I really miss you, you know. Even though technically I never left, I miss you. I miss talking with you and laughing with you and even sitting around doing nothing with you. I miss the arguments we used to have over who would get to choose which cartoon to watch, and the way we both bonded together when Angie was old enough to watch and he always made us let her pick because she was the baby. How she would always pick something stupid and you and I would go outside to play, grumbling about how we weren't gonna watch any dumb baby cartoons.
I remember you teaching me how to hit a baseball in the vacant lot behind old Mr. Bertram's store, and all the games we'd play back there. And I remember that one time I hit the baseball too hard, and it went over the fence and through one of the store windows. We both stood there for a moment with our mouths open, then we ran like hell. And once we got home, we fell down in the front yard laughing. Laughing because of what I did, laughing because the run home had been exhilarating...but laughing in fear as well.
I wonder how many people would understand the concept of laughing in fear.
We thought at first that we hadn't been caught. But someone, we never found out who, told Mr. Bertram they'd seen "those two Malucci hellions" in the lot. And of course, Mr. Bertram told him. And when he confronted us, you told him that you were the one who hit the ball. And the next day, your homeroom teacher pulled me out of math class to ask how you got that black eye. I never told you about that. She'd asked you, but you told her you'd gotten into a fight with one of the boys in our neighborhood. I guess she thought if she couldn't get the truth out of you, she'd try to get it from me. I know she didn't believe me when I told her the same thing you did, because I started crying. But in the end, I didn't tell her anything different than what you had, so she was forced to let it drop.
Sometimes I wonder what might have happened if I'd told her the truth.
One of my earliest memories of you happened when I was about five and you were six. Mama was in the hospital after having Angie, and he was taking care of us. We were supposed to go pick them up that day, and he had gotten us up and dressed, and we were at the table eating breakfast. I had on a new dress, and while I was trying to put jelly on my toast, it fell and got on my dress. He started yelling about how clumsy I was, getting up from his seat and storming over to mine. All of a sudden, we heard glass shattering, and when he looked in your direction, he saw the shards of your juice glass at your feet, orange liquid puddling aroud your chair and running into the cracks between the tiles. He forgot all about me then, and you met your new baby sister for the first time with a hand-shaped bruise on your cheek, and other bruises on your arms and legs. He probably would have done worse if he'd seen what I saw. You dropped that glass on purpose.
That's when I realized.
It's odd, really. Every sister loves her brother, but that love is sort of like your blood running through your veins, or the wind, or the fact that grass is green. It's something that's there, but you don't usually notice it. I think many sisters go through their whole lives without slamming up against the hard fact of it. But that day, I realized I loved you. And that realization kept me from making the same mistake some sisters make when they're mad at their brothers and think that they hate them. And even though we were close, we certainly had our fights, but never once did I ever think I hated you.
Because you always kept his attention diverted from me, and from Mama and Angie, too. Whenever you could, you would find a way to make his anger turn away from whoever had been unlucky enough to draw his wrath and onto you. How could I not love you for that? Granted, in those early years he didn't often turn his fists on me, but when he did, you were there.
When I was younger, I thought he loved me. Oh, I knew he didn't love Mama anymore, if he ever did, and I knew you had never held a place in his heart. But he would come home from work most nights and pull me up onto his lap, running his fingers through my hair and telling me I was his pretty girl. At the time, I thought it was me that he loved. I didn't realize that if I had been a boy, I would have been just as subject to his black rages as you were.
Looking back, that might not have been such a bad thing.
I don't know exactly when it was that I stopped being his little girl. I do know it was a gradual thing. As I grew older and realized that he wasn't just keeping "order" in the house the way he claimed, I also realized that the battle lines had been drawn in that house since before I was even born. Mama and you on the one side, him on the other. And when that realization dawned, I knew that I would one day have to choose my side. And I chose to cast my lot where I loved, so I'd stopped being his little girl even before I stopped being a little girl. It wasn't that hard of a decision to make; I had my big brother to protect me.
But you couldn't protect me from everything, Dave. You couldn't be around twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And even though you could draw his anger away from me and turn his fists onto you, you couldn't have done anything to divert what finally happened.
I don't know why I didn't see it. Even though I was getting to the age when I didn't feel like a child anymore, I never saw my body as anything less than childlike. I should have known. You had started to secretly (or not so secretly) check out my friends. I should have noticed that he would check them out sometimes too. I should have made the association that the same traits they had developed that made him check them out were things that had happened to me as well. He accused me of flaunting myself to him the day it happened. I never even realized I had anything to flaunt.
I was fourteen years old; how could I have known?
That's what I keep telling myself. I was only fourteen. But I still feel responsible in so many ways. Maybe not for what he did to me, that responsibility was his alone. But when I took that bottle of pills, I set everything in motion. The horror that came afterward, I caused. Oh, I can tell myself that we'd been sitting on a powder keg forever in that house, and that one day it was inevitable that there would be an explosion. And on some level, I understand that. But I can't help feeling that I'm responsible for what happened that day...and for the way you've changed since then.
You were always so brave. You weren't afraid to risk either your body or your heart. But now, though you'll still put your body on the line on occasion, the big chances are ones you won't take. And I think that's what I miss the most about you: my bold, brave brother.
And it's the ultimate irony. You were always there for me when I needed you, and now, when you need someone to be there for you, I can't be. I can't return what you always gave so freely. And it would be so easy to do. All I would have to say is four words.
You're not like him.
I see the battle that goes on for your soul now. And I can't do anything to help. And that's what I regret most of all.
Your little sister,
Nicole Malucci