts that I thought had been laid to rest. I named my first child after the woman, for God’s sake. Didn’t that mean I forgave her? Didn’t that mean the cycle was broken?
I guess that’s the thing about trauma: there’s no expiration date, no magical cure. And there damn sure isn’t anyway to shove it under a rug and pretend it doesn’t exist.
I’m caught in the wind and rain of my past, the torrential downpour of my childhood and the whipping winds of my young adulthood. It was the perfect recipe for the postpartum depression that gave way to a deep-seated sorrow that held my hand every day since.
And because I’m so good at being strong, no one saw it.
Not Denise. Not even Peter. I suffered through the first years of motherhood with crippling anxiety that made it hard to want to get out of bed. And the man I slept next to doted on his daughters so keenly, there was no room to worry about me. Through the years, the distance became too great to ignore.
Until I asked Peter for a divorce and Miley caught me laying on our perfect lawn, praying to the stars. Praying that I’d be recognized as one of them just one more time.
I never used to believe in prayer but there was nothing else more beautiful and brighter than the night sky in that moment. In that moment, I needed to believe in something bigger than myself. I needed something to borrow my sorrow, just to ease the suffocation. The constant clawing at my throat.
And the only person who ever understood me is a stranger I used to fuck, thinking it was love.
That Denise never knew about Abraham is something I deeply regret. I wish I told her; wish we had that shared memory of my only heartbreak. Considering she experienced her own, years later, I imagine we would’ve bonded over it.
But I was more concerned with being her rock than I was with leaning on anyone else. So, I suffered in silence, like I always do.
