It was the summer and I remember the dry heat of silence. She’s gone. The room a vacuum. Eyes looking to me. I didn’t know what to say—I was ill-equipped to console. Needing to also be consoled. The spores of cliché sprouted, ugly and wet. Relief, unannounced and hunched shouldered, let itself in. Most people don’t know that the fifth pocket of your heart is for this feeling, so you can thumb it like a worry stone.
“I’ll write something if you could find some pictures,” I finally said to my older sister.
I remember the tide and the current and how stillness was not an option.
She loved the beach. We thought it’d be nice to do it there. It seemed good in the moment to make that decision, but I hated the beach and the wind and I hated the sun and I hated her for not preparing. And standing there with my brother and sister I knew it was always going to be me. The middle child, forgotten child, big baby adult orphan always the pacifier. The burden bearer of expectations.
This was so long ago—some of it is ok now. The house has been settled. The ledgers drawn in ink. My suit has been dry cleaned, but I swear whenever I wear it I can feel the itch of sand bring me back to the sandbar where we stood shoeless and released.
Daniel DiFranco is a writer/musician/teacher from Philadelphia. He is the author of two novels, Panic Years (Tailwinds Press, 2018) and Devil On My Trail (Unsolicited Press, 2024). His short stories can be found in Smokelong Quarterly, Monkeybicycle, Fractured Lit, and others. Full list of pubs and miscellany can be found at danieldifranco.com.