One Small Step | ✔

Carina

Moving from Adam's grave,

I wander down a little further,

to where my sister rests beneath a willow tree.

Again, I trace the name on the marble headstone, tears falling.

She was my sister.

Carina Bay.

But she wasn't just that to me.

She was more than just my older sister.

She was my friend,

my mother

and my father.

Four people in one.

I don't remember my mother at all.

Cassidy Bay née Feldman.

She died when I was only a year old.

in a fiery car crash.

It was a snowy day,

she was out to get groceries,

and then a driver skidded

right into her while heading to her car.

I don't know anything about her except from what I've been told.

smart,

kind,

quiet.

Supposedly she was always cheerful,

always motherly,

never an angry word heard from her,

but people always make the deceased sound glorious.

Cassidy Bay was never my mother though,

I never met her.

Carina, as young as she was when my mother died,

was my mother.

Carina and I were eight years apart,

separating us were my brothers,

twinkling blue-eyed Tate,

and always scowling Jacob.

Carina was the only other girl in the entire household.

The only other members were

my dad, my brother Ambrose

and Jacob and Tate.

Naturally I clung on to her.

She protected me,

she taught me,

she read me my bedtime stories.

No one else was allowed to do that.

Only her.

But then again,

no one else tried.

Carina was more of a parent to all of us,

even Ambrose, who was older than her by two years.

Ever since Cassidy died,

my dad didn't give a care about the world.

Let's head back to the past, dear reader.

Imagine a five-year old girl,

her blonde pigtails flying behind her,

while she rode her pink bike.

The ground was rocky,

the gravel uneven.