A Hidden Picture

Forty five

~ Annalise

My heart races as I sit on the couch.

The house is dark. Ma and pa are asleep.

If she's not here by 12am I'm calling the cops.

I'll do it.

I will.

Keep telling yourself that. You know you won't.

I try to push that voice out my head.

But it nags at me anyways.

I've been sitting here for I don't know how long as I aimlessly watch re-runs of modern family on the TV.

Please come home. I can't call the cops on you. I can't do it. Please.

My eyes glance to the untouched picture frames on the side table next to the couch.

Under the lamp she once threw at ma, there lies two photos.

One is of all of us from a long time ago. We're all smiling and ma is holding Vera tucked under her side while I'm sitting on dad's lap.

The other one is of Vera and I. I must've been four and she was a little older of course.

We're both wearing overalls that were too big along with dirty sneakers and messy curly hair. A lollipop sticking out her mouth and a basketball under her arm.

I stand there with my eyes narrowed to the camera, slightly squinting from the sun.

I remember that day.

We were in Costa Rica, playing on a dirt road in front of our grandparents house. Other little kids from the block were playing with us. They didn't know a lick of english and their clothes were a little small and they had no shoes.

I remember when we had gone back inside ma had looked at us and told us to be grateful we can have shoes. That we have clothes that are too big rather than too small.

That we were lucky.

And I remember looking at the external condition of those kids and thinking, huh, maybe I am lucky, as I had looked back down to my dirty converse and clean clothes.

Except I remember those kids. And I remember what they had told me very clearly.

There was this one girl. I forgot her name, but she was telling me how she has so many siblings and how they all help each other around the house while listening to music. Their mother would give them the warmest hugs afterwards and cook food. And their father would teach them how to do things in his free time. Whether it be to ride a bike, or to play soccer, or to build something. And she said that at night he would place a kiss on each of their foreheads and say te quiero mucho, que duermas bien mija.

And I remember going to bed that night, laying in the dark and waiting for the feeling of my father's lips to press onto my forehead.

But that never came. And even though it was hot in that house with no AC, I went to sleep with my forehead cold.

And looking back, and then looking at where I am now, who determines who's lucky and who is not?

Was I lucky because I had a pair of old dirty shoes?

Or was she lucky because she got a kiss from her father every night?

Was I lucky because I lived in a tiny house in The United States with a cracked paved road?

Or was she unlucky for having a dirt road that her and other kids would play on, falling to get up and dust the dirt off their knees rather than the crumble of broken concrete?