A Sea of Unspoken Things

by Adrienne Young

If I had any memories of the woman, they were folded so deep in my mind that they couldn’t be summoned, and the ones I did have of my father were like faded pictures that blurred at the edges.

Long before I was in love with him, we’d been threaded together in that permanent way that happened when your childhoods were interwoven. When you grew with someone. When they knew versions of you that no one else did. There was no erasing memories like that. There was no way to pretend that they didn’t go right on living beneath your skin for your entire life.