7. you only read the one liners (we only dress in black)
I tell her that he’s not going to die, that this can be like a baptism. She says “remember when I turned 18 and you surprised me with matching dresses?” and I do remember. I told my mom— I said “hey mom, don’t we look virginal?” and she said if she had daughters she’d dress them alike every day. We wore white and there was a cake. Someone played a song.
I didn’t like to dress the same back then, and her and I, we’d be been baptized long ago. I was just a baby, I cannot remember. Do you match when you are born? Do you go get born still?
But we used Google not Bibles for them because there was an ocean or there was a swimming pool and i typed in with all my fingers “how to perform an emergency baptism” and we printed out. Dressed in white like pajamas wouldn’t do it.
And we never performed the ritual, we only saved ourselves. I learned how to get the hell out of houses and now it’s phones and one hand, five fingers not ten. Not that kind of discount. Mom didn’t have daughters, I didn’t have dinners and I tell her we’ll be fine. I say it like I mean it, but I wish we would have held their heads underwater. For a long time. For good measure.
I shouldn’t care about their sinking bodies. Not my baby, not my problem. I blocked out all those words. They were the ones that didn’t believe in return envelopes. I was the one that knew all about collapsed veins. Next time I take a pill like that I’ll take it in front of your mother, I’ll say “watch”. You can call me Alice and I’ll call you Al and we will hide behind lyrics that anyone ever sank. I shouldn’t care that I didn’t hold your head under water. It wouldn’t be fair now that we’re all grown up to say something— something like— “well it’s not my fault if you burn in hell”.
Besides, they can breathe under water for days. Weeks. Months. I watched them do it for years.
