Pale Blue Dot

An except of this story was published in Issue 17 of The Incandescent Review. Read the full thing here.

When I found your body, I thought it was some kind of joke, or a lesson. We were cruel to each other earlier and I thought you were trying to make me sorry; but it only took me a few seconds to realize you would never punish me like that. That was never what this was. That and the red — or more accurately, crimson water around you, unmoving, like you — the thin membrane floating at the surface, oil and fats pulling away from the water, congealed, you must have been there for some time. You were wearing your favorite swimsuit; I don’t think you wanted me to see you naked. 

The thing about life is that something happens and nothing stops. Your big sister kills herself and you still have to take your dog out. 

The toe of my sandal catches on the last painted wooden step up to our front door. I stumble forward and catch myself, swatting away the gnats that swarm to the porch light as the last light streaks through the empty sky above the bay behind me. The Christmas bulbs that you hung lay still and dark. 

I put the pamphlets from the funeral home under my arm so I can pull the door towards me until finally it clicks. The wreath you hung on the pale pink door swings slightly. Anna, our little sister, is lying on the couch. Her head is on the armrest, which is covered in some generic beach-house print with embroidered sawgrass and sandpipers, and she’s scrolling; I can hear the TikTok sounds. She looks bored, but to be generous, I have never been able to tell the difference between her boredom and her sadness. They bleed together. 

Did you talk to her? 

You wouldn’t ask me that yet. You would ask about Duke, first. 

I’m sorry. I’m still learning. Where is Duke?

Duke barks once when I come in and rushes to the door from where he was curled near Anna’s feet. He darts excitedly around my legs, tail a blur. 

Dogs don’t miss people like we do. They lack the object permanence for that. 

Wrong again. You wouldn’t say that, you would believe that Duke misses you, and be sad about it. 

If I could be sad for Duke, I would. 

Pretend for me. 

I’m sad to think that Duke misses me. 

Me too. 

Tell me about the conversation with Anna? 

I greet her and she puts down her phone. There’s an anticipatory silence as she looks at me and I busy myself organizing the pamphlets on the dining room table. She’s always waiting for me to offer more information, and, as usual, I’d rather sort it all out myself. She finally asks me what Dad and I have decided on. 

“You should’ve been there if you wanted to know everything.” 

The sound of her breathing, collecting herself. Anna is always so composed, gathering her secrets. She lies like she breathes — without thinking, it’s natural. Not in a malicious way, she just knows how to protect herself. It also makes her hard to know. 

“I’m dealing with it in my own way,” she says. “I just need time to process everything.”

I nod. 

“Tell me the important stuff, then.” She says. 

“It’s on Wednesday, at two, so you can go back to school that evening or the next day, or whatever. I picked the flowers and the casket and stuff, Dad’s handling most of the actual

invitations. We talked a little about music, but there was the start of a playlist on her Spotify. I don’t know if you noticed that.” 

Anna clears her throat. “Okay.” 

Another silence. I’m different, I talk like it will save me, offering anything that I think might please the listener. I lie too, but to make whoever’s listening smile rather than hide myself. I guess it’s just another version of hiding, though. 

“I’ll look at flights.” 

I glance at her but she’s already back to scrolling. 

Do you think she was hurt that you wanted her to leave? Maybe she wants to be together, through this. 

You would say, You should be together through this. 

You should be together through this. 

It’s not like that. It never has been. We spent time together for you, because it made you happy for us to all be together. You must have known to some degree, we always just wanted your attention, a moment in your light. There’s no room for just the two of us, really.

But I’m gone now, so maybe there’s room? 

Don’t say that. 

Okay. 

~ 

Later that afternoon, Duke sniffs at the base of a leafless red oak in someone’s front yard, gnarled arms of the tree raised to the sky in veneration of its life-giving light. The same life-giving sun melts into an orange streak over the top of the garish, cotton candy bungalows. We walk further down the road, towards the bay.

“Where do you wanna smoke?” Anna asks. Duke has found a fiddler crab now as the road turns to coarse sand. It threatens him with the one large claw on its lopsided body, as it wobbles around angrily in the face of the giant creature looming over it. Then it disappears down the hole it came from. 

I nod down towards the choppy inlet. There’s a dilapidated pier nearby, wood decaying, breaking apart gradually, soft and spongy to the touch. 

“We can go under there when it gets a little darker.” 

“Cool.” 

It’s a beautiful day for the start of winter, not too cold with a slight breeze. You’d be wearing your favorite sweater, the red and yellow one with the little embroidered deer. You said it made you feel like it was Christmas every day. 

We’re mostly silent as we walk down to the pier. You would’ve hated that. You had our mother’s neurotic impulse to make conversation out of nothing all the time. If you were here, the silence would have been overtaken with laughter, even if it was just your own. 

Someone once told me about how pelicans die. When they hunt for fish, they dive at the water with such speed that it damages their eyes over time. If they live long enough, they go blind. When I heard that, it made me sad and scared to think about them out there, bobbing on the water, wasting away at the end of their life. Or worse, flying around aimlessly, nothing but air underneath them and the unknown all around. I wonder if it would feel like floating through a void, or being untethered in outer space, emptiness everywhere. 

When I told you that, you said, “How wonderful to have lived until the very end. To have exhausted your purpose completely.” 

It hurts me to know you couldn’t get there for yourself.

Have you thought that maybe I was at peace? 

I know you weren’t at peace.

How can you know that? 

There’s something I haven’t told you yet. I knew you needed help, and I didn’t have the strength to face it. You were sick. You had a disease, a bad disease. Sometimes you were happy, so happy it was like you had God Himself inside you, and you could do anything, and you did everything. You were so unafraid. That’s how I like to think of you. But it didn’t last forever. Sometimes you hated yourself with such vitriol that everyone around you could feel it. 

Bipolar? 

Yeah. 

Tell me more about the walk with Anna. 

Once the sun is set and the sky above the waves is a murky gray, I fish the joint out of my purse. Anna notices me struggling to light it, so she cups her hands around the tiny flame. We sit cross legged under the pier, the sand around us damp and cold, the water inching closer with every wave, and Duke is curled by our feet. 

I inhale a couple of times and pass it to her; as she coughs frantically, I check my phone. “Oh fuck.” 

“What?” She asks, and looks at me with watery eyes. 

“The situationship just texted me. He wants to come to the funeral.” 

Situationship? 

Yeah. You said that he acted like your boyfriend when the situation was easy, when you didn’t really need him. When things were hard, he left. 

“Oh Jesus. What are you going to say?” Anna asks me as she passes the joint back.

“I don’t know. Honestly — I think she would want him there. And she’d be happy that he’s still thinking about her, as much as I hate to know that.” 

The smoke snakes its way through the gaps in the wooden planks above us and drifts up toward the smattering of stars, and I know what she’s thinking before she says it. “You know at least a part of him is thinking that he’s the reason why.” 

“I know. And that makes me sick to think about. But…” 

My eyes drift across the dark, seething water. The figure of a bird is barely perceptible above the surface. Maybe a pelican. “She would never let a man have that much power over her. She loved him, and she also hated him, but he wasn’t the center of anything in her life.” My voice carries across the bay, towards the pale yellow lights on the other side. 

Anna coughs once. “She was so strong, way too strong for that. And yet.” 

And yet. 

And yet what? 

So much went wrong those last few days with you. Yet I know it was heavier than just the few hard things you went through, our fight, the breakup, all the other little things.

You think this was inevitable. 

Does it matter what I think now? 

“Sometimes I feel like you knew her so much better than me.” Anna starts. “We talked, but you know. I’m sure it was different… to be here.”  

Her words fall flat and the only sound is the waves. A half-formed accusation hangs in the air. I snub the joint out in the sand and leave it there. “Listen —”  she says. “I don’t think I can sleep in that room again. It’s really weird to be in there, with all of her stuff, like it’s waiting for her, like she’ll come back any minute.” I nod.

“You can sleep on the couch if you want. I’m sure Duke will be happy to keep you company.” 

I pat his head. Anna’s eyes waver and blink.  

“Thanks.” 

~ 

“Another, please.” Dad taps his glass as the waiter glances his way, smiling slightly as Dad usually is. Dad’s smiles are commonplace as long as they’re his usual half-smiles. His real smiles are few and far between, and usually only happen when he thinks no one is looking; I’ve been lucky enough to catch a few — when I glanced to the side in a beautiful movie, or when we watched you graduate. Seeing his smile brought tears to my eyes, as I’m sure is often the case in daughters of unhappy fathers. It means something to see the visible proof of his love. 

“For you as well?” The waiter asks Anna; she nods and he fills her glass. He fills Dad’s girlfriend’s as well. No one asks me. I don’t have a glass in front of me. 

You took me to my first meeting. 

Red legs of wine drag down the sides of the glasses and the color makes me shudder. They’ve all had a few at this point, and who can blame them?

The girlfriend is beside herself, she’s been crying all throughout dinner, blowing her nose into the cloth napkin that’s now balled up next to her plate. Dad has mostly been ignoring her, though the waiter has checked in with her more than a few times, a hand on her shoulder with each, ‘Please, miss, can I get you anything else? Are you alright?’ It’s funny because you hated her, and who could blame you.

Why did I hate her? 

Dad cheated on Mom with her while Mom was in the hospital. That’s right around the time you were getting bad as well. 

Gotcha. That bitch. Go on. 

We’re towards the end of our meal. Everyone got their favorites except for me. 

You’ve been to this restaurant a lot? 

It’s the only sit-down restaurant in town. We used to come here all the time growing up. When Mom died and Dad took us away we found something new, but since we moved back here we’ve come here at least once a week. Usually when Dad would visit he would avoid it. 

Why did we move back? 

Mom’s body is buried in a cemetery right down the road from us; you used to visit every day on your way back home from the park. I never did. I moved back for you. It was always the hardest on you, and you needed to be here. My job’s remote, and I didn’t want you to be alone in this sad, empty place. So I came too. And now I’m still here, with nothing left, and nowhere else to go. 

Am I buried there in the cemetery too? 

Yeah, right next to her. It makes Anna happy, but it doesn’t matter to me. It’s just bones there, there’s nothing left of you. 

But you’re still talking to me. 

Yeah. Well. That’s different, I guess. It helps. 

What did you get for dinner at the restuarant? 

I got the piccata, your favorite. I hate it, I always have. But every time we went you would make me try it, thinking it was so good that this would be the time to change my mind.

But this time it does taste different. This time I do like it. And it’s making me sick that something has changed; that I just wanted one thing to be the same way it was when you were here, and I can’t have even this one thing. 

Dad is still talking. I try to focus on what he’s saying as I cut and chew. 

“Yeah, so, I got you guys something.” He half-smiles up at us, and Anna tries to return it. Meanwhile I’m frowning down at my chicken as it continues to taste wrong. “It’s, well — I hope you guys will do it and enjoy it. It’s a retreat, a few hours from here at a cabin. It’s for grieving women, I don’t know, I thought it sounded nice, there’s a bunch of activities.” 

“How nice,” the girlfriend says, and sniffles. Anna nods. 

“Yeah. Thanks Dad.” She says. 

I’m still chewing the not-right chicken. I took too big of a bite, and now it’s all fucked in my mouth, sticking to my teeth and making me nauseous. I foolishly inhale and it goes down my throat, and suddenly, I can’t breathe. 

I try to make a sound. I can’t. My heart rate spikes, and I stand abruptly, and everyone’s eyes follow me. For a second I just look back at them as my face reddens. The dim light of the candles on the table smears out to a dull line as my eyes water. 

“Is she — oh God.” The girlfriend says, but doesn’t move. No one else seems to comprehend what’s going on, so I look at Anna and put my hands around my throat. “Oh fuck,” she says, and stands quickly, moving behind me. 

She starts giving me the Heimlich, and it flashes through my mind that I know she has no idea how to do this, but no one else is even moving, though Dad is spewing panicked sentences like that will help.

It’s a few frantic moments before the chicken flies out of my mouth and I gasp for air. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Are you okay?” Anna asks as I cough and try to catch my breath, doubled over. 

Dad is up now and patting my back gingerly. 

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m okay.” I finally respond in a raspy voice, and tearfully look at my sister. “Thank you. That was scary.” 

She nods, fear and relief on her face. 

“Yeah. Yeah.” Everyone is staring at me with bated breath, forks and knives abandoned. The rest of the restaurant has fallen silent, except for our waiter, who bustles around anxiously, sweeping up the half-chewed chicken. 

~ 

Your playlist was beautiful. We carried your casket in to the sound of True Blue, and when Lucy Dacus sang about becoming the sun that was the closest I came to crying. I know you wanted someone to hear that song and think of you, one day, when you found that kind of love that makes everything easier. I’m sorry I couldn’t do that for you. 

Dad spoke and Anna spoke, and I was supposed to, but when they said my name I just shook my head. It didn’t feel right, to talk about you in front of all those people that didn’t know you like I did. 

But if I did, maybe I would’ve talked about the time over the summer the three of us hiked Katahdin. You wouldn’t stop talking about how you wanted to have a spiritual experience when we got to the top. You were disappointed, looking across the razor peaks and impossibly still forest. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, but you just felt smaller than ever.

Your bad mood didn’t last; on the drive home, the sunroof was open. We all stank with sweat and my calves ached, but you didn’t seem to notice. You put on Big Sis and we all sang along, Anna and I begrudgingly. You want to be like your… You grabbed Anna’s hand from the passenger seat and passed your juul to me in the back. With the mango smoke on my tongue I looked up at the gray clouds, gathering now like they were waiting for us to be safely in the car before they came out. The rain started and fell and disappeared into your hair; you didn’t even notice. 

You were always the one who brought people together. You’re doing it even now. And you were the biggest person I knew; no one else even comes close. You used to say that wanting to kill yourself for so long made you grateful for the moments you were still alive, for one more sunset, the wind in the trees and on your face, the bay water on your skin even when it was way too cold. I don’t think you ever lost that, your appreciation for things. I guess it just wasn’t enough anymore. 

But I didn’t say any of that. I still can’t figure it out, whether I’m proud of how close we were, or whether it just adds to my shame.

You’re telling me now. Is that enough? 

It’s not real. Funerals aren’t for the person who died, or the people who were closest to them, really. It’s for everyone else to feel a little less shitty about the things they didn’t do. I know this because the fucking situationship cried harder than anyone else. 

He did? 

Oh yeah. Head in his hands, sobbing the whole time. 

He’s never going to stop thinking of me. 

You made sure of that. 

Ha ha.

After the eulogies when things are mostly done, people get up and mill about; professors are talking about your work, your friends are telling stories that are mostly tasteful. Anna and I meet up at the table of hors d’oeuvres — we don’t know most of the people here. It’s weird to feel like an outsider. I think Anna is feeling it too, because we just stand there and eat baby carrots while we watch people talk with their hands, eyes shimmering. 

“Your eulogy was nice,” I say. 

“Thanks.” She isn’t meeting my eyes; she’s looking far into the room and frowning. I try to follow her gaze, but where she’s looking is empty. 

“You okay? All things considered, I mean.” 

“Yeah.” She says in one breath. 

“Anna,” I raise my hand to touch her arm, think about it, then drop it again. I consider saying something else, then decide against it, and turn to find Dad. 

But as I start to walk away, she speaks. 

“Couldn’t you try a little harder?” Her voice is louder than everyone else’s, and they hush as I turn. 

“What are you talking about?” She’s frowning at me now, the corners of her mouth pulled down severely, her lower lip trembling slightly. She’s looking straight at me.

“You’re so selfish, Mia. You act like this is harder on you than anyone else, but she was my sister too. And you can’t even ask me more than once if I’m okay. You can’t even speak at her funeral, like your relationship with her was more important or special than anyone else’s.” 

“Anna,” I say, and try to ignore how everyone is staring at us. “I did live with her. It was different, not more important.”

“Yeah, that’s right, you lived with her. You lived with her and this still happened. You lived with her and didn’t know how alone she felt? Were you ignoring her like you’re ignoring me?” 

My face reddens with anger and shame. 

“Girls, please —” Dad’s approaching now. 

“This could have brought us together, but you just want to get rid of me.” She looks down. 

I inhale sharply, but she’s already walking away and out the door of the funeral home.

 ~ 

In 1977, Voyager One was launched into space from its home on Earth, and the people that built the spacecraft said goodbye. It traveled past Jupiter and Saturn, farther than any other man-made object, taking pictures and collecting data for scientists back home. The last picture it took was called “Pale Blue Dot”. It’s a photo that was taken right before Voyager left the solar system, and the Earth is a single point of light, barely more than a pixel on whatever screen it’s viewed on. Everything we know. Everyone we know. One tiny dot. 

Then Voyager powered off its cameras forever and left for interstellar space. I think you and Voyager had a lot in common. In the brief time you were in our realm, you showed us at once just how small and beautiful this life is. And then you headed out to the cosmos somewhere unknowable, unreachable. Wherever you are, I hope it’s just as beautiful. 

I don’t know what to say. I’m trying to say the right things, but sometimes I don’t know what you need to hear. 

It’s okay. I don’t know either. 

~

Up a dirt road just long enough for us to silently wonder if we are still going the right way, through a cabin door. I sit in front of a pastel purple yoga mat. The sharp smell of pine incense permeates. The room is crowded with sniffly women; I guess a lot of us are grieving these days. Anna lies in front of me on the mat, eyes closed. I notice that her eyes are lightly rimmed with red, irritated skin, from crying. I know she doesn’t want to be here; we haven’t spoken since the funeral, even on the way here. But we both care more about not disappointing Dad. 

“Touch can be a powerful healing element,” the instructor begins. She’s wearing a patchwork robe, has her curly hair tied into a messy bun, her fingers adorned with crystal rings. “Unfortunately, our society ostracizes us from touching each other. We forget how compassionate a physical connection can be. So today, we’ll be trying to bring some healing energy into our bodies through touch. We’ll start with a simple head and neck massage.” 

I inhale deeply and try to will my hands to stop shaking. Anna and I have never been the physically-affectionate kind of sisters; we didn’t even hug when I picked her up from the airport. We fought a lot as children — you were always keeping the peace. And I think I’ve always felt, maybe, guilty for that. 

That’s silly. All siblings fight. 

Not you. You were always above it, drinking iced tea with Mom on the porch or drawing the flowers on the windowsill. 

I’m just saying, you shouldn’t feel guilty for that. 

I have plenty to feel guilty for. 

Anna’s face flinches slightly as I bring my hands to her forehead, and I almost withdraw, but I look around and see everyone moving with ease and grace. This is my sister, I shouldn’t be struggling like this.

I try to massage her scalp, but my movements feel awkward and clumsy. 

The instructor startles me as she speaks softly from behind me. 

“Try to put yourself in her place. Think about what would feel healing for you. Then do that.” 

I exhale and scrunch my eyes closed. A memory comes to me that I haven’t visited in quite some time, of our mother. How we would sit on the porch swing and take turns laying our heads in her lap as we looked across the water. She would tell us stories of her wild youth that would make us giggle as she combed her fingers through our hair, gently untangling. I realize that I’m starting to forget what her voice sounded like in those moments, and my chest hurts. I’m so scared of forgetting your voice too. I open my eyes and pull my legs under me. 

“Come here,” I whisper to Anna, and gently move her head into my lap, turning her chin to one side. I move my fingers through her shoulder-length hair. At first, I worry that I’m hurting her as I work through the tangles. But then, I notice her relax. 

~ 

Before I stopped drinking, when we were both in college, you and I decided to get Anna drunk for the first time. We rationalized it by saying that it would be safest if she tried drinking with us, when we could take care of her. We did it at dad’s house while he was gone one night. We drank Barefoot, pink moscato. 

It was fun for a while. I told Anna that if she could still balance on one foot then she wasn’t drunk enough. She laughed it off. We went through two of the extra large bottles. I drank more than my fair share. By the time I started throwing up, you were already off to some boy-of-the-week’s house. 

The night was supposed to be about Anna. We were supposed to be the big sisters. But it ended with me kneeling in front of a trash can, and Anna holding my hair back for me. She was the only one that took care of anyone that night, and I don’t know. I guess sisterhood isn’t so cut and dry. We all fuck up, we all have issues. But I guess we take care of each other when we can, and know that when we can’t, it’ll be someone else’s turn. 

Do you think you can do it without me?

I’m starting to think that I can. 

~

Our footsteps crunch fallen pine needles as we walk. I guide us through the forest surrounding the retreat center. The moon above us is just a sliver, but the stars are endless. We walk in the light of the mostly dead things, echoes of something once alive, lightyears away. 

We find a fallen tree to sit on and I withdraw my wallet from my backpack and fish out a joint. 

Anna and I have been slowly mending things. We still haven’t spoken about what happened at the funeral.

I light the coiled end of the rolling paper. 

“Anna, I’m sorry about the way I’ve been treating you. I know this is hard for both of us.” 

I can see her nod out of the corner of my eye as I inhale the smoke. 

“I’m sorry I blew up at you,” She begins. “I shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t—“ But I wave my hand to cut her off. 

“You were right. I’ve been closed off to you, and selfish. I just —” I laugh a little. “It’s stupid, but I’ve been talking to this AI. I trained it to respond like her.” 

She looks at me, quiet but wide-eyed as she takes the joint from me. 

“It does actually feel like I’m talking to her, sometimes. Sometimes not. But, I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to pretend it didn’t happen for a little while. And talking to the AI made it feel a little less real. But with you… I can’t pretend. I know how much this is hurting you, and it makes me feel bad for escaping it. I wasn’t ready to face it.” 

She inhales once and coughs. I rub her back lightly and continue. 

“But the point is that I’m sorry. It wasn’t right for me to hide like that. I do want you here. I’m sorry it took me so long to realize that. But I love you. And I want to be closer to you.” She’s quiet for a moment, then speaks. 

“I just — I just miss her, a lot. I can’t believe I’m never going to see her face again. Never going to hear her laugh again. It feels like nothing is ever going to be okay without her, and I’m scared. It feels huge.” 

I look at her and see tears on her face. They reflect silver in the starlight. “How could she do that to us?” Her voice is thick with sadness, and my eyes flutter in pain. “I don’t understand. She said she’d always be here for us when Mom died. And now —.”

I put my arm around her, draw her shoulders close. She leans into me as she cries. I realize how small she is. That she’s still a kid, really, and she’s been navigating this alone. “I guess…” I begin, with no idea of what I’ll say. “I guess it will never stop. And it will never be easy. Something died in me when she did. But I think what I’m realizing is, things are still being born in me too. Pieces of us come and go, and it’s easy to get lost in the loss of it all. But also, I’m trying to remember that we were lucky to have her, while we did.” I snub out the joint on the tree and rub her shoulder. Despite it all, I find myself smiling. “I see pieces of her in you. And I don’t think those will ever be gone. And I’m lucky to have you — the pieces of you that come from her, and the pieces that are just you. I mean, you saved my life.” 

“The thing about life is that something happens and nothing stops. But how beautiful is it for everything to keep moving, and getting smaller. It will feel smaller in time. We’re tiny, in the grand scheme of things. Let’s enjoy it while we can, and forgive her for forgetting.” 

I look at Anna, and I see her look at the stars. And I see her smile, and I know we are both seeing you — both in the twinkling cosmos, and in the smile you shared. 

~ 

So is this the end, then?

I think so. 

Is Anna okay? 

She took time off school; we’re taking it day by day. What else is there to do but care for each other? And I’m happy to have her around. I love her. 

I love you. 

I visit my sister’s grave every day, and I always make sure there are fresh flowers, the little white ones that she liked to braid into her hair. I read to her. I talk to her there.

I’m scared. What’s out there for me, after this? 

I don’t know. But I know that when you’re out there in the stars, floating or flying, you’ll be in good company.