She was born a decade after her sister.  Such an age difference seemed insufferably insurmountable.  By the time she was four, her sister was gone attending boarding school. She was left alone in an adult world with very few dolls. She didn’t even have her sister’s hand-me-downs for poverty left nothing to hand down.

One day she and her mom got on a plane and never returned. They went to a strange muggy land where everyone but them spoke a different language. Dad was no longer around; instead replaced by a tyrant called grandmother.

She would get phone calls from her sister who was now in a different continent receiving a continually-enhanced education. The older sister had it all. Meanwhile, she had the crumbs of a family once borne.  It was enough to lash out at the world. The anger was bottomless and all-consuming. Yet, she knew, as her sister had known, there had to be a better way. She found God and a way. She no longer wore jeans believing her catholic mom was in the wrong. However, she now had a friend and mentor circle.

Her sister, who had found her own way, didn’t fit into the family puzzle. Now it was her turn. She did well at school. At 16 she got her first car. She was going places. Although, she hadn’t yet returned to her city of birth.

Now, as a divorced mother of two girls who are everything she had wished for in the mirror long ago, she reflects. There will be no hand-me-downs and no physical distance between her daughters. She misses her own sister or rather the ghost of what their relationship could have been. In order to survive, fate and life kept them apart. May they in death be finally together.

*Inspired by life and the weekly challenge of flash fiction writing

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