How It Is

There she is. I can’t help but stare at her face. The wrinkles and sunspots change so much about the face, but it’s still her. I can still see the small scar from when she fell down running away from the neighbor’s dog. Her eyes are still that same hazel, brown with specks of green, that always attracted all of the boys in school. She’s still that same girl I have always known. 

I can’t remember the last time we saw each other like this. The last time we talked without an agenda, bare and open. I always believed that no one could possibly know her better than me. I was the only person she shared her sketches with. She confided in me, and me alone, that she loved bubblegum ice cream even into her adult life, but she was too worried what her friends and family would think so she forced herself to start eating triple chocolate blast instead. 

When we were in junior high, we used to write curses to make our teachers sick and cast them on the morning of big tests. It almost never worked, but we told ourselves that if we just believed enough it might. By the end of the year, there was a teacher who called out sick on the day of our chapter review test. She just had her substitute give out the test, so our celebration was short lived. 

We went to every single high school dance together with our group of friends. We were stag, and it never mattered. When we graduated, the two of us celebrated by sneaking out at night. We went up to that big hill on Monroe Street and sat up all night waiting for the sunrise. 

When we graduated, she went off to school in the big city. She brought Benny back to town during her second winter break to meet everyone. Her parents fell in love with him the instant they met him. He had that all-star smile and was already a master of dad jokes. What was there not to love? 

The way he laughed when she slipped on the icy stairs. He didn’t even check to see if she was hurt. The look he gave her when she ordered the cookie skillet for dessert. He didn’t have to speak to see his disgust in her. I could hear his thoughts, asking if she was really planning on eating all of that herself. She ended up saying she was full after two bites.

I tried to tell her. I pulled her aside and said that I had concerns, but she brushed me off. Her parents loved him. By the end of winter break, her grandmother told them he had her stamp of approval. Family mattered a lot to her, still does, so he passed the first marker with flying colors. 

At her wedding, I stood back in silence. It wasn’t the place to vocalize my distaste. I had already done my best. She didn’t want to hear it. So I smiled as the vows were read. I watched as she sold her life away. I wished she could see what I saw, but she wasn’t ready. 

She wasn’t ready the first time he gave her a black eye. She wore makeup over it, but it was easy enough to see. One of her coworkers asked her if she was okay. If one of her coworkers could see through it, there was no way I couldn’t see it. I sat her down right then and there and told her he wasn’t worth keeping. If he did this now, what would it mean for the future? She told me to leave her alone. She could handle herself. It was a month later that she announced she was pregnant with their first child.

By the time her second child was born, she had basically cut me off completely. She would plaster that idiotic smile on her face and say how lovely it was to see me. She didn’t let me talk. She just walked away the moment I opened my mouth.

I could still see what was happening. How he would peruse the crowd while she was stuck with watching their three children all by herself. When she asked for help, he would hold one of them for a minute or two before handing them back. 

She told her grandmother that he was a bad husband, that he didn’t treat her right. Her grandmother said that marriage was a compromise. If you wanted it to work, you had to put in the effort. She needed to do more to make the relationship thrive. 

He cracked two of her ribs one night. When she tried to call her parents, he threw her phone down the garbage disposal. She never actually told them about the fractures. She just smiled while the pain emanated out.

She left him after fifteen years of marriage. When she told him about the divorce, he broke her leg and attempted to stab her with a kitchen knife. Her oldest, Wendy, had to call the cops on him. He didn’t stop until he heard the sirens.

I wonder what she’ll say. Will she come up with excuses? She just didn’t see it. She just didn’t hear it. She thought I was exaggerating. She thought I was just being overly judgmental, jealous? I don’t want to hear that from her. She left me. She threw me away. She can’t just come back after all of these years. 

It didn’t even end with her marriage. She kept avoiding me. Was she too afraid to face me? To admit that I was right? I wouldn’t have been angry with her back then. I would have understood, but now? Why now? How can you just ask for forgiveness after all of this time? 

If she wants to come crawling back now, I want her to beg. I want her to weep at my feet. I want her to tell me each and every wrong she put me through, and then apologize again and again. Who does she think she is? 

She opens her mouth to speak, but I cut her off.

“I apologize.” Those aren’t the words I was expecting, but they just keep spilling out “I apologize that I couldn’t do more to help you. I apologize for not being there when you needed me most. I’m sorry that I gave up on you. I’m sorry I didn’t stand up for you when no one else would. I always said I would be on your side, on your team, through thick and thin. And then I just wasn’t.”

I hear footsteps in the hallway. My attention is pulled away from her. Wendy is at the door, a look of concern crosses her face. 

“Are you crying, Mom? Is something wrong? Do you need something?”

“No, I’m fine. Thank you, Wendy. I’ll be down in just a minute.”

She shuts the door behind her, as I gaze back into the mirror. There are wrinkles and sunspots and scars, but somewhere in there she’s still that little girl who used to color outside the lines on purpose and giggle at the most inopportune moments. Despite it all, she’s still her.