by Caroline Arthur
Both of my sisters hate holding hands. Perhaps I know this so well because I often reach for them, and then re-listen to the same oddities of insecurity that resonate within them. Their fingers are too thick, hands too cold. What they would do to have little baby hands like me.
My sisters don’t know that they have this in common with each other. Perhaps because they don’t reach for each other’s hands.
My brother’s hands sweat and shake in a cold clamor. All the sisters know and reach for him, only to laugh away the moment of kindness with jabs to his insanitary condition. This I do as well, and try not to think on it as I am doing now.
When he was out of his apartment, and I celebrated a girls’ night in with my cousin and his wife to be, the broad PTSD diagnosis slipped from my lips; pertaining to my brother, as I mentioned my own depression. It was as if I was addressing my friend Sadness directly at the table. She looked like she was getting lonely.
My cousin and almost sister-in-law sat back in their chairs as I said so - and a swift topic change felt like two hands drifting away safely to pocketed homes.
