The Doll Garden

Eleven

It would seem returning home brought out the bad habits buried in all of us. Mirabelle seemed to have been more in denial than Manuel and I were though.

I should have expected no less. Out of all the siblings, Mirabelle was the only one who refused to acknowledge her issues. She'd even refused therapy, convinced that there was nothing wrong with her, and instead did the very thing I was scared of losing her to one day.

"Mira..." I watched my sister's wine glass clink against the bottle of red wine in her hands as she tipped it at an angle. It started with her filling a quarter of the glass. Then, on her second glass, she filled it half-way. And now, she was filling the glass to the brim.

I didn't think much of it at first when she poured the first glass. But she was on her fifth glass of the afternoon. And she'd only started drinking an hour ago, when I had returned downstairs after Isaiah and my phone call to finish scrubbing the paint off the doors.

Her ears perked at the sound of my voice, but she didn't acknowledge the scolding that was awaiting her on my face. "What? Don't worry. I need several more of these before I'll be drunk enough off my ass to pass out." She shrugged.

That's what worried me the most. She had a high tolerance for alcohol. She'd drink and drink and eventually, she would go numb without even realizing it. Thankfully, wine was the only drink she had access to or else we would have had a bigger issue on our hands.

"You know that's not what I meant..." I crossed my arms, mumbling.

There was a thick, gruesome silence hanging over us. She placed the bottle down on my desk, a sigh of contentment passing through her lips, while she slouched in my computer chair, taking her first sip from her newly poured glass. I turned on my side, facing her from my laid-out position on my bed, my hands tucked under my face.

"When's the last time we had a girl's night out together? Just the two of us? I feel like it's been forever." She giggled.

I clenched my fists at my sides to keep myself from reaching out and prying the glass from her fingers. That wouldn't have gone over well with her, and I wasn't in the right headspace to fight with her right now, especially not when she was tipsy enough to be spouting nonsense.

"I don't know, Mira. It has been forever." My smile didn't reach my ears.

She sighed again. "I miss that... We should hang before you leave for New York again..."

"I'll make sure of it." I laughed lightly.

"Do you remember the times we used to run around acting a fool? We were the terrible twos in this house. And when Manny came along, we became the terrible threes." She laughed but soon cleared her throat. "Never mind. Sorry. You probably don't—" she said, back-pedaling.

I cut her off and said, "No, no. You're fine, Mira. I remember some of the things we did. We were so reckless; I'm surprised Daddy didn't have a heart attack."

"Right?" She bubbled up with laughter again.

"Hey, Mira, do you remember the time we got caught in Daddy's porcelain room?"

She lifted her head, her eyes widened at me. "You remember that?"

"The memory... It kind of came back to me randomly. I guess something triggered it. That's been happening a lot lately since I set foot back in here." I could tell her about my memories returning, right? I didn't have to tell her about the notes in order to tell her that. I hoped.

Mirabelle nodded her head in understanding. "I see... Damn, we were pretty young. Just twelve, eleven, and nine," she counted off in the order of our ages.