Those of you who already had this on alert will need to go back to chapter 1 and read the new version before this. Thank you xx
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"She is your mirror, shining back at you with a world of possibilities. She is your witness, who sees you at your worst and best, and loves you anyway. She is your partner in crime, your midnight companion, someone who knows when you are smiling, even in the dark. She is your teacher, your defense attorney, your personal press agent, even your shrink. Some days, she's the reason you wish you were an only child."
- Barbara Alpert
2
It sounds odd, but my earliest memories of boxes were happy ones. My father Charlie thought it was a great game to push me down the carpeted stairs at our old house in a cardboard box. I'd laugh and shriek as the lip of each step bounced my bottom as it slipped across them, and then I would beg for him to slide me down again. In my bedroom, I had boxes of all kinds that held fabulous toys, and I remember putting together great creations and decorating boxes for festivals or storage at primary school.
The happiest times were always with dad or with my sisters. I was the youngest of three girls. Alice was in the middle, Rose was the eldest. I never understood people who had disjointed relationships with their siblings. Alice, Rose, and I had been impenetrably close. When someone said, "oh, you know, typical sibling issues," I didn't know. We didn't have issues. Sure, we'd have moments where one of us would be a bit snappy or nerves would be tested a little. Yet nothing ever blew up to the point of fights, or not talking, or to anything we couldn't just say outright. I don't know what was different about us, but we just worked. I was lucky.
There were probably a few events as we grew up that had encouraged our unity. Our parental instability was a likely instigator, and there was a sense of they may not be terribly normal, but at least we have each other. Our bond had always been there, but I guess external pressure fastened it even more tightly.
Our "quirky" mother had something of a mid-life crisis, a good ten years too early, mind you. She met a man and left us. To her, it was as simple as that. You're too young to understand; you'll move along easily because you're so young. It was all lies. I understood most of it just fine. The part I didn't understand was how greatly love could apparently change. Renee had done her bit with this family, and now she was off on a whim. The first day, she just left with a bag, later a few boxes appeared around the house, covered in packing tape. Then one afternoon when I got home from school, I caught a small moving van driving away from our house. She moved to Phoenix, not down the road, or to the next town. Out of state.
As a result, my sisters had practically raised me. Charlie was capable, yet there was only so much he could do with a pre-pubescent daughter. He needed to work to support his girls, as well as trying to find his own way as a newly solo father. I remember when it all happened, sticking my head out of my bedroom door to see him punch in the glass of a photo of Renee's side of the family that hung in our hallway. His knuckles bled as he wept a little. I had never seen my father caught off-guard and hurt by something in a way that crumpled his steadfastness. It seemed he hadn't seen Renee's disloyalty coming until the front door closed behind her. Poor Charlie had married for life. He had established what he had seen as something solid and beautiful. Renee had managed to rip the woven silk rug out from under his feet and left him sitting in shock on the wooden floorboards. Given that I had seen that happen to my father, a man I had nothing but respect and admiration for, it was only natural that many would diagnose me as holding some underlying resentment for my mother. Truthfully, it was the way she followed this up that really cemented the cracks in our relationship. Ravines would become a more appropriate word than cracks.
The seven- and nine-year age gap from me to my sisters clicked into play, and Alice and Rose started to fill a mothering role in my life. Rose had recently started at the local college. Looking back, I think she sensed that something was going to happen with Renee and delayed her intended move to Seattle just in case. Although Rose decreased her workload so she would be around a bit more, a lot of the household responsibilities fell on Alice's shoulders during her final year of school. My sisters were the ones who did my hair for school, packed my lunches, and made sure I had done my homework. Charlie was by no means neglectful or absent – far from it – it was just the way things adjusted to be.
My sisters were not simply my siblings; they played a pivotal role in the woman I had become today. I was more who I was because of them than because of my mother. To Renee, I was still ten years old, a child who knew little of the world and could never understand her reasoning and actions for anything she did. My sisters knew better; they knew that I could read her well. They also knew every tear, every success, every failure, what made me laugh, and when not to push me. They knew what she should have known.