Disclaimer: Anything you recognize doesn't belong to me. The angst is all mine.
Author's Note: I always wondered what happened to Sara's brother. After the revelations of 'Nesting Dolls' I decided that I needed to figure out how he fit into the whole mess.
Maybe This Year
I don't like to think about any of it. Life would be so much easier if I could forget. If I could somehow put up screens to hide those memories from myself. But I can't forget, and I hate myself for it. Because every time I think about it I also think about you, and how I could have saved you. You blame me. You ought to blame me. I got out. I ran away. I couldn't take it anymore, what he did to Mom, what he did to us. It was too much. And nobody knew. Nobody but you and me, and we kept it that way. So when I ran, nobody cared to ask why. Maybe nobody really needed to ask why. It was more comfortable for them not to know. And I tried to forget. I've tried not to blame Mom. I know she tried. But she couldn't even protect herself. How could she save us too? By the time she snapped I was gone. It hurt too much to stay. I'd like to say I would have taken you with me. I'd like to say I thought of you a little bit when I ran, but I'd be lying, and you would know. It wouldn't be any good. I was only thinking about myself. I was saving myself. I saved myself. Maybe.
But I think about you now. I think about you all the time. I heard you went to Harvard. I was really proud of you. I thought maybe I'd get in touch back then. Maybe I'd call you up. I never did. I knew you would blame me. You should blame me. I should have saved you too. You were so small when you were ten. I was seventeen. I could have taken you away. I wish you had never seen what you saw. I wish you hadn't lost everyone. Because you lost Mom first, and then you lost me, and then you lost Mom for real when she killed him. Thank God she killed him. Bastard. But you shouldn't have lived with strangers for so long. I knew they'd send you into the system. I thought they could look after you better than I could. I was selfish. I should have taken care of you. Somehow. Somehow we would have found food or money. We would have survived. Except that looking at you would have made me remember. Thinking about you makes me remember. Thinking about you hurts. I don't know if it's from the pain of the memories or from guilt. Or from both. Probably both.
I searched for you. On the internet. Safely anonymous and in my own home I found out where you are. You're living in Vegas. I wonder sometimes why you're there. What do you do? When you were a little girl you wanted to be a doctor. You would have been a great doctor. You loved to help people. Sometimes I think that you went to Harvard and then you went on to medical school. And then I run through all the things that you could be. Lawyer? You were big on justice for other people. Never for yourself though. That was too messy. Or you could be a scientist, or a teacher, or a cop or anything. I wish I knew. I wish I had bothered to find out. But sometimes I have nightmares that you fell through the cracks. Why Vegas? What drew you there? It worries me, what you could be doing, whether you have become as self-destructive as I was once, still am to some extent. I worry about you so much. And I wonder if I could have saved you.
Do you have a family now? A real family? A normal, happy family? Are you married? engaged? Does he treat you like you should be treated? I have a family. I have a wife and two little boys. They're your family too, except you don't know they exist. I never told you about them. I could have invited you to the wedding, or sent you a Christmas card. But I'm sure you don't want to hear from me. Not when I left you there with him. My boys want to meet their aunt. My wife asks me why I never talk about my past, or about you. She knows something went wrong between us. She doesn't know it was all my fault. She doesn't know how scared I am to ever talk to you again. Because if you did fall through the cracks, I don't think I could live with that. It's safer not knowing. Every Christmas she says I should call you. Patch things up. Put the past behind us. I always say I'll think about it. I do think about it. But I never call.
The past is never going to be behind us, is it? It's right here with me. I look at my boys and I want to cry, because I can't imagine ever letting anyone hurt them. And I wonder if there's a gene for violence, or for murder. Because if there are then I have both, and it scares me to death. And it's why I haven't had a drink in three years, four months, and twelve days. Because I have such a temper, and it scares me more than it scares my family. For a while it scared me straight into a bottle, and my wife had to pull me out by the hair. Do you ever wonder what's going to happen to us? What are we going to become? My AA group says I'm showing the classic signs of a childhood abuse sufferer. I don't want to talk about it with them. I don't want to think about it. Except I can't help thinking about you. What you lived through. What you saw. It was worse for you. And I let it happen.
I have your address and your number. Would you want to hear from me? Would you be glad if I contacted you? Would you be happy to know that I'm alive, that you have some family left? Would you even talk to me? Could you forgive me for what I did? I can't ever forgive myself.
I'm sorry, Sara. I'm so sorry. Maybe this year I'll call you.