Notes from family members from India arrived mid-week. "How have you been?"'s and "What are you up to?"'s punctuate the stilted awkwardness between us. Like a membrane built from years of silence and blood familiarity. Plans are sketched in pixels. The next night, I take a trip back home. Driving an hour through quiet evening memories. They eventually give way to the fog and the vineyards of adolescence. She is waiting for me there, at a Thai diner I drank milk tea at with an ex girlfriend, many years ago.
My sister who never aged past sixteen, in the photograph inside my head. Dressed in worried denim and a worn sweatshirt. Missing teeth, and the gaunt face of substance abuse. I was reminded of my mother. How could I not be?
We sat and talked in that pocket of nostalgia for an hour or so. My quiet and discerning questions and careful attention paid to her mercurial thoughts. Like talking to a badly warped record, needle skipping across old songs randomly. My responses were mostly mechanical, polite and scripted. Pulled from years of customer service. I didn't really know what else to say.
She'd been living by the river. She watched our grandfather die, while she cared for him during the last couple months. She'd never had friends that hadn't abandoned her. She praised our homeless mother as her best friend. She suspects she had contracted stomach parasites from unclean water. Our father said he'd fix her teeth. I told her I'd believe it when I saw it. She had been reading a book about nutrition, cover torn off, and mostly incomprehensible notes stenciled in the margins. She gave me a hawk feather that she had found some weeks ago. I offered her one of my paper cranes. She 'was doing ok'. We left the restaurant. I drove her home. She told me I smelled nice. "Like money". I chuckled a little at this, and she hurriedly apologized, because 'she knew it sounded tacky'.
I returned home, exhausted. And sad. I had spent years imagining she had been someone else. I realized that I wished I could have gone on not knowing for sure, and hoping for the best for her. Rather than being equipped with the knowledge of her stark reality. It was just sad. I can't help her.
11:13 a.m. - 2018-01-08
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