Whether it was fate, or magic, or a ghost listening to my thoughts, or some fucking reason I don’t know she was there. I thought Ma and then she was there, a specter in the night, and I tore my eyes away from my reflection just to see how fat she was.  

Dimly, in the back of my head, I could feel Chico struggling to get the shit out of him as fast as he could, cuz my gut was already twistin’ around and around. At the sound of Ma’s voice, at her scent in the air catching up to me just as I was seeing her pale form for the first time in seasons, and noticing in the same instant the way her sides swelled well outside the silhouette I’d always known her to have.

She asked me a question and I didn’t answer cuz all of me was frozen to the spot, and I was able to move but scared to do it, just in case it turned out this was an illusion that would scare off if I even gave off the tiniest intention of an embrace. But of course that didn’t make any sense, cuz I don’t think I’d ever imagine Ma this swollen,  her body all wrong shaped, or maybe just different shaped, I dunno, maybe there’s a fear prejudice in there that I wasn’t acknowledging.  

She…she looked well, though. Fine. Like she was happy.

I still couldn’t say nothin’ though, stuck like I was with her sudden appearance, and she was talking again anyway, her words rushing forward like she was trying to spit them out before she got too scared to do it. Like she was getting the worst of it out of the way. And…like…I can’t say she was wrong.

*I ah... you are going to have a sibling soon, though I wish not to pressure you.*

Chico was still furiously trying to take his shit and I was standing there with my insides not entirely twisted enough, just in time for a bomb to drop on them, shatter them with the shrapnel and choke me with the mushroom cloud. I think I actually stopped breathing for a second, for the tiniest instant, and I’m not sure if my heart was beating like it was supposed to, either. Vertigo gripped me and the world spun for a second as my head tried and failed and tried harder and still failed and tried a third time and finally kinda sorta got a grasp on the idea of

another sibling.

No pressure tho.

“Oh,” I said, cuz that’s all I was capable of saying. Oh. That age-old fear of mine was dancing right in front of me: Ma settling herself into a new family, a family she chose, a family she wanted, and glowing from the opportunity. And maybe that’s why Chico was trying so hard to get back to me, because something was gonna break in me any moment now and he needed to be there to break my fall.

But…nothing…broke. Nothing shattered and split like it was supposed to. Wasn’t this a nightmare? Wasn’t this something I was dreading?

And yet it wasn’t that absolute. Because Ma was building a new family but she was extending a hand, inviting me into it. And I was gonna be a big sister.

I was gonna be someone’s Big Sis.

And I’m not sure how to spit that feeling out.

“Oh,” I said again, but this was a lot more soft and it trembled a lot more and I was still scared of making any sudden movements cuz part of me still expected Ma to flee from the sight of me, a memory she didn’t have. “I…thanks for telling me,” I said, still in that soft voice, and maybe they were warm words too, I dunno—I just hoped they weren’t too simple. I just hope she knew that the thanks was very, very real.

I was shocked I guess, more than anything, that she would tell me where she’d be, if I ever needed her. That she was letting me know I was gonna be a Big Sis, that she was giving me that kind of gift after the awful, awful shit I had spit in her face the last time I looked her in the eye. It’d been years but that kind of heaviness wasn’t something I wanted to sweep under the rug. I could look her in the eyes now—it was now or never, before something happened to my Mama, before I would lose track of my—my family again.

“I’m…sorry,” I said, spitting it just like she had spit her own words. I’m sorry, Ma. I’m sorry it hurts when you look at me sometimes. I’m sorry I said all that bullshit to you. I’m sorry I cause too much pain. I never meant to hurt you. I’m sorry, Ma.







talk
Chico