I watched Jadas body get lowered into the ground and showered with red and white roses.
In places where you might throw up, butno problem, because the colors would blend well together.
Im so sorry for your loss.
Unsplash / Patti Black
I cant even imagine… A hummingbird printed on a pink background.
A hummingbird printed on a pink background.
A hummingbird printed on a pink background.
I kissed a laminated card before slipping it into my breast pocket, close to my heart.
Not from some white, antisocial, grocery-store-shooter like Jada, but from swallowing a handful of pills.
She would want you to stay strong.
Unsplash / Patti Black
Shes with your parents now.
If theres anything you need, just let me know.
The cliches followed me through the rest of the evening, causing more annoyance than comfort.
Like they thought I constantly needed someone circling me so I stayed sane.
Even when I went home, the phone kept ringing.
The emails kept dinging.
The stoop kept filling with fruit baskets and the mailbox grew cluttered with letters.
By the time I earned a second to myself, the clock read eleven, time for bed.
I untucked the mass card from my pocket and rested it beneath my pillow.
Back then, I had wished I would grow big boobs like my sister.
That I would turn out as the prettier twin.
Even in her casket, her cheeks had held a certain shine.
Even indeath, she had the glow of a goddess.
I woke up to a fluttering of my lashes and a fluttering of wings.
The latter came from the right of the roomno, now the leftnow the right again.
When I knuckled the crust from my eyes and let them adjust to the light, I saw it.
A hummingbird flitting from one side of my bedroom to the other.
Was this some sort of message from the afterlife, reminding me to keep my strength?
Was this Jada trying to tell me something, an unheard secret about her death?
Or was I stuck in a dream, a nighttime hallucination?
Its pink background popped and it took me a second to spot the difference.
Flying around the room.
Transplanted from the paper into the air.
I felt like I had a piece of my sister backand I refused to let it die.
But it wanted nothing to do with my offering.
Its beak never separated.
Its head never twisted my way.
Only the wings flapped.
It refused to rotate on its own, but I tried to alter its route.
I cupped the bird with both palms and released it in a different direction.
East and west instead of north and south.
When it resumed its flight, it traveled down the new path.
Went wherever I directed it.
A mindless little thing.
Looking deep but acting hallow.
A eulogy I had to deliver.
The service felt more unnatural than the magic beneath my pillow.
It showed her in a zebra print prom dress, one foot kicked out to display the leg slit.
I rubbed the creases out and placed it beneath my pillow with the worry doll.
One more time, I said with steepled hands, praying for the first time since her murder.
Just one more miracle.
Ill never ask for another.
She stood in the corner of my bedroom in her zebra dress.
Jada, I said, getting into a crawling position and scrambling across my bed, closer to her.
Fuck, I missed you.
Im so glad youre here with me.
Her eyes darted around, but I never spotted any movement on the rest of her face.
No chest rise-falling or lumps being swallowed down her throat.
Only the pupils moved, like the hummingbird moved only its wings.
Moving left to right, left to right, because I had switched its path.
Maybe the same would happen with Jada.
I walked up to her as if seeing her felt normal.
Itdidfeel normal, even when I lifted her arm forward and it stayed in place.
Even when I extended her leg and she wobbled at first, but remained standing.
I could position her any way I wanted.
Like a mannequin made of flesh.
But she never spoke.
Even when I jammed my fingertips into her mouth and pried her lips apart.
The most she could make was that sound.
That zombie movie moan.
Why are you like that?
What did I do wrong?
I kicked her hard in the shin.
I slapped her face into a blob of red.
Maybe I fucked up with the photo Id used.
Some nameless photographer had snapped it decades ago.
Maybe I needed a more recent one.
One from right before Jada had died.
I scrambled to my china cabinet and pulled out a photograph from a family reunion, two months earlier.
She looked exhausted, half-drunk with her roots showing, but it would have to do.
One more time, I said to the ceiling.
Just one more miracle.
Ill never ask for another.
Three hundred and sixty-five nightmares.
No matter how much time had passed, I kept picturing our last day together.
It played on a loop inside my mind.
My sister, plucking cereal and cheese snacks from store aisles.
Flirting with the young man handing out juice samples.
Yelping at the sound of the first gunshot.
Yanking my wrist and pulling me behind the deli counter to keep covered.
But she always lost at hide-and-seek.
Somehow Id still won, receiving the grand prize of hovering over her body, screaming my throat raw.
And now, on the anniversary of her death, I held onto her wrist.
Dragged her to the wooden door that led to the basement.
I relaxed my grip on her to shimmy with the basement lock.
She wouldnt go anywhere anyway.
They never did, my mannequins with shifting eyes.
The lock popped open, then the door, revealing the girls standing shoulder-to-shoulder.
Jada with silver lidded eyes and a mermaid styled wedding dress.
Jada in a sparkling purple mini-skirt from her bachelorette over in New Orleans.
A heavier Jada from her puberty days stuffed into a teal sweatshirt.
A toddler Jada in a bubblegum pink princess dress fromHalloween.
An infant Jada swathed in yellow blankets and propped atop the washing machine.
A sea of the same empty faces with different height, different hair, different makeup.
Jadas from different snaps of time.
There was always a way.
Eventually, I would find the right photograph.
I would bring the right Jada back.
