He was only 65 years old, and we thought we would have many more years to get to know him. In 2002, we reunited at our father's funeral in Houston. Over the years, we've exchanged short letters and longer visits. I've lost track of the telltale photo, but never of Marie-Laure. Once Marie-Laure returned to Switzerland for college, she slipped back into the borders of photographs.
Living under the same roof didn't forge us as sisters, but maybe that's not how sisterhood is defined, anyway. The real-life girl was a typical older sister, uninterested in me and even a bit scornful of my existence. Our age difference was insurmountable then.
Less than a year later, Marie-Laure came to live with us, attending the local high school as a foreign exchange student. Was it possible to miss someone you'd never met? The answer was yes from the start, I heard the word "sister" and muted the "half." She was 18 by then, wearing her hair differently, no longer fond of that bright shade of yellow, and probably unrecognizable. I understood right away, though, that the girl in the photo no longer existed. The photo of Marie-Laure held within it a world of adult emotions and fractured lives, which I was too young to inhabit or see. He clearly wasn't pleased to be confronted with a past that he'd kept deep inside his desk."
0 kommentar(er)
