as her failure falls heavy between us, I can’ t bring myself to tell her what she really is to me.
We struggle to make conversation. She tells me about her newest boyfriend, who doesn’ t hit her. She asks if I have a boyfriend, the same question she has been asking me since I turned 10, and I answer, no, no one special just yet. We talk about her education at The Greenhouse, an adult learning center, and she tells me that she is definitely getting her GED this year. I’ m impressed by her using a word that’ s been in my vocabulary since I was seven.
These phone calls aren’ t mandatory. She has nothing to gain by calling me now that I’ m adopted, but this is important to both of us for reasons I still can’ t define. In the years I’ ve been gone, she has broken up with Gary and gotten a job, moved from our row house and restarted her education. She is no longer the creature I knew who sat on the couch and quietly observed her boyfriend caning the backs of my calves, who left me to climb the cabinets for Cheerios each morning and dress myself in mismatched clothing. Amanda is also adopted and does not talk to her, just as none of her older daughters talk to her, and I am terrified that if someone doesn’ t encourage her, she’ ll just fall back to being a drunk on the couch.
“ I’ m proud of you,” she rasps. These words will never mean the same thing coming from anyone else. Within this country-accented house with its bright blue kitchen, Danielle’ s Story is cut and dry— there was abuse, there was neglect, I was adopted and now everything is all better. She was the one there with me, holding her breath on nights when Gary raged through the house, watching me climb the bus to Headstart with dirty clothes while both of us wished she would do something about it. The same fire that cracked her forged me, and each day she lives the choice to give up that I didn’ t make. In the next year she will quit her job and drop out of school, fall back with a man who steals her SSI checks, and I will apply to colleges. After her death I’ ll find paperwork and see our shared diagnoses, General Anxiety Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, records of her multiple suicide attempts, and all of this will make so much more sense.
I’ m proud of you, she says, and years later I’ ll wish I had said back— I’ m proud of you, too.
~
I am loud. Brassy, like the overzealous trumpeter in high school who played through the flute solo at Spring Concert. My friends are stunned and concerned when a voice gets raised and I melt into walls, so quickly becoming seen and not
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