Sissy's Sacrifice

I remember, the crushed fender, and two seconds later, we could have died but didn’t thanks to dumb luck and air bags. It was the worst day of my life, or so I would consider until I gave birth to Clovis and almost bled out in the hospital bed.

Of course, you were there, reminding me that, “Life finds a way,” and we’d laugh while Benny did his best impression of Dr. Malcolm. But still, even then, you side eyed Sissy, who waited in the corner to hold the baby, and I wondered if you were still obsessing over that day from our past.

“What were you thinking?” you asked her, a calm but growing fire in your voice.

Your teenage girls just got into their first wreck, and for a moment, I imagined, your whole world stopped.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, and I stayed quiet because guilt was racking my chest.

She was pressing her forehead against the steering wheel of your cherry red pickup that was still drivable but defaced when you met us in the Target parking lot. The crust of her foundation was smearing, the glisten of anxiety melting her face. Even then, I think you looked more shaken than she did.

Sissy would say anything for you to believe that she was sorry. The humbleness she exhausted made me wonder if it would be easier for you to believe her instead of continuing with the relentless bitterness, the tirade about her recklessness. I could see it; It wore her down every time.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” you asked me later that evening.

I nodded.

Even if I weren’t, I wouldn’t admit it then of all times. There was too much at stake. I had always been quiet, so it wasn’t strange to give such a distant reply, but I had this deep, crying need to tell you the truth.

It ached mostly at night when I looked out the window at your dilapidated truck, that would end up in a junk yard eventually, and saw a flicker of Sissy and me sitting in those front seats, unconscious. How different your life would have been two seconds later, if we hadn’t swerved and the other car t-boned us instead.

I wondered if you loved her less because of what she did — the oversight, her honest mistake. I was the youngest, and I knew you harbored a special sense of protection over me, especially then, when I was sixteen and already desperate to be an adult. Sissy was older, so naturally, she was supposed to protect me not put me in danger.

You were disappointed in her for years after the wreck. You hesitated when she invited you on that road trip or raved about her new car, and if you had the slightest inkling that she was being careless, having too much fun, you would unearth the unpleasant memory, push her even more away.

Her senior year, it always came up in your arguments, how she couldn’t be responsible, how you didn’t trust her to pay attention, remember what was really important. You would tell her that you wished she were more like me.

I remember one evening so vividly. I was writing an essay at the dining table. Sissy was getting ready to go to her first college party, and you were giving her a speech about not drinking or going home with strangers.

“Isn’t Madison picking you up?” you asked as she stashed her keys in her purse.

“She couldn’t make it,” she responded, turning suddenly toward the door, desperate to make her escape.

“Honey … I don’t know. Maybe I should drive you,” you insisted, slipping on your Birkenstocks and tying your hair into a messy bun.

“No … why?” she protested, grabbing the handle.

“It’s late. In case you get tired, it might be better if I pick you up too,” you explained.

You had always warned us not to drive when we were tired. That day in the Target parking lot, she explained that she didn’t get any sleep the night before, and she swerved because she was dozing. You never forgot. Her betrayed glare found me from the front door. Her lips twitched with a confession that wasn’t hers, and then her shoulders melted like her foundation that day we could have died, two seconds later.

“Fine,” she sighed.

You seemed pleased with your intervention, like you were the only thing keeping her on the face of the earth. Later that day, you asked me if I’ve ever been sleepy when I drove at night. I looked right into your eyes, my mother, the same woman who almost bled out for me in a hospital bed, and lied.

Sissy wasn’t the one driving that day. It was me.

I was dozing, and we didn’t realize it until after the crash. Terrifying how your life can simply flash in front of your eyes like that. Two seconds later, and we would have been dead. I was still learning and scared. Mostly, I started sobbing because I thought you would never trust me again, and I loved you more than anyone else.

That changed the day in the Target parking lot when Sissy asked me if I was okay and I confessed that I would rather run away from home than face your disappointment. Two seconds later, she made me switch seats with her so she could take the blame for what happened.