Wading Through Memories

I found her crouched down in the milkweed, covered in dirt. I knew she’d be in her garden. Sitting in the house lets the pain set in, with too many memories embellishing the walls and piled-up bills sprawling across the countertop. It’s only been a month and a busy one at that. She hasn't had a whole lot of peace between visits from neighbors and concerned family, and the house is full of flowers - flowers that are dying. When you’re ready to sink into misery, inside the house is a good place to go, but the outside offers transformation. I take a knee beside her and look up at the bottom of the leaf she’s exploring.

“What are you looking for?” I smile as she breaks out of her trance.

“Oh! Hi Alice.”

It’s nice to take a moment to pretend that everything is normal, like there’s some small crack of sunlight exposing a new reality - if we could only find the strength.

“I’m looking for monarch eggs. I saw a butterfly here yesterday.”

Leila let the first smile I had seen from her in months grow across her face. Her greying blonde hair was slightly tangled under her safari hat, reflecting in the sunlight. The soil under our feet felt moist and rich, sending up wafts of earthy tones under the sweet scent of the milkweed. I could see why she liked it here. It reminded me of Marla, and maybe that was part of it. They were always out here together. In a world where it often felt hopeless, rewilding a piece of land, even a small backyard, was healing and cathartic. Marla always said that it was an act against the patriarchy. It was funny watching her share that perspective. She’d say it with a particular joy of defiance, as she relished in witnessing the confusion on people’s faces when she said it. That look was the invitation to dive deeper into the history of how patriarchy led to colonialism, and colonialism led to paradise being squashed into sterile, lifeless lawns.

That was Marla. She was everything alive. Her laughter exploded like the tops of her bottled ferments every time she left them on the counter too long. Her kitchen was always full of her latest brews and concoctions, giving life to the unseen. She was fascinated by life, and that’s what makes her death feel like a shitty line in an Alanis Morissette song. How many times had we danced to that song in the bathroom while we were getting ready to go out? Too many times to count. They all jumble together now. Isn’t it ironic? Not really, but neither is rain on a wedding day. I look up to see Leila standing.

“I was going through her notebooks this week,” Leila recalled as she looked down at the gloves in her hand. “There are too many of them, and I just need to clean out some space for me to exist again. I can’t always be wading through memories, you know?” She looked up to stop the tears and looked back at me. “Will you take them?”

“Yeah, of course,” I replied as I let my eyes drift away from her face. It’s like the sorrow is exponential when we talk about Marla and our eyes meet.

She led me through the house to the bookshelf where Marla kept her writing. The lights were off and the curtains drawn to keep the heat out, or maybe to keep the grieving in. There’s something about dwelling in a feeling until it’s really, truly done with you - until you bounce off the bottom to the next realm of understanding.

“I’m just going to clear this away and put something pretty here,” she said. “Something new.” Her hand ran across the rounded edges of the notebook at the top of the pile. It was sapphire blue, worn-in, and filled with Marla’s insides.

Our fingers touched as she passed me the stack of journals, and she took a step back. She needs space. I get it. I do too. Losing your sister is like losing a limb, but feeling like it’s still there. A phantom that tricks you into believing that nothing has changed, but when you reach out to grab something, you’ve got nothing.

When Marla fell in love with Leila, I was the first person she told. We were always each other’s safe place, even as little kids. When our parents fought, she’d sneak into my room, curl up into me and ask me to make up a story. Together we’d weave a tale that had plot twists so bizarre that our laughter would drown out the cutting tones down the hall. Mom and dad would eventually come around to the idea of her falling in love with a woman, but she knew that I’d understand right away, even if it surprised all of us. She had always dated men, and there were some pretty funny stories of her single life, like the time she dated a hippy living in a tent out in the forest. It was a hilarious juxtaposition when she got into her perfectly washed car after work as an accountant to visit her homeless boyfriend. But even then, I understood. He mirrored her artistic side, continuously pushing up against the boundaries of expectation and perception. There was never a dull moment with Marla, and it was fun watching her explain the twists and turns to our parents. I always admired how brave she was.

When I got home, I called Jacob and told him that I had her journals. He never knew Marla like I did because he was already a teenager by the time she was born, but they grew closer as adults. They went on ski trips, and he took her to the backcountry. Nothing ever shook him, not even when he couldn’t find her. It wasn’t his fault, the transceiver didn’t function properly, and it was a tsunami of snow. He searched for her for three hours with a broken leg before search and rescue came, and they didn’t find her body until the next day. I wouldn’t have survived the emotions of an experience like that, but he took it in stride. They both knew the risks, but Marla always put living life to the fullest before anything else.

“Did you find the passwords?” he asked.

“Passwords to what?” I was sure Leila would have access to everything.

“She bought some Bitcoin in 2013 when her friends at work got into it. There should be words to recover the money in one of those journals,” he explained.

2013 was way before she met Leila, and Bitcoin was all over the news the last few years because of how much it had exploded, so I scoured the pages of every journal. Would they be in code? It wasn’t until I got to the smallest journal, a little black Moleskine notebook, where I noticed numbers beside random words throughout her notes and poetry. I signed onto my computer and researched how to recover lost cryptocurrency. When I carefully entered the words in the order of Marla’s tiny numbers, a rush of joy came over me.

The words unlocked $20,000 worth of Bitcoin.

My thoughts went back to Leila and my sister’s relationship with her. I thought of the garden and Marla’s transformation towards love and then death. I knew Leila would be excited about this discovery. I got into my car to bring her the little black book, and when I got there, on the bookshelf was a beautiful glass butterfly.