To My Mother’s Older Daughter by Lisa K. Buchanan

She never announced having spent the day with you, but I always knew. Suddenly, my spaghetti spill was catastrophic; my loss of a gym sock, reckless; my impersonation of the school principal, unkind. Mom had a way of dropping a cheekbone onto the heel of a hand while she sat at the kitchen table, long after dinner was over. No doubt, while I was playing tetherball after school, the two of you had lingered at the yarn shop and the antique store, errands I found interminable. Maybe the two of you sipped iced tea: liquid litter box. Maybe you played duets at the piano where she and I could only fight, her “F shaaaarp!” correction torpedoing from the kitchen, through the foyer, and into my ear while I practiced scales. Mom had perfect pitch, but I suspect it was you, a few years older than me, calling out the note. When my mother was bored with me, I knew she was missing her eldest—you who were musical and hopeful in the way our mother had been musical and hopeful; you who were freckled and photogenic in the way our mother had been; you with those same bouncy auburn waves and coveted curves. Mom’s perfume smelled reachy on me, but when you wore it, our house was queen-scented. With your inherited cheekbones and nimble piano fingers, you were our mother’s legacy to an otherwise disappointing world. Your symbiosis was absolute; it was the longing that chafed. Unlike me, you had emerged from our mother’s own womb. And unlike me, you had been still and silent and softly purple, a girl baby shrouded, a dream from which my presence would only awaken our mother, day after day, most cruelly.                                                                     

The Story Behind the Story:

I tend to work on pieces, even very short ones, for months or years. This one, however, came quickly, but only because it had been lingering inside me for decades. In addition, I have a habit of writing letters to strangers. A museum guard emulates the mercy depicted in a painting we’re both observing. A fellow sidewalk pedestrian wears shoes that reveal more than her feet. A man commits suicide in my path to the grocery store. My recipients and I cannot speak to each other directly, and yet, they leave me forever changed. During the shutdown, I kept in touch with family and friends; it was the warm proximity of strangers I desperately missed.

“To My Mother’s Older Daughter” was previously published in Punctuate.

Photo by Morgan Von Gunten on Unsplash.