Shadow of Light
By: Angela Carrier

I gently snapped the plastic button to close the pink polyester dress around my doll’s waist.  I tighten the ponytail around her crimped yellow hair, admiring her sparkling eyes and dimple smile.  My sister and I sit side by side, each manipulating our own Barbie Dream Houses.    Her golden sun bleached hair wildly attacks the space around her head while mine hangs thick and dark and straight as bones.  Her sea green eyes squint in crescent moon shapes, mirroring the arch of her Cheshire smile.  My lids droop over russet brown dreamy eyes, hovering over my calm submissive expression.  She is the light to my shadow.  In our world of fantasy we do not hear the house turn quiet.

“Angela,” my father’s voice travels up the staircase through my sister’s bedroom door, “could you please come downstairs.”

            I obediently rise off the pink carpet, carefully discard my dolls and leave my sister enchanted inside her imagination.  My fingers brush across the snags in the striped wallpaper as my bare feet peddle down the shaggy carpeted stairs.  I jump the last stair and swing open the door with my open palms as I fly to the landing.  My father ushers me calmly into the family room and slides the panel door behind me.  He joins my mother sitting on the piano bench and I make my way over to his stuffed recliner wondering what I did wrong. 

“Angela, do you know about sex and where babies come from?” he asked me gently.  Although my heart increased a beat embarrassment contorted my face, I was relieved to only be faced with the sex talk.  I tried to avoid whatever explanation they had decided to come up with by laughing and answering yes.  My dad only needed me to understand sex in order to confess a truth.  His voice breaks as he begins by telling me that he loves me very much.  My mother’s shallow green eyes swell as she offers me her own declaration of her love for me.  I try to sit still, sensing the serious tones directing their language.  And then my father says, “I’m not your father.”

            My eyes shift from my father to my mother; the edges of their faces blur and swim together.    A frog settles in the base of my throat and a hot salty tear stings the top of my cheek.  My mother’s shame streams down her face and causes her to cry out in pain.  My dad’s calloused hands scoop me up and huddle me onto his lap.  My wet lashes blink into his chest and I sniffle in the smell of warm cotton from his shirt as he explains the reality of love’s mistakes to a child.  Words bury themselves beneath my tongue.  He asks me if I wondered why I didn’t look like him.  I did not.  The windows grew steamy as we cried through our pain and I was assured nothing had changed. 

My legs managed to carry me aimlessly up the steps.  I paused on the middle landing to catch my breath and to feel myself in the shadows before ascending to the light streaming from my sister’s bedroom door.  I took each next step leaving as much of my secret behind me.  I look in through the doorway on my sister waiting for me to return, wanting so badly to enter her room the same as when I left.  I don’t know who I am, but you are still my sister.