Dear Bridget

Dear Bridget,

I think I’m losing my mind.

You’d know of such things, wouldn’t you? Haha. That was a joke. I know it’s been a while since we’ve spoken, but you’re still my big sister and I still get to make jokes. Anyway, I’m fairly certain that this will be the last time you hear from me, so I figured I'd do it the old fashioned way and send you a letter. As per the above, I’m going crazy.

At first it was just the wind howling through the branches and then it was the tapping of those branches on the windows and then it was the shrieking, shrieking that couldn’t just be the wind and now it’s here and it’s here for me. I think you know what I’m talking about. I think I remember it happening once, long ago, when we still lived in that house with the little pond in the backyard. You remember that house? It was a good house, as far as houses went. I was never sure about such things, but then you always cared about all that interior design crap more than I did, and you said it was a cute little house. You said it had personality.

I remember one day we were out playing in the yard by that little pond and you saw something in the lake. And you dragged me away from the water so fast, I thought you’d rip my arm clean off. I was crying, I remember. Crying so hard. And I screamed at you, told mom you were being dramatic, like always. But you just looked at Mom and you said “I saw something. It didn’t belong and I think it was a monster.” And Mom didn’t even yell at you. She just said “Okay, Bridget. Why don’t you wash up for dinner?”

There have always been things in the dark, shadows not explained by the items sitting on my desk or hanging in my closet. I ignored them because no one else ever mentioned them, and it is better to keep crazy to yourself than to be labeled as such. You know this, Bridget. You know what it is to crumble only when no one else can see it happening. I was there, once, when you fell apart in a room you thought was empty. I was sitting in Dad’s chair, the one he never let us use. You came in and you shut the door and your breath shuddered out of your chest so hard, I almost turned around in the chair and went to you. I almost did, but then you started heaving out those heavy breaths. You started crying so hard. It was right after Bongo died, you remember Bongo? I never knew things hit you so hard, never saw how much you felt it all inside your skin until the day our puppy died and you found his body beside that pond.

It all comes back to that pond, really. That’s where the monster is. Only this time it’s the stream that runs along the back of my property. It took a long time, but it found me. I think I don’t have long.

Promise you won’t break down in another room when I’m gone. Promise you’ll do it out in the open and let someone put you back together. It takes so much longer when it’s just you picking up all the pieces. It takes so much longer when you don’t ask for help. And I know that makes me a hypocrite, because maybe if I'd called you on the phone instead of writing this letter, it would mean that maybe you could help me. But see, I couldn't ask you to do that. Because what if I called and I asked you and you couldn't stop it? I think that would be worse. For both of us.

We weren’t very good at being sisters, you know. It was never really for us. We both pushed away from each other, two swimmers breaking off from the pool wall, moving in different directions. Passed right by each other on the way to wherever it is we ended up. I don’t blame you for that, and I won’t blame you for not saving me this time. I’ll just go, and I’ll go knowing that I wrote this letter and tried to get away from that thing out there in the dark, sucking up the stream water and waiting for me to venture too close. See, there’s a storm. It’s going to hit very soon, and then that stream will overflow. The rain will pour right onto the roof of this house and it’ll bleed into the ground and it’ll pile into that stream until it boils over. Until all the shadows that move without prompting come pouring out.

I know you'll ask why I didn't run, and all I can say to that is that I did. I ran for so many years. You ever wonder why we weren't moving in the same direction when we pushed off from that wall? You ever wonder why I didn't change course to follow after you the way I used to when we were kids? I guess I just didn't want you looking over your shoulder all the time, the way you had to growing up. Always watching out for me, always chasing away the ugliness that slid along my heels and pulled at my summer dress. I guess I just wanted you to have everything you ever wanted, and I'd just have to live with knowing that you got it, even if I couldn't be there to see it. I think I can see it now though, in the smile you wear in all those pictures you send. In the little glint behind your eyes. Don't beat yourself up about this. Don't think there was anything you could've done. Keep the glint.

Love you,

M