I Don’t Love My Sisters

If thoughts could talk.

Photo by on

I tell my mom I love her, then hang up the phone.

It’s something I make sure to say before the call ends. Because I mean it. Because I never know when I’ll talk to her next. Because if I don’t, she might wonder why I didn’t. It might leave her hurt, not hearing the spoken words, though she doesn’t need to worry.

She’s the only woman I speak to on the phone. Really, she’s the only person I have any regular audible correspondence with. Living abroad, there are no other phone calls, and text conversations are limited to a select few.

And yet, she’s not the only woman I love. There are two others, though I rarely talk to them, and I can’t remember the last time I heard their voices. Probably a year ago — the last time I saw them in person.

When we do finally speak, it’s about normal things. Our day, what has changed, what life entails. How their kids are, how my dog is. Conversations can sometimes lag from there as we grope for new topics. At times, I wonder if we have all that much in common other than parents. But there’s no mistaking my sisters for anyone other than my sisters.

I’ve known them for as long as I’ve known myself. Despite a three-year age gap between my younger sister and me, no memories exist of life before she came about…