too often i am caught in a game of loyalty and devotion. i am the third wheel, the spoke between my parents and sister. i am expected to give my full allegiance to each of them, even when they are at odds. my sister shouted at, told to leave; my mother quietly feeling my disapproval from the room over (are those sniffs? silent tears? my mother knows no other kind.
once, only once, she cried on my shoulder loudly, like a small child. it frightened me and made me think that i was not ready to be an adult and that i did not want to have to hold her that way. it was not my place. an employee of hers had killed himself. she could not understand. i did not have words to offer, so i smoothed her hair and held her and let her cry into my shoulder and scare me.)
my sister texts me: Fck her.
i don't know where she is. outside, hiding perhaps. my mother has never used words like that before. "get out of here. yes, you."
of course, context: my sister and father were leaving for our house tonight anyway. probably in the next hour, even. but the fact that my mother pointed to the door and told her (get out) startled me and frightened me and i cannot forgive her for that.
i love my mother unconditionally. i love her possibly more than my father simply because no one loves in equal measures. i love them for different things, and i love them greatly, but i love my mother more somehow. for all the ways she is not me, and all the ways i want to be her.
i love my sister most of anyone. in this world. i don't know if she feels the same wholehearted devotion that i do, but i care more about her than i do anything at all.
it is devastating to be caught between them, and they do it without even thinking of me. they are inherently selfish sometimes. they think of allies and battlegrounds while i am thinking of burrowing into the ground and never coming out. it is awful to be unable to voice my opinions, knowing that one of them will feel betrayed, or that i do not care enough about them.
tonight my sister was in the wrong; she was overreacting as she always does about something that my younger sister did do, did not do; it's all the same. but my mother crossed some kind of unspoken line about what is right to say to a child (especially a volatile, sensitive person like taylor) and i cannot forgive her for that. what kind of sister would i be if i found it alright for my mother to tell her to leave the house, to get out?
but my mother sneers at me now. "i'm the bad guy." no, mother. you're not the bad guy. but neither are you a perfect human being. i think she knows that, and that glimpse of imperfection scares her. she withdraws. she blames me.
i am left to cry in my room and deal with the silence. my sister drives away.
