Arrowood

by Laura McHugh

so I had a hard time placing my feelings when I learned that he was gone.

the lingering pain of a phantom wound inflicted long ago.

Time split in two, and from there we started a new calendar, our lives forever divided into before and after.

History, unlike technology, was irreparable and often ignored.

memory isn’t fact—it’s our interpretation of what happened, and it can change over time.

sealed off the mothering part of herself, like cauterizing a wound.

My identity wasn’t my own; I was the twins’ surviving sister, someone wholly defined by what I was missing.

Darkness was kind, cloaking disappointing truths in mystery.

Closure for me meant moving forward with a cathedral of loss inside my chest.