catching up (mi's side)

Catching up.

“So Mi what are we going to do about that box?” Esmee asked me gently a few minutes later as she sat back on her chair opposite mine and took hold of my hands in hers.

My whole body stiffened at the thought of the box; It had never really gone away but the need to cut in its self had become a distraction to the nausea that occurred every time I thought of the seal to my box being so roughly cut open with the edge of a cold deadly sharp blade.

“I cant,” I stuttered breathing deeply as I tried to imagine all the memories in the box spilling out over the edges, the photos, the little notes, the scans, the birthday cards all there to consume me. “I can’t, I…I.”

“all right all right Mi big breaths and stay calm. No one is going to make you face something that you really can’t, however there are a lot of memories in that box that need to come out at some point, what has happened has happened and you can’t just keep Arabella and Oscar sealed away in a box for the rest of your life. That won’t make the pain go away Mi.”

“You have no idea.” I sighed heavily slightly annoyed at the fact she had summed a whole life time of memories up in one sentence. I new keeping the photos in a box wasn’t going to make the pain go away,’ I had been living with the pain, but keeping the box sealed had so far stopped me form losing my mind completely; or had it, or was that just a lie too?

“Your right, I don’t but I am honestly just trying to help you. Maybe we could look threw them together picture by picture doing one a week . We could bye a nice album or scrap book and keep them all in there instead. Or maybe we could start just a little bit more gently. Describe Arabella to me.”

Her picture in my head felt like someone had come along and punched me a thousand times before walking away and leaving me there alone on the floor with no one to save me.

“I can’t,” I chocked, the thick tears feeling like they where actually trying to clog up the inside of my mouth and throat. “I can’t do it, I can’t cope with her smiling face inside my head because it all leads back to that car crash and to the way she looked then and I can’t… I just… it was just…. NO!” I shouted jumping up out of my chair and clamping my hands over my ears at the same time as screwing my eyes shut tight trying to chase the images away from the corners of my head, trying to stop the screeching of brakes in my ears and my screaming for her just to wake up! At The time knowing that nothing else would matter if she just opened her eyes and smiled at me again; knowing if she didn’t I would have just witnessed the rest of my world once again slip away from me like sand though a fist leaving me all alone in the big wide world at just 14.

“OK, all right, I’m sorry, I have pushed to heard again, I’m sorry, it’s over, I’m shutting up.” Esmee tried to sooth as I felt one of her arms loop around my waste in a half restraint, half hug.

I tried to settle my self and not pull away from Esmee, maybe her persistence on the subject had hurt me but I new she was only tying to help me but still even though I was freaking out I new deep in me there may have been another reason that she wanted to know so much about my sister and my unborn child because even though it still seemed so strange Arabella was her sister too and my little boy would have been her nephew.

“Oh bloody hell!” I shouted once as my mind swirled around considering in even more depth what it meant for Esmee to be my sister, it meant Emmet was my both-in-law and Mia was my niece; that beautiful little girl was part of me and I wanted to know her inside out, wanted to be there for her and I could guarantee Esmee would let me and in exchange she would want to know everything about Arabella and she deserved to because she was amazing, she was what was right with the world; a small specimen of perfection that had been part of such an imperfect world and I new, like I always had in my own way, her memory didn’t deserve to be confined to a well worn cardboard box.

“Arabella was amazing,” I said slowly, opening my eyes and taking my hands off of my ears before sinking to the floor in the corner of the room. “She took after her father so we looked really different but she was so stunning. “that box Esmee it’s all in there you can look at it all if you want.” I offered

“Honey the only way I want to look at those pictures is with you at my side, I will not look though your life with out you like you wouldn’t look through mine and maybe that’s whet we can do, I have loads of photos and things at home of Mia and my mum has loads of me as a child and it think it would be lovely if you saw them. You have a lots of catching up to do and when you are ready so do I.”