Page 76 of Tell Me Softly
One of the medics looked over at my mother. At the same time, someone shouted from far away: my father. He was running down the hill toward us. His vocal cords must have torn as he fell before her on the ground. My mother was too lost in grief to notice him. Her precious blond-haired, green-eyed girl was gone.
I felt a hand grab mine. Almost unconsciously, I squeezed it. It was my brother. He helped me up; he pulled me in close. And all I could think to do was take him away from there. Away from the tragedy, from death, from that little girl we’d never see growing up.
I held his hand, and we ran away.
***
I couldn’t believe my eyes. I slowed down and saw her through the windshield.
“What the…?” I said, passing her, then glanced again in the rearview mirror. I put the car in reverse, backed up, and cracked the window. “Kamila, what in the hell are you doing here?”
She turned and stopped. I got out and ran over to her.
“What are you doing?!” I asked again.
Her hair was soaked and clinging to her. Her clothes weresoaked too. She was dragging her bike along behind her.
“Thiago?” she said, shouting to be heard over the rain.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” I shouted.
I grabbed her arm and jerked her away. She dropped her bike, but I didn’t care. Only once she was safe in the car did I go back for it, pulling the quick-release lever to take off the front wheel so it would fit in the back seat of my car. By the time I was in the driver’s seat again, I was starting to wonder if we were in the middle of a hurricane. I’d never seen rain like that before in my life. As I put the car in drive, I shouted, “Kami, I asked you something. Can you answer me, please?”
But she just stared straight ahead.
“Kamila…” I said more softly. I could tell something was wrong. When we reached an area where I could pull over, I parked and asked her again: “Kam…”
She turned before I could finish and asked, “Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive me?”
Her cheeks were glowing, her body shaking from the cold. I turned on the heat and tried not to stare at her. I couldn’t because my feelings were too much for me just then. It was the anniversary of the day we’d said goodbye to my sister eight years ago. The day I fell with her off that very same bridge, the day I nearly lost my brother and mother too. The day everything changed forever.
Because I didn’t just lose my sister.
I lost myself.
If none of that had happened, my sister would be twelve now. Almost the same age I was when I lost her.
And yet, strangely, the pain I’d been feeling as the date approached––that bitter pain that ate into my muscles, my bones, my entire body––lessened slightly in Kam’s presence. She was a woman now, and maybe it was time to recognize that she had grown up, that she wasn’t the little girl I had blamed for ruiningmy life, my mother’s life, my brother’s, my father’s…
I remembered telling her at the funeral, “I said to keep your mouth shut.”
Her father had brought her, and I remember feeling confused that my mother had held him tight as she cried her eyes out, watching the little coffin being lowered into the ground at the Carsville cemetery.
“I’m so sorry,” Kam had said, her face red from crying nonstop.
“This was your fault,” I’d told her. “You know that, right?” I was standing so close to her that no one else could hear.
Kam had had her hair in pigtails—just like Lucy had a few days before, when she was still breathing. I hated seeing her like that, her clothing so neat, her hair perfect. My sister used to copy her—she adored her, she used to talk about how she wished she had a big sister like Kam.
“This is your fault,” I’d screamed, and shoved her to the ground.
No one had seen it but my brother, and of course he’d come running over to protect her.
“Leave her alone!” he’d shouted. “You’re the one who couldn’t get Lucy out in time. If you’d have just tried harder, she’d still be here.”
I’d frozen.
It was true.
