Before I Was Someone

Milo

When I wake, Baisie is gone. Confused tears begin to form and in my dazed state, I begin to think that she somehow already left me for her deceased mother. Tears are still running onto my pillow when I realize that the pillow case that is being stained by my mourning is not the one I had the night before, next to Baiselle.

I sit up and examine my surrounding one object at a time. I recognize every single thing, even though it's been decades since I've seen any of it. The light coming through the blue curtain shines on the nightstand to the left of the bed. Light flashes in my eyes and I slap my hand over my eyes to shield them. I squint as I lower my hand, moving to block the sun behind me. It is a frame that caught the reflection of the sun. An empty frame. I search the floor, and when I cannot spot the photo, I scoot off the bed and look behind the old dresser, and in the closet, within clothes I have not seen in decades. When I can't find it, I fall to the carpet, devastated. The photo is not here.

I had always had it in the same frame since the day I met her. She had not known I'd taken it until we married, three years later. She had never seen the photo out of the frame, but now she must have. She is gone, the photo is gone, and...

I hear it once, but dismiss it as the buzz of the fan. Then I realize, like the pillow, that there had been no fan on my ceiling when I fell asleep. So I strain to hear the faint sound once more from my spot in the closet.

I hear it, louder. A whimper. I hear mumbling. I am trying to decipher the nearly silent words and I am just understanding the sentence, "Go get him, girl" when my ears explode.

A dog is on top of me. I cry out, shielding my face. I hear it sniff once, then it scrambles off. I keep my eyes squeezed shut, but I scoot with my back on the wall, away from the massive dog. I finally manage to look at the slobbery fur ball, but as soon as I do, I feel the need to close my eyes once more.

The only pet I ever had was a dog. Her name was Lucy, and she loved to wake me up in the morning. Lucy would leap onto my bed and bark in my face, but it had always been my sister to send her into my room to sit on me until I was wide awake. But once I had moved away and my parents were on their own, they sent Lucy to live with a stranger with a terrible habit of smoking or snorting anything he could get his hands on. I never knew of the mistake brought on my parents' oblivion until it was ten years too late.

I sit in my closet, inhaling Lucy's excited, putrid pants, and though I'd always wished to see her again, I have forgotten her in this moment.

My sister stands in the doorway. I love her much more than I love Lucy. More than I love my mother, more than I love my father...

"Lo-bo, what are you doing in there? I'm not driving you if you're going to make me late," she says. She begins to turn away, and I want to run to her and latch on, make her drag me wherever she goes. She stops before she disappears from sight. With a laugh that is less like a laugh and more like an angel singing, she tells me, "Get off the floor before she smothers you, Milo."

My sister leaves. I get off the floor like she tells me, and despite my urgent want to follow her, I think of one thing that stops me.

I lean against my dresser with Lucy splayed on the floor beside my feet. I stare at her, my sweet puppy, and I realize for the first time that she shouldn't be here. Neither should my sister, nor should my parents, who tell my sister good morning as she passes their bedroom just down the hall from mine.

Only seconds pass before I have to correct myself. I shouldn't be here.