A forest-green cover, embossed with gold, cheap but the nicest we could afford at the time. I remember picking it out at the craft store, feeling like it was so unusual. So special. Nothing but cardboard and fake gold embossing, but it seemed like the loveliest thing in the world back then.
The pages crinkle as I open the cover, and our family photos stare back at me from behind protective cellophane sheets.
The first picture, which my mom carefully centered by itself, is a 5 x 7 of our whole family, taken at our one trip to the Sears portrait studio. I look awkward in a little purple dress, my belly sticking out and braces on my teeth. Trent looks stiff and formal in his suit, with his hair carefully combed.
But his eyes, they’re the same. Those eyes that melted me then. But, there’s more. Something I never noticed before. He’s not looking at the camera.
He’s looking at me.
Our parents raised us as though we came from them both. His mom, Emily, was ten years younger than my dad. They fit together like peanut butter and jelly. Like tea with honey. Yin and yang. But it took me nearly all my life to see it.
Emily had Trent when she was only 17. My dad was older than most of my friends’ fathers. May and December. But it worked for them. Perfectly. Even looking at this picture now, with its soft edges and baby-blue background, I see it. The adoration. The affection. The contentment of finding that extraordinary thing. Another person to complete you. Another person to make you whole.
Someone that says, it’s okay to be you, because to me, you are perfect.
Trent never talked much about his real dad, probably because there wasn’t much to talk about. I scooped up bits and pieces, from whispered conversations, and Christmas card newsletters from distant family. He was a loner, lived in a crummy apartment somewhere. He enjoyed whiskey and a lack of responsibilities.
But his mom was beautiful, sweet, and treated me like her own, even when I bucked against her, willful and rebellious. I needed her love. My own mom died when I wasn’t even two, taking with her part of my heart and my Dad’s, until Emily came along.
I don’t even remember my mom. But there are snapshots of her here, in this album. Cancer took her. A sad death, but quick. It was two months from the day she got the stomachache to the day There were a few years there that I know I was hard to love. Emily was my mom, but I’d had another I didn’t even remember.
Trent and I went through a rough patch at that time too. I wanted nothing to do with him for a while. Nothing. Him with his attitude and his protein shakes, Emily’srealchild, putting up posters of rock bands on the bedroom walls, listening to Green Day and Nirvana and being so...Trent.
It was infuriating. I took to stealing things from him. A CD, a flashlight, a magazine with girls in bikinis. Anything to annoy him. Anything to get him to see me.
But when push came to shove, he did see me. He did help me. He did love me in the way that only a brother can.
* * *
A few years later,I remember he found me sitting in his room, just staring blankly at the wall. No books, no toys, no stealing his stuff, nothing.
“If it’s that fucker Henry Weaver again, I’m probably going to need a lawyer,” Trent said. Even when I was little, he didn’t sugarcoat things for me. He never treated me as less than an equal. Never acted like I couldn’t handle the way things were.
“Close the door,” I said, waving him closer to the bed.
Trent leaned back on his comforter, laying down, staring at the ceiling and folding his hands on top of his worn Nirvana tee-shirt. “Spill it, Kitty Kat.”
I sniffled. “I think… I think Dad is hurting your mom.” My eyes welled up with tears. That sharp sting of sadness filled my nostrils and throat.
Trent’s blue eyes met my gaze. “What? Why would you say that?”
I felt my lips tremble, but I kept myself from bursting into messy sobs. “I think they were fighting. Last night. Your Mom was making these noises. I tried to look under the door. I could see Dad was holding her down.” The welling tears tumbled down over my cheeks. “I think he was hurting her, Trent.”
Trent took a minute. Half amused. Half thoughtful. Watching me, I know now, and surely thinking,How the fuck do I explain this?
But he handled it well. He handles every difficult thing well. “They weren’t fighting, Kat. He’s not hurting her. I promise.”
He extended his pinkie to mine. At first I was skeptical, but he looked so certain.
“Promise?” I asked, as our fingers squeezed together
“Promise.”
“But what were they doing, then?” I asked. “I saw him, holding her hard. He was grunting, and she was…”
Trent cleared his throat, looked away. He ran his muscular hand down his face. And I remember the sound of his stubble against his palm. “How about we go get an ice cream?”
I blinked at him. “But, Trent…”