My Future Husband

Chapter 3

Luckily Teal sleeps like a log, so he doesn't even stir when my earthquake of a sister comes stomping in on her five inch heels. Although she does stop when she sees him sleeping, looking completely precious only taking up half his crib, with the mural Jay painted on the wall surrounding him in the clouds of heaven he was sent from.

“I can’t believe you made that.” Me neither. “And you didn’t even need stitches, lucky bitch. My love-shack looked like a dropped lasagna after Luna was done with it.”

And that’s enough Brie for one day.

“Dress in my closet. Don’t take anything else.” She shoves her middle finger up at me, pulling open the door to the closet so harshly the whole thing almost tumbles on top of her, one of my memory boxes hitting the floor and spilling open.

“Shit!” She’s so lucky this kid would sleep through the apocalypse. “I think it broke my head!”

“Lucky you don’t keep anything important in there then.” She gives me her ‘fuck you’ eyes, and I know my work here is done.

I help her scoop everything back into the box, shaking her head at the letters I kept from Anna.

She burnt hers after she read them, which I understood. She never felt any attachments to the woman, and when Anna was given the choice between her or a man, she picked the man.

My experience was different, and reading these letters changed my opinion of her again.

She wrote one every year on our birthdays, just little notes telling us she was thinking of us. Most of them were sealed and addressed to Granny’s place, but eventually she must have realised she wasn’t actually brave enough to send them, because she stopped addressing them.

They aren’t anything special, it’s not like she knew either of us, but the fact she thought about us for all those years is enough for me. I never needed her to be my mom, I’m okay with just knowing I wasn’t nothing to her.

Brie doesn’t care, or at least she says she doesn’t, but then her fingers still on one of the photographs that tumble out. The one she refuses to keep.

She has to start dealing with this, every time she looks at it, I can see it in her eyes. She wants to know who he is.

“You okay?” She nods, moving to sit on the edge of my bed and staring at the image of Anna, Brie in her hold and a man’s arms wrapped around her waist. “Have you thought anymore about...”

“I don’t want to find him.” That might be easier to believe if you weren't looking like your heart continuing to beat depends on holding his hand.

It’s not a great photo, but it’s something, more than some other people have. If she wanted to, I think we could.

“He had to be from the Southside, she was only fifteen, and Granny never let her go far. Maybe we could just show it to some people? Go down to the church, or-”

“No.”

“Brie...”

“No. May... he knew about me, this proves it, and he still left.” She’s not great at being vulnerable, this isn’t easy for her. “Why do I even care?” Because he's half of you, the half you don't know.

In a lot of ways, not having parents has been harder on Brie than it was on me. She remembers what it was like to be neglected by Anna, she was a teenager when she left, I don’t. Granny cared for me, but Brie cared for Granny.

Growing up, I had Mama T and Dad, I had my brothers. She doesn’t know what it was like to have a parent, Granny did her best with us but Brie was the caregiver in that house. She had to be, no-one was tucking her in at night, no-one was making sure she could cope.