“ She never got lost under my watch ”
older than I felt , my bossiness was now an asset . At school , I was let out of class early , winding down the long , gray hallway from the sixth-grade wing to the first-grade wing , high ponytail swinging with every determined step . I was in charge of fetching my sister for the bus . She couldn ’ t be trusted to board alone , not since the incident where
she rode a wrong route and ended up at the bus barn defiantly proclaiming , “ I was just going to a friend ’ s house !” I ’ d open her classroom door , see her gap-toothed smile , and hold her hand as we walked out to the parking lot . I ’ d wait patiently behind her as her little legs climbed those big rubber bus steps , her shiny mermaid-scale backpack glinting in the sunshine . She never got lost under my watch .
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“ She never got lost under my watch ”
i remember when i was younger , and my brother , mother and i would all sleep on the same bed , and would stay up talking all night , and i remember this one time the most right now . we were talking / thinking about where you were at that moment in time , she told about how your parents were really nice , and that she knew you were going to have a wonderful life , and i don ’ t know if that really happened or not , i ’ d like to think you did . email from Pickle , May 15 , 2006
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Downshifting into first gear , I pulled my two-door Toyota Echo into the parking lot of the generic blue-gray apartment buildings . Indian summer in the Pacific Northwest had extended into mid-October 2008 . I ’ d moved back to Seattle a few months prior , so there was no more putting off the inevitable . Enrolled in graduate school , with an emotionally supportive boyfriend and a part-time job with set hours , I was finally in the sweet spot I had been dreaming about since I was an angsty teenager . I reached out via text to my nineteen-year-old sister Pickle , saying , “ Hey , do you want to meet up in person ?”
She had lived for the past few years with her best friend ’ s parents , in the twobedroom apartment I stood in front of . Has she seen me from the window yet , I thought . Is it too late to run ? I ’ m not good with social interactions . I used to walk away mid-conversation leaving people standing alone , feeling like dumbasses . With racing mind , I summoned all of my Halloween trickor-treat practice and knocked .
The door swung inward , and I was staring into the face of an elfin princess . My Amazon frame took up much of the doorway , while we made stilted small talk . I bent down , gave her a hug , and felt the gap between