If I Wasn't Here

She shows no emotion at all,
Stares into space like a dead China doll.
I’m never gonna know you now,
But I’m gonna love you anyhow.

Texas, 1978
“So he died?”
“Yes, but if he hadn’t, you wouldn’t be here. Now let’s get back to the book.” She lifts the cover and reads,

“Hold on tight. I will be taking you Within.”
“Within – who am I going Within?” Charles Wallace twined the mane through his fingers.
“I will ask the wind.”
“You don’t know?”
“Questions, questions.” Gaudior stomped one silver hoof. “I am not some kind of computer. Only machines have glib answers for everything.”

But I am no longer listening, instead I'm imagining him, my older brother. He is taller, of course, and tougher than me. He protects me at school. He sneaks me out of the closet. He doesn’t cry when the shouting starts.

Pike Place Market, 1992
We’re driving home and fighting about my stepfather and my sister. I am unused to my new independence, and because I live alone, I have nothing but the time needed to grow bitter about my youth. She speaks with pride about his military service. His volunteer firefighting. And how he’s been mentoring a young boy in the neighborhood whose father has been deployed to Korea.

She says, “You should see him. He’s so good with kids.”

“Except his own.”

It escapes and surprises both of us. I hardly recognize that I’ve even said it aloud. Yet her immediate counterattack makes it clear that this unspoken truth has both lived under the surface and divided us for 10 years. We start to fight. I’ve imagined this scene for so long. I think I’m ready.

Texas, 1978
She tucks me in, and kisses my forehead. She whispers into my ear, “You’re my favorite.”
She leaves the door cracked so the light from the kitchen will filter through. When she leaves I look across the room to where my younger sister is sleeping.

For the next 12 years I wonder if she heard this.

Jackson, Missouri 1990
I come home late from practice, and my Mom and stepdad are in the kitchen, arguing.
“Your sister has run away” she says.
“When?”
“An hour ago.”
I look at him. “Did you hit her?”
He tells me to shut up.
“If you need to hit someone, hit me.” It escapes, and surprises me.

He rolls his eyes, and goes downstairs to watch TV, emasculating the one noble gesture I’ve ever made as the older brother in 16 years worth of conflict.

Pike Place Market, 1992
She changes the direction of the argument. She turns it to my sister’s promiscuity. Her addictions. Her abortion. Her dropping out of school. Her pathological lying.

But now I change the direction, and shoot back, “She said you didn’t have a miscarriage. She said he threw you down the stairs and that’s how you lost it. So who’s telling the truth about that? Who’s the pathological liar?” I’ve never rehearsed this. It escapes, and surprises me.

She doesn’t look at me, but just keeps staring ahead, silent now. I experience a brief moment of satisfaction in that I have quietened her. For once, I am able to drop the poison pill like my sister. All my life, I have been the timid one, but now that I strike back, it feels powerful and hateful. Hearing the tires roll over the rumble strips, I have to look back to the highway, and I see that we are driving too fast. I ease up on the accelerator and look back at her to continue my attack, now that I have gained the offensive and know how to hurt her. How to do it.

But I see she has her face buried in her hands, and is silently sobbing. And I see that now, finally, at long last, we have each had our turn.