NIKKI & JOE, CASUALLY | ✓

54: canyon

            When I wake up on January fourth, the awaited melancholy has already gathered onto my chest. Unable to move, I stare at the fracture of sunlight under the blackout blind for so long that when I blink, the shape of it is bruised on the back of my eyelids.

We have an odd ritual, me and grief. I won the war years ago, banishing it to my subconscious from where it can only send missionaries—the control issues, the self-hatred, the fear of abandonment, as diagnosed by Caleb. But once a year, every year, it's given free passage from its exile to torment me with its own hands.

Save for last year when I cut the day short, I always work on the anniversaries. It forces me out of bed—the "you need to work five times as hard" mentality Mamá managed to bludgeon into my brain presenting as a respectable challenger for the grief. This year, when I've arranged for two weeks of holiday that coincide with Cece's, my spine grows roots into the bedsprings.

I've no idea what time it is—I haven't been able to check my phone—but it must be well into the day because the floor creaks for the fourth time as Cece hesitates outside the door. This time he musters the courage to knock. Or it might better be described as a tap.

They ease the door ajar.

Seeing my eyes open, he steps out of the way, whispering summat I can't make out. Esther slides through the crack and jumps onto my bed, sniffing my face before she settles down beside me.

Cece is still fidgeting in the corridor. 'Can I...? Can I come in?'

I try to speak but manage only to nod.

They shuffle inside, lowering themselves to the very edge of my bed where they pick at the plasters on their fingertips. The nicks have healed well enough over the past week but I still make him wear the bandages so they don't scratch the scabs open. And I know from experience that he will scratch the scabs open.

I stop petting Esther to slide my phone from the nightstand. I have a spam of affirmations from Caleb to which I respond with a blue heart so he knows I appreciate it but don't have the energy to respond right now, and only then remember to check the time.

It's past two. You'd've thought my bladder would've shoved me out of bed by now if nowt else.

'Do you...' Cece clears their throat '–feel sad?'

It's like he has an allergic reaction to talking about feelings, his body incapable of staying still. He scratches his wrists the best he can with the plasters, then his neck, finally his scalp. Their spine curls and stacks, curls and stacks. All the while their eyes scuttle around my room in search of an escape route.

Maybe it's just talking about Mamá and Papá that they have an allergic reaction to.

Cece were four when they left. He's been honest that he don't miss them—he never knew them enough to miss them beyond the vague concept of "would be nice to have parents". He even forgot the anniversary last year.

I wish I could forget.

Forget the way Papá would sing—sing all the time: when he cooked, when he drove, when he showered. He sang the Latino rhythms of his youth so passionately that it would transport anyone listening to Villavicencio. Abba was the one exception he made; he could be reading the newspaper and suddenly yodle "thank you for the music, the songs I'm signing".

I wish I could forget the way Mamá looked in her regalia beads and feathers, how she would hold me when she told me stories that I've long since forgotten now, stories about the sky and the trees and the rivers. Her voice was salty as the ocean, a churn of sand always in her throat.