Small Shoulders
Dear Diary,
Today at school one of the girls, the one with the mole on her lip, asked me if my mommy would be at the dance recital. They still think it's funny that my parents are dead. Our parents are dead. Alfred said that I had brothers temper but I didn't repress it so. Alfred is like a grandpa I never had, he even makes Bruce behave.
I don't remember much of what happened that night. I was only two and Bruce was six when mommy and daddy were shot in the alley for the money in their wallets and the pearls on their necks. I was at home with Alfred, theater is no place for a little baby, but Bruce…he was there. I remember him coming home with the man with the mustache who had a kind voice and I cried for mommy and daddy but Bruce held me. Hugged me tightly and rocked me to sleep.
Since then he has never let go, diary. I don't think brother has let go of mommy and daddies deaths, I think it sit inside his soul eating away at the core of his being, awakening something that would be called criminal in anyone else.
I want him to let go, to just hold my hand…but his embrace has gotten tighter, suffocating me until I do not know if I breathe or not. Please make him let go.