The Mistakes We Make

We exist in the background of our own narratives.
One day I will have nothing to say - I'll be sitting in my room somewhere, maybe even my childhood home, decades from this day, and I'll be quiet, as I'd never been before. One day, I will have stopped dreaming of Anna. One day, Charles and William will blur together into one person in my memory; Shalom would be the ghost of a face in the back of my mind and Edmund would be a rich, deep note on the piano. Helena would be a long, flowing skirt and ballet shoes twirling in the wind, dancing, as I'd one seen her dance with Charles, happy, carefree, with a glass of wine in one hand, deep red, staining her lips. One day, when I'm old, I will forget their last names, the way their voices sounded, how smart and kind they'd always been - to me at least. Sometimes they fought amongst themselves, but I never fought with them, not truly, not like I did with my mother.