Letter 1
I was born 6lbs 4oz on November 9th.
My mother never cared for gender reveals- so I was a surprise. Welcome and warm, like a gift of pyjamas on a cold day. My grandma says she prayed id be a little girl, so perhaps it was a gift or fate, or natural biology. Who can say. I was born at exactly 4 am that Friday morning, wrinkly and wet with a birth mark on my neck the same as every blood relative on my mother's side. I joked in my late teens about the theory that birth marks were how you died in a past life, and how we all must have been stabbed. No one ever laughed, telling me off for it, but I found it funny. My father went to retrieve my big brothers from home- 7 and 4 sometime that early morning, and at the top of my childhood stairs they stood excitedly bouncing on the tips of their toes, wide eyed and waiting.
"You have a baby sister!" My father proudly said as he entered the door, knowing they'd be there waiting. My aunt beamed from behind the boys, with a boy and girl of her own. My younger-older brother grinned best he could after having his mouth frozen at the dentist, while the eldest grit his teeth and bared an awkward smile.
"That's great." He said, elongating every word like it was an inconvenience.
Bastard. I showed him, I did. He got one look at me nestled under a yellow pleated blanket, and his heart stopped and remolded to always protect. He wore a badge that said his name, followed by Big Brother beneath that he never took off as he sauntered around the hospital halls with my carrier. He refused to stop holding me- was by my side the entire time I was home, for many months.
He would not stop playing Yellow by Coldplay, and in the interim would sing Wonderful World. Both brothers were by me constantly, enticing me in games and hurriedly assuaging my wailing with their own toys. They bought me birthday gifts and would try to outdo each other by goading my attention with shiny wrapping and baby voices. I honestly preferred the decrepit doll I had in my fist instead, blank in the eyes and creepily dressed akin to a victorian child.
My mother adored me. Of course she did. I was her baby- and her baby girl. The youngest and last of my grandmothers grandchildren, her grand shields as she'd call us in our broken English. We learned Portuguese as easily as English, adoring her from the moment we woke to the moment we slept. We would shuttle our Christmas gifts to her as if they were her own, and she would warm our hearts with a bone-crushing hug and peppering of kisses. We got fed as soon as we got the all clear for solids, soup and egg yolks drenched in sugar for dipping with our full-fat bread and very quickly, the stapled family Mac and Cheese (which I have now weaselled the recipe from her to hold over my brothers heads).
My father loved me too. His little girl. Daddy's girl very quickly, bought by huge lollipops only bought from an island two hours away and sneaky nights on the porch with a bag of lays and a bottle of vinegar for the sauce. Disgusting now, but startlingly exquisite in my early years.
My younger-older brother had a magnet calendar on the fridge with every month being a new dog. One month, im unsure which, was a picture of a Springer laying on the grass. He was transfixed, insisting we got her. So my parents got him the Bible of Dogs where he could learn everything about every breed, but he never strayed from his chosen dog. The name Holly was listed beneath the picture of the dog on the calendar, and that was that. We got her on a rainy spring day. It was overcast, and we had to drive several anticipatory hours to get where we were meeting the kennel owner. I remember standing on the gravel, wide eyed as he unlocked the back of the truck and I saw my dog's whole family. A senior, with sad eyes gazing up at me from where they rested their face on their paws, two bigger puppies in one crate and a crate with a lineup of at minimum six small Spaniels. I remember feeling a pang of sadness for these poor dogs- all sequestered to the cold, dark trunk without so much as a blanket. But I was 7, and unaware of anything except the two circular dog cages being set up. The owner set a puppy in each, and my brother who had wanted the dog flocked to the left towards our Holly. Our baby. She shivered on my baby blanket in the back, my brother stroking her neck with a featherlight touch and me twisted around to stare at her in wonderment. That wonderment turned to fear, as she got older and more rambunctious and could knock me over with a twist of her head.
My childhood was one of love, light and joy. My brothers would line up outside my door to give me a payment- listerine strips most commonly- just to watch a movie in my bed with me. The other brother would stand diligently outside my door on their DS waiting their turn for the 90 minutes. My cousin, my aunts only girl, was my sister and mentor in so many ways. We spilled tears in laughter over a Farm game where the horse could talk, and awkwardly averted our gazes on the shared lounge chair during the twilight sex scene. She was the first to ever straighten my curls, and was excruciatingly patient despite how annoying I could get. My other cousin would get fed up quickly, and devolve into video games with my eldest brother while the rest of us were sequestered to watching. When my brother and cousin got their first phones, I was left out. My cousin showed me her phone though, and it made it all the better before our special New Years dinners where we would quickly get overheated in my grandma's basement suite, and on Easter we would find a ziplock of chocolate eggs and a twenty dollar bill. Never the parents though, just the grand shields, and my grandma would offer us a rare smile and twinkle in her dark eyes that promised a lifetime of adoration.
Then, I turned 13.