words don't come that easy.

x

01.02.22
01:00

she tells me the day after it happens but doesn't quite say it in words. instead asks where's the sling we used when your brother fell and hurt his wrist? asks do you remember how we used to cry together whenever he cried? asks what sound do you think an airbag makes as its deployed? and i say something about how i don't know where the sling is, i remember, and i don't want to think about it. ask why she's asking and she says no reason. just things to think about. so i say do you remember grandma's hands? no, let me finish. do you remember grandma's hands from before? when she could hold a tennis racket and paint her nails? do you remember the car she drove or the big decorative plate she kept in the garage? and she says i remember i remember i remember but i don't want to. we're always trying to push things further away. she says i won't send a picture but your brother's car is dead. i picture it in a coffin, my brother himself in a black veil, crying into a tissue, reminiscent of how i pictured my grandmother after my grandfather died when i was ten. how did it happen? i say, and it's all so strangely sad and i know what's coming next. she says, he went into a wall. she assures me my brother is fine, it isn't like last time, though it could've should've been at the speed he was going. she says do you remember the rock we used as your fish's grave in the garden in our old house? do you remember the sound the foxes made in the night when you were a child? do you remember the night you slept in my bed and i slept in yours? and i say i remember them all and i say i know there was love in that house somewhere. i know there was love in my childhood somewhere. i know my brother is alive and breathing. i think that's enough.