Am I worried? A lot.
This is my family. The one I chose. The one who chose me.
A chosen unit so we wouldn’t be alone.
But how much time do we all have left? Not just on this earth but with one another?
We made a pact. We went through hell to get here. All it takes is the smallest quake in the desert to tear it all apart.
The table vibrates.
I jump.
“It’s not an earthquake, Teddy, it’s your phone,” Ron says.
I look down at my cell humming on the table.
Caller ID reads: She Who Has No Name
My sister, Trudy.
Whom I haven’t spoken to in decades. She’s left messages forme over the years—I had a grandchild! I had heart surgery! My husband retired!—that I have never returned. She wants me to forgive and forget. I want to make her pay forever.
“Who is it?” Sid asks. “And pass the corn casserole, please.”
“Chappell Roan,” I say.
Why would Trudy be calling me this time? Hasn’t she already blamed me for everything wrong in her life? Everything wrong I did to make our parents miserable? Everything wrong in the world? What hateful words are possibly left in her vocabulary?
Cher may be queen, but my sister proudly suffers wearing her crown of thorns.
My cell vibrates again.
I turn my phone upside down on the table.
When it stops, I pick up the cell and hold it to my ear.
The mere sound of her voicemail makes me knock back my glass of champagne and grab the bottle for round two.
“Theodore? It’s Trudy. Your sister. Remember me? We need to talk. It’s an emergency. Call me.”
In the background, I hear names being called over an intercom. She must be eating somewhere fancy after church, like Applebee’s or Olive Garden.
I set my phone down and take a bite of corn casserole.
Trudy is the last silk on my dried-out cob of a soul. And I ripped her out of my life a long time ago and boiled myself until I could no longer feel any pain.
You see, when you’ve been not simply hurt but gutted like a fish, when you’ve lost everything and everyone you believed would keep you safe, when you forged a life without family, when you have been to hell and back and realized the devil does not reside there but sits in your kitchen, living room, church and school, when you have put a knife to your wrist and were found by your sister, who bandaged you up and said, “Just wear long sleeves for a while,” when you have called home at Christmas praying for a miracle only to hear your father and sister say in the background, “Hang up, Mom! Teddy’s dead!” well, honey,you are not only forced to take chances you never would have taken, but—somewhere along the way—you die and are reborn as the person you dreamed of becoming even when you didn’t think it was possible.
“Is everything okay?” Ron asks.
He has the instinctual empathy of your favorite dog.
I sip my champagne and nod as Barry returns to the table.
“I’m good,” I say.
I am lying.
