It was at that moment that I understood about myself. That I am different because I see things that other people don’t. No one moved and no one spoke, but it didn’t matter because just like my letters, I could hear his words in my head. Pure and strong and sad. And I knew that he was crying for all the things that had been lost. He laced his fingers together and brought them to his face as though he was begging.

For forgiveness.

I watched him walk toward my sister, who was murmuring softly, like a kitten. She whispered something into the air, to me or to him I did not know.

“Matilda.” Something about the sound of his voice made her look up and then she quieted. He lowered himself down to where she sat and extended his hand to me. There was something familiar about him; it was in his face or maybe it was his expression, or maybe it was the way he said her name, like he had been repeating it over and over in his dreams. We sat together, wrapped in a quiet that was occasionally interrupted by the clink of a pipe. We huddled in the corner of that dank and dark basement and it was only when I finally looked up that I saw it.

A crack of sunlight streaming through the air, hitting the shattered glass sprinkled on the floor and making it glisten like rubies.

Matilda

Sometimes I wish I never knew her secrets. I wished she had kept them all to herself. Maybe it’s my fault for prying. For asking. For pushing until there was no other choice. For any of us.

I call them Tim and Therese mostly because it fits and even more because I know it bothers her even though she doesn’t reprimand me. She knows that she deserves to be punished. Deserves to lose her title.

They are talking to each other now. Slowly and carefully, like walking across a thin sheet of ice, hoping that it won’t crack and send them falling into the freezing water beneath. I live with my grandmother and spend time with both of them separately but not together. Not yet. There are words they want to say to me. I am just not ready to listen. Maybe soon if they are patient.

I spend a lot of time with Franny. We are tied to each other more strongly than most sisters. Maybe because of what we have been through or maybe because we choose to be.