How to Make Peace with Your Dead Cousin When Sorry Isn’t Enough
Pick up a pen. Start with the easy stuff. Dear favorite cousin, even though you hit me with a bat before we got on the kindergarten bus, I forgive you because it was an accident unlike the time you struck that match on the bus and we both got paddled by the principal.
Maybe next you want to bring up the time in your fort in the woods he tried to prove his masculinity by French kissing you in front of the neighborhood kids, who never liked him. You embarrassed me. I was mad. You weren’t like the other boys. You didn’t fit in. Your laugh was softer. You flinched when they shoved and tumbled. On the walk home, I said you weren’t invited to the fort again.
Don’t be afraid to write the next part. He’s been dead thirty years. Tell him to stop haunting your dreams. Remember all those weekends we hung out eating takeout in that rat-infested room you rented, me helping you prep for your high school equivalency test? In my dreams, I see myself driving away in my sporty car to party with my college friends. Your smile and your waving hand saying, “it’s okay, I’m happy here.” But the silence that fills the next decade when you disappear to the West Coast tells a different story. Mom says she sent mail to a post office box. I was too absorbed in my perfect life, my happy memories of you and me cranking Prince on high volume and getting high, all my hopefulness that time would settle your nerves or straighten you out or fix whatever needed fixing without requiring any sacrifice from me for you. And when I stood to say a few words at your memorial service, my hypocrisy was a stone caught in the base of my throat, but my smile probably looked like yours in the doorway the last time I saw your face.
Tell him you’re sorry, and let it be enough. I planted an evergreen shrub beside my front door. It blooms in early March in time for your birthday. I stand on the porch and tuck one of the Barbie-size bouquets behind my ear and strike a match. I remember you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
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Read by Tracie Adams
Tracie Adams, author of Our Lives in Pieces and Not Finished Yet (2025 BookLife Prize Finalist), has been nominated for the Pushcart, Best of Net, and Best Microfiction. Her work is published in Pithead Chapel, Stanchion, Fictive Dream, Hippocampus, Cleaver Magazine, and more.
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