Sisters

by Daisy Johnson

Grief is a house with no windows or doors and no way of telling the time.

One day I do not think of September for ten minutes. One day I think again about what it would be like if September were still alive, and I do not know which is worse.

The thought expands. Here it is. Here is the truth. This is not the way I would have done this if she were here. I would not have been able to live if she were here.

I can feel the tears gathering just before dropping. I promised, I think; I haven’t forgotten. But the thought is tangled, not quite mine. There is something lingering behind the words, just out of sight, a shifting. I promised and the words grow, fill in, turn solid and thick. I think: I love you I love you I love you and feel my jaw opening without my say-so, the words forced out into the space in front of me. IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou.

She does not come gently or with peaceful intentions. My sister is a black hole my sister is a bricked-up window my sister is a house on fire my sister is a car crash my sister is a long night my sister is a battle my sister is here. September is holding my lips shut. I understand, for the first time, the promise that I made her and exactly what it means: If there could be only one of us it would be you. My arms are yours, my legs are yours, my heart and lungs and stomach and fingers and eyes are yours. She is familiar as a song, my hands lifting without my say-so, my legs clicking to attention. A moment where I think no (nononononononono) but it is too late. There is someone else inside me, using my mouth to speak, holding me still.

I hold my hands on the table and look at them and think how, really, they have never belonged to me. I remember the way September moved through the storm that killed her, dancing between the tree trunks, laughing at the sky. She was alive; she was so alive then that she stole living from those around her. I was in the background of the memory, barely there, a slip of color, a shadow. And before, when we were young, there had never really been anyone but September. I was an appendage. I was September’s sister.

I close my eyes. It was always supposed to be this way. It could never have been any way but this. It should have been me that day. I can hear September murmuring now, rising up. I promised a long time ago. Promised what? Promised everything. Here it is. I lay it out now. Here is everything I have.