Jilly

“You know how all this sounds, don’t you?” Raylene says when I’ve given her the Reader’s Digest version of what’s been happening.

We’re sitting on the front porch, leaning against opposite porch pillars at the top of the stairs. The toes of my shoes are close enough that I could tap the toes of her boots. Del’s still safely tied up in the parlour. The humidity’s gone now. I look away from Raylene, across the fields. A soft breeze makes the tall grass and weeds sway like they’re keeping time to an old-fashioned waltz. Above them, the sky is that perfect summer blue with a couple of fat clouds lazing on the horizon.

Positive thinking and all, I think. That’s what makes it this way.

Once upon a time . . .

I turn to look at my sister.

“Well, you’re here, aren’t you?” I say.

“I could just be dreaming. In fact, I was just dreaming before I suddenly found myself fully dressed and staring our monster brother in the face. Who’s to say I’m not still dreaming?”

“You know better.”

She doesn’t say anything for a long moment, her gaze locked on mine. Then she slowly nods her head.

“Yeah, I guess I do,” she says.

We both sit and look at the fields for a while longer before she adds, “So, do you think it’s all okay now?”

“What happened to us will never be okay.”

“I meant the way you’ve been carrying Del around in your head. Are you done with that crap now?”

I nod. “They say that the final closure is to forgive. Not to condone or forget, but to forgive, because if you don’t, you end up carrying the cancer of resentment around inside you forever. I heard it described somewhere as taking poison and then waiting for the other person to die.”

Her eyebrows go up. “So, do you forgive him?”

I shake my head. “But I’m okay with that. I don’t feel like there’s a poison inside me. I just feel . . . I feel like I’m finally done with it.”

“I know what you mean,” she says. “That’s what happened to me. When I tracked him down in that trailer park—the real Del, I mean, fat and drunk—I was ready to cut him a new asshole in the middle of his face. But once I saw him, I knew I didn’t have to do a damn thing. He was the one with the fucked up life. I realized that mine didn’t have to be that way—but it would be, if I took him down.”

“So, are we bad people because we can’t forgive him?”