the sisters

I barely remember them.

I really don’t remember them at all.

I remember a moment in which they are participants.

I don’t remember their names.

I don’t remember their faces.

I don’t remember their voices.

I remember their laughs.

I remember running wildly around the perimeter of the house my mother was renting that summer. I remember hopping over the barrier of the stone porch with one of the sisters. I remember our thighs, covered only by the short-shorts of the eighties, slapping against the concrete as we landed.

I remember laughing until it hurt.

I remember they were gone.

I remember the hazy image of them hopping into a backseat of a car and saying they’d be back.

I remember sitting in my yard waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

The sun giving up, slipping away into dusk.

I remember my mother coming out and telling me to come in.

I remember telling her they’d be back.

She didn’t answer.

I remember they never did.

They never came back.

Looking back, I don’t know why this moment in my life has retained a spot in hazy memory. I don’t know why I remember the sisters leaving while moments with close friends have been forgotten.

I don’t know why they didn’t come back.

The house they lived in never saw them again. They just left in a car and never returned.

I almost remember it was because of a divorce, but I’m not sure if that is memory of speculation or something my mother told me later.

I can’t inquire about this memory because my mother is dead and the identity of the sisters evaporated from cognizant memory. The memory, and the moment itself is reduced to the mist of my personal and hazy recollection.

This moment is nearly dead.

It happened, but I am the only known witness left. Realistically the sisters have forgotten, have moved on to adult life where memories of running through summer heat and diving over porch walls have faded away.

When I am gone.

So is this moment.

It never happened.