I.

She thinks you hate her

The car is hollow as my father’s words bounce off every surface.

I’m sorry she feels that way. After she made me suicidal for three years.

Silence.

My sister stares.

She’s quiet.

She doesn’t understand. For someone whose tears fill our tub nightly, I wished she would talk.

He laughs. A laugh?

We need to talk about this when you get home. It’s not okay.

I slammed the car door.

My mother texted me an hour later-

I love you.

I ignore it.

Karma.

II.

She started paying for a therapist

I can't bring myself to say I don’t want one.

I just want her to stop screaming.

She has, mostly- I’m placing bets with my sister on how long that’ll last.

She’s trying to make an effort. I don’t have the energy to care.

I love you.

It sounds more convincing when she says it to the dog.

Do I love her?

I could cherish her- the memories-

Like a box of trinkets from when I was younger.

Prizes you get from cooperating at the dentist,

sand still stuck in shirts from the beach years ago.

She claims, you only remember the bad. Not anything good I’ve done for you.

I accuse her of the same.

I should give her to my therapist.

III.

I find myself staring at her wedding photos.

Maybe she finds the eyes upon eyes stacked in the living room comforting.

All those photos can't bring back the past.

Aside from that,

it’s this photo of her in her wedding dress, climbing out of the subway with my father.

5 Avenue Station

N, R, W in yellow circles.

I love the city. She used to.

It reminds me of how we grew up in the same place-

I take the same train from the same station to Grand Central every Saturday. Like she did.

She points out where she would party with her friends in Alphabet City back when she was sixteen.

Well, I’m sixteen too.

Maybe she lost whatever spirit she had. Maybe she lost it when she became Mom.

That doesn’t make it my fault.

I don’t forgive her. Not for the tears, screaming, and therapy.

But I do understand her.

I love you too.