Locket

Your brother has a locket that he wears night and day.

He’s worn it for as long as you can remember:

When you fought as children, it was there for you to pull on. (The chain never broke.)

When he brought roses for Abuela when she was in hospital, it dangled loosely beneath his shirt. (It hung there still when he placed more roses on her grave.)

When he picked you up from Robin’s party last Saturday, it was looped around his wrist like a rosary. (You wondered if he’d been whispering secret prayers to what was locked inside.)

He’s never tried to hide it. Never tried to hide what’s inside it.

A single lock of dark, curly hair.

Where did you find it? you asked him once.

But he just smiled and said, It found me. Now I just have to find its owner.

You might’ve thought his response strange, but there are stranger things. The unexplainable, the mysterious, trails your family’s footsteps generations back. It seems almost commonplace for him to have something constant about him, however abnormal to those who don’t know your family for what you are.

There is hardly a word for what you are.