Spoiler! :
Of Memories and Falling Sunsets
“The sky’s purple, Momma!” The brown-headed girl commented excitedly.
“That it is, girlie.” Her mother looked down at her with a soft smile and ruffled the girl’s windowed bangs as she grinned.
They shared a comfortable silence as beats passed, until the brown-headed girl asked rather shyly, “Can we do this every night?”
Her mother smiled at her. The little girl, now a grown woman, had always found her mother’s smile contagious and almost radiant. Even as a young girl of five years old.
“Don’t you think you’d grow tired of it, Abby?”
Her daughter’s small shoulders slumped ever so slightly, but it didn’t go unnoticed by the woman. Darn. She hadn’t meant to absolutely discourage her daughter. She only meant to tease a little.
“Well, I guess so?” Abby replied quietly, though a small smile was still fixed to her face. Perhaps she didn’t feel as dejected as she appeared.
But still.
“Maybe not every day…” The woman trailed off, tossing her daughter an excitable, hopeful look and waiting for her to catch on.
“But maybe… every other day?”
“Sure, kid. Every other day. Whenever we can.”
Abby grinned at her mother despite her lack of two front teeth. It was hard for her mother to keep from laughing sometimes, but all the same, she found it cute and endearing.
The girl leaned into her mother’s side as the woman angled back onto her outstretched arms behind her. They looked out at the fluffy white clouds and the yellow-orange horizon, their hair was getting swept up in the soft dance of the wind and their flowery summer dresses clinging to their frames in the breeze.
There these two girls sat: atop the roof of their home on a hill while Abby’s older sister helped their father in the kitchen. Their feet were swinging over the edge of the roof above the place where the large window to Abby and her sister’s bedroom opened up. Just looking out of that bedroom window, the sunset always looked unbelievable. It was as if watching it on a television screen, but without the screen. The sisters loved to watch the sky change with the sunset, but it had always been Abby and her mother who found it especially magical and serene.
From the roof, the sunset almost completely transformed from something to watch, to something to experience. It became more real, more profound. From the roof, the sky was encompassing and embracing. It was a magnificent feeling of being able to live in such great Creation that offered so much hope and opportunity.
...
Today, as a grown woman, Abigail still tries to hold on to that joyous, nearly overwhelming feeling of hope and opportunity whenever she opts to watch the sunset. It’s usually on days like these—when she tries to remind herself to forget that her mother is dead, to forget that there’s so many things she has and never will be able to tell her. It’s on days like these that she drops everything to watch the sunset from the roof of her apartment building. It isn’t the same as watching from the roof of her childhood home, but nothing has been the same since then. She has gotten used to that reality.
Watching the sunset over Manhattan, she wishes only to be able to feel—even for a fleeting second—that her life hasn’t been wasted on empty reminiscence, and regrets, and bitterness. She wishes only to be able to feel that there’s still hope for her, nearly twenty years after that first night that she sat with her mother on the roof of their home and watched the sunset. Her father and her sister had been there on that very first night, also.
That is what she misses most of all. The full circle of love that now seems as if it is almost too heavenly, too almost-perfect and dreamy to have ever been anything more than just that. A dream.
“Abigail?” her older sister calls from the door of the rooftop, coaxing her out of her thoughts. No one calls her Abby anymore. At least, not anyone who knew her mother.
“I’m over here, Sam,” she answers after a breath. It’s hard to breathe on days like this.
Sam walks up quietly to her sister’s side, golden eyes scanning the orange horizon before settling on the profile of her sister. They are inadvertently matching, she notices. Hooded black sweatshirt and comfy jeans. They always seem to match on these days. The only difference is that her own brown locks are pulled back in a messy bun while her sister’s falls in waves around her face.
“You miss her,” Sammy says after a long moment of silence, both of them still watching the orange sky. It’s more of a statement than a question (a rather dumb one), but for some reason it’s always posed as one anyway.
A small comfort found in the familiar.
“Don’t you?” Abigail turns to Sam with tender eyes and zero amount of accusation in her tone. She knows her sister copes differently than she does, and if she is honest, she would say that she is rather jealous of her sister’s ability to cope. She doesn’t drown in pain at the thought of their mother and memories that can never be made or that were never made. Nor does she ache at the thought of beautiful moments that can never again be. Instead, she manages still to find joy in the memories she keeps and in the hope that they can one day meet again.
Abigail comes back to the present time when she realizes Sammy can only stare back at her. She reads her sister’s answer of “All the time” just by looking at her face. Words are a far, foreign concept to Sam right now. She is speechless. Not in an awed or shocked way, she has just never really been good with words when it comes to their mother—which is really just ridiculous because she works for the New York freakin’ Post.
“I saw him today,” Sammy is finally able to croak out after minutes of silence. The sisters look to the sky again. The light is almost gone. She doesn’t know what else to say.
“Dad?” Despite Abigail’s measured voice, her features unmask no emotion.
“I saw him leave a purple tulip at her grave.”
“Well at least he remembers that,” Abigail remarks bitterly then instinctively winces. She turns remorseful eyes to her sister. “I’m sorry, Sammy. I’m trying, I really am.”
Sammy nods understandingly.
“I know it isn’t his fault,” Abigail continues softly, shutting her eyes tightly and opening them again only when her sister starts speaking.
“It’s the 23rd today.” Abigail looks at her sister with a steely gaze that is usually saved for the fact: “I could never forget the 23rd of any month”. Her sister, though sorry, appears unfazed and continues as they both look back at the setting sun. “I meant… he still goes every month. I see him leave a tulip or two for her, and every July he leaves a dozen or two.”
Abigail has remained silent at her side, but there is now an unshed tear at the corner of her eye, and she is suddenly grateful for the slight wind that has picked up. It curtains her hair over her face just enough so that it keeps part of her hidden.
“We both know he loved her,” Sammy says as if trying to convince her sister of it somehow. But that’s unnecessary.
The wind has taken a reprieve and Abigail’s hair is back in place. The tear that was trapped at the corner of her eye has finally broken free, drawing a thin path down her cheek when she answers sadly, “So much.”
Sammy turns golden eyes to her sister. “He loved us too.” She notices the wet shimmer on her sister’s face, but Abigail doesn’t look at her. “He loves us.”
She still doesn’t move. She remains quiet with her features once again stoic and the thin tear stain already nonexistent somehow. The sun has gone down past the horizon and the air immediately feels colder.
She misses her mom, and she hates the cold.
She misses her mom.
“Let’s go inside,” Abigail says. She turns on her heel and walks toward the door. She wants to have some warmth back.
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