Aged Five

I have a photo of you aged five. You are seated, hands folded, a failed attempt at a smile on your lips, your eyes full of fear. And tears. Next to you, your three-year-old sister’s face is alight with a beautiful smile for the camera. The photo, almost a centerpiece on my dresser, is an 8x10 black and white; it is surrounded by joy-filled pictures of my son and husband. The contrast is stark.

I found your photo in the attic not so long ago, in a box full of old albums I inherited from your great-aunt Deenie – my favorite of all the old ladies that peopled my childhood and young adulthood. I long suspected she was the only one that ever treated you with kindness. But, unfortunate for you, she was far away in Chicago; before you came along she had already become an infrequent visitor, having escaped from the tentacles of meanness and despair that choked the hope and joie de vivre from your little soul before this picture was taken.

I have your eyes.

Every time I gaze upon your five-year old face, my heart squeezes. So young and already you wore a look that said, I want to please you, what am I doing wrong? Why do you hate me so? Love me. Please.

I love you.

Your sister, whose mind was never whole when I knew her, looks so happy – the unfettered joy of childhood. The contrast is extreme. I wonder when you lost yours; if, indeed, you’d ever had it. Was your mother’s hatred, disappointment, anger inflicted upon you from the moment she knew you were inside her?

Or did it grow with her belly and only show itself when you burst crying into this world?

Or was it a slow and steady descent? Did it take her by surprise that she had no love for this child of her womb? Had drink already fogged her brain, distorting reality so that somehow you were the cause of all her travails? As if you had asked to be born.

You never asked to be born, indeed, you spent all the time I knew you, ready for death, open-armed. You did the best you could.

Even as an adult, you still sought to please your mother; to feel her love. Months before your death, she was still sneeringly narcissistic, compelling you to apologize to me, your pregnant daughter, for her malevolence.

You died six years younger than I am now, still feeling unloved, despite the world of love that surrounded you.

Twenty years later, she died alone.