This evening, my father drunkenly asked me if I would go with him to my sister, Jamie's 30th birthday party. Normally, this wouldn't be a strange question. But my older sister, Jamie (who practically no one knows about) has been dead since before I was born.
Nearly thirty years ago, my parents had their first child, a beautiful little girl with large grey eyes and perfectly porcelain skin. About six months later, she was brutally ripped from their lives. The circumstances surrounding her death are somewhat cloudy. My mother swears that she doesn't remember exactly how she lost control of the car. My father, however, is absolutely certain that my mom had a seizure while driving. This, he explains, is how their beater car wound up skidding across the lanes of the freeway, northbound on highway 101 just after it crested the grade. This is how the car became wrapped around a giant oak tree that no longer stands there. And this is how my older sister died: a precious new life stopped in its tracks with a sick thud that left the windshield cracked and my parents' hearts forever shattered.
I don't think my mom and dad have ever fully recovered from the loss of their first child. My dad still boils over with anger when he talks about it, but only when he has been drinking. In the absence of alcohol, Jamie is bottled tightly inside, a memory best left hidden in the darkest corners of his mind. I think that this is why my dad has always struggled with alcohol, because it provides him with the release he needs to talk about Jamie freely: her life, her death, and the guilt that has followed him this thirty years.
My mom never talks about Jamie. Then again, she never drinks. Where my dad has found at least some manner of dealing with the loss of his first child (unhealthy though it may be), my mother has found none. Instead, she keeps Jamie tightly wound inside of her, along with the guilt she feels regarding Jamie's death. I'm not sure that she would ever admit to the guilt she carries, but it has poisoned every aspect of her life, including her relationships, her business dealings, and even her desire to be a woman. When she lost Jamie, a switch was flipped off and everything that could have been my mother was turned off as well. Where there was once an easy smile there is now an uncertain grimace, where there was energy and excitement now there is forced motion, and where a mother's giving heart once existed there now exists a gaping hole of need.
Given the circumstances of Jamie's death, I can't really blame my parents for their reactions. My dad was unable to protect the first life he had a hand in creating, and my mother's unwise decisions on that day have defined her entire life. I know that my dad blames my mother for Jamie's death, and although she has never said as much, I know that she blames herself. I know this because Jamie was riding in a friend's lap instead of a car seat. I know this because immediately after the accident, my mother in her hysteria admitted to having a seizure while driving (which she later recanted in hopes of keeping her license). And while she may try to put on a good show for me and the rest of the family, no mother could ever absolve herself of two such deadly mistakes.
The irreparable rift created the day of Jamie's death was like a fault line, and my parents were the tectonic plates: although there was no immediate quake, the pressure built between them over the years until something had to give. That something was my parents' marriage. After having three more children they divorced in 1994. The official reason for the divorce was infidelity on my father's part. But I know that they had already been unfaithful to each other for years, each having a torrid affair with the guilt that they put on themselves and each other, loving and encouraging the it until their shame and blaming was more important to them than the love they had for each other or their children.
Thirty years later, my dad is finally ready to visit Jamie's grave. "A party," I ask him, "You want to give Jamie a party?"
"Not a party," my dad admits. "I just want to be there, to see her. I wanted to go for her 21st birthday, but it hurt too bad. I don't want to miss this one. Will you come with me?"
I assure my dad that I will be there with him on April 28th to visit my dead sister's grave. He is overly grateful and kisses my hand over and over, refusing to let it go. He is also drunk.
While part of me is glad that he wants to do this, that he wants to move forward, another more cynical part of me wonders how long this newfound desire will last. Probably until his buzz wears off and Jamie is safely corked inside again, along with the guilt, the shattered dreams and the anger he has carried this past thirty years. Then again, maybe not.
