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“Get out of my room!”

“But…”

“Out!”

…

“And shut the door behind you!”

…

“I SAID…shut the door behind you!”

God, this was so frequent.

I probably had this “conversation” with her half a dozen times a day.

10 times on weekends!

Until, the weekends came where she was gone

Her dad’s house, girl scouts, whatever 8-year-old girls do

Home for school, off to daddy’s on Friday nights

Now, I’ll never be religious… (ever) but… I remember praying as I watched him drive away.

“Uhh, God? You there? Well…either way, I hope she is wearing her seatbelt.

And I know she is because SHE was always the one to say “click it or ticket!”

…

“Click it or ticket, Mom!”

“Oh, shut up.”

…

“Click it or ticket, Taylor!”

“I know, I know!” (in the tone of a 13 year old girl)

Anyway, yeah, God?  So…seatbelt.

And I hope she remembered underwear!

I would hate to be 8 years old and need underwear so far from home

I know I’ll see her in a couple days but…

Who am I supposed to holler at while she’s gone?

Keep her jacket on, if you can. And whatever you do

Oh, man… this is really important…

Don’t let her daddy hurt her like he hurt me.

Please let him be better than that now.

I mean, it HAS been 8 years.

At first, she came home every Sunday without fail.

We’d meet her and her daddy at the “bottom of The Hill”

And she would always have so many stories to tell…

Well, Christmas passed, New Years…Valentines Day…

School was fine, I was a wreck

“Big sister isn’t eating!”

…

“Taylor, what happened?”

“Uhh…the cat?”

“Kitty doesn’t bite or scratch!” She’d argue, hands on her 8 year old hips.

“Oh, shut up.”

“Grandma! Taylor isn’t eating, she got hurt and won’t tell me how!”

…

“Honey, it’s okay. Drink your milk, she’s fine.”

Yeah, see? I’m fine.

I was fine, that week in the hospital.

I was fine passed out on the kitchen floor.

 I was fine locked in my room.

I was fine when I was crying at 3am on Christmas last year, alone.

And I was totally and completely fine when you slammed the door to dry my tears

and I was fine when the doctor was stitching me up.

Yes, I was fine, I swear.

But I’m not fine now.

I’m not fine because she turned 9, without me

I’m not fine because she went to her daddy’s house for a visit on Christmas and never came back.

I’m not fine because her daddy lies about my brother in front of a judge

I’m not fine because I went from yelling at her 7 days a week, as sisters do…

To yelling at her for 5 days, and missing her for 2…

I’m not fine because she was supposed to come home on New Years with bouncy blonde curls and blue eyes and a throat full of stories to tell

But instead, I didn’t see her on New Years at all.

Or for any of January.

I saw her for 4 hours in February but her dad was breathing down my neck, reading over our shoulders, talking over me, and lying to my face.

Her birthday came and went, she turned 9, without me.

Blowing out candles and wishing for a brand new toy, probably

While I sat at home, and cut the pain away

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

9 thin lines across my right thigh

It’s been almost two years, I still have the scars

I cried so much, lines of saltwater, on my face

1, 2 rivers constantly flowing

Beat, beat, beat, one heart constantly beating, oops, I mean breaking

She is 10 years old now, our story goes untold

Partly because she only knows half, and partly because I’m not that bold

How do you tell a 10 year old girl

That her daddy, her idol, is a bad, bad man?

Do you sugarcoat and compare him to Captain Hook in Peter Pan?

Swiper The Fox?

Is there even a strong enough metaphor to show the young girl what he’s really done?

I see the way she looks at him now, and I couldn’t break that bond

How could I take everything she loves and ruin it with the truth?

I hate him, but she loves him, and I’ll leave it at that

Love is a good thing, I know this..

How do you tell a little girl that the only man you HATE in the entire world, is her dad?

God, I know he’s finally trying but I really can’t stop crying…

For 8 years, I looked over her

I changed her diapers and dressed her for school

I left my 6^th grade classroom to wait outside her kindergarten so she wouldn’t feel lost

It was a small school but I wanted to make sure she knew her location and was comfortable every single step of the way

And when she was with me, she felt bigger, stronger, and braver

Her big sister was a 6^th grader, after all

The biggest and bravest of them all

When she was next to me, she knew exactly where she was

And even if I wasn’t quite sure

If I wanted to take a right or a left

I put one foot in front of the other and played “pretend”

Because she didn’t know the difference and I didn’t want to scare and in the end,

I did know where we were.

I made her all her favorite foods when the real adults weren’t looking

I made sure she had clean socks and that her shoes were on the right feet

And, like a good big sister, I yelled at her to get out of my room

But, I also let her play with my “big girl” markers,

painted her nails, and made her cocoa after I played with her in the snow

I blocked the path of snowballs that my brother threw at her.

And opened the path of imagination and discovery and all things “girly…”

It didn’t matter where I was standing, or if the sun were in my eyes…

My clothes could be way too big and mismatched and she still looked at me like the sun shined out of my…butt

Looked at me with all the love a 5-6-7 year old could hold in their eyes

Even when she was crying, it was quieter with my hand on her shoulder

She was the princess and I was the queen, in the world that we created

She only followed in my footsteps because my footprints wouldn’t fit inside hers

But since hers fit into mine, everything was fine

I could walk in front of her or we could run, side by side

She always followed me because I was bigger, better, stronger

And she WANTED to watch my fingers type, and draw, and wrinkle up in the tub

She didn’t mind being last if she could watch me finish

And now, the tables have turned because I’m the one crying

And now, I write alone

I would give all of my words away and submit a request for a leave of absence if I could follow her the way she used to follow me

I’d kill to race her on a bike

I’d even go to church, if she would just hold my hand until we found a seat

I might even let her ruin, I mean paint…my nails, if she wanted to

I’d play Legos and cars if that is what she wanted to do

But I’ll never know what she wanted to do

And I have got to learn to accept it or it will eat me up inside

She haunts everything that I do and I know it’s been two years and maybe I’m supposed to be “over it”

But I’m not.

And I might admit, each month it gets a little better, a little easier to live

But I’ll never admit to forgetting

I’m just painting over the old pain, pictures, and scars

A fresh coat with each heavy rain

But when the sun is shining, I know she’s still there

Under like, a dozen layers of paint, sure, but she’s still there

Smiling or making me smile in every goddamn photograph that I have, I swear