My sister-in-law keeps memories, mostly in her head. She’s got this knack for remembering details that have long since escaped me thanks to years of drugs. And even more so a gift for recounting them, unfolding them like pages of a storybook, quietly describing the subtle moments that marked the turning points in our lives.
And she’s got lots of them. Having been a part of my life and family since high school, our lives overlap in more ways than you would imagine. From school days to family tragedies, well, it’s hard for me to remember a time when she wasn’t a part of my family.
The other night, long after this week’s episode of Nip/Tuck had faded from the screen, when my nephews and even my brother had clumsily teetered up the stairs to bed, she and I sat up and talked into the night, contemplating my mother.
She reminds me of what my mother was like when we were younger. How her eyes gleamed at the sight of us, her sons. How in turn we teased her and carried on like schoolboys with crushes. How she never felt like she could live up to that woman, never take her place in my brother’s heart.
She remembers how much my father enjoyed her, how she drove him batty sometimes with her spending and her outrageous parties that filled our house with friends and relatives long into the night, but more than anything the way he understood her and allowed her madness.
She tells stories of a woman who covered the windows with newspaper and scotch tape after my father died. So no one could see he was no longer there. How the very next morning my mother had asked her to drive her to the store so she could buy a years worth of black clothes. How she couldn’t stop at just sweater sets and suit jackets, even her undergarments had to be thrown out and replaced with black versions.
Or once when she was driving in the car with my brother and some friends she heard my brother exclaim, “That’s my mom’s car!” as he sped to catch up it. They were giggling and getting ready to wave as they pulled along side my mother’s car when suddenly the image of a man appeared behind the wheel. A man that was not my father. My mother sat frozen in the passenger seat looking at my brother in shock. How the whole car went silent as my brother sped away without a single wave or even a honk. How up until that point this man was just a rumor, a suspicion. How she knew then that things would never be the same between my mother and us again.
This is my sister-in-law’s way of telling me something; I suspect she’s trying to tune me in to what may be causing all my fear and anxiety about the boy. She takes these snapshots of my life that she has so meticulously archived in her head and lays them out in front of me like a photo album, coaxing me to draw my own conclusions. To face the past so I can move forward.
I’m starting to think it’s not an accident that she came into our lives. And tonight more than anything, I am thankful to have her around helping me find my way.
* More about my mother can be found here . . . here. and here