Every other year, this reunion. All my life.
My uncle opens the door, trying to hug me-
I no longer oblige the way I did years ago,
stepping aside as he hugs my grandmother.

He awkwardly gestures us in.
The family sits on the sofas,
unease sifting underneath the carpet,
an undercurrent we pretend isn’t there.

Some things everyone agreed on, like
ignoring our ***** laundry,
pretending that it’s- we’re- okay
for grandma’s sake.

No one has forgotten.
My cousins stir their drinks,
stare at their nails,
barred from the teenage escape of phones tonight.
They’re younger than me-
not by much.
I always wonder if we’d be closer if I lived here
Probably not.

Even after all these years,
I still feel like I’m the only one who can sense her sadness.
She had history she doesn’t know I know about.
Her eyes sometimes catch on my uncle,
and each time it looks like she wants to say something heart wrenching
but instead, she averts her gaze and keeps her mouth shut.
I wonder what she would say if she tossed all caution into the wind
blowing away like ashes.

Meanwhile, my uncle bears the weight of conversation
somehow making it all about him.
No one actually wants to hear about his business,
his newest spiritual awakening
(Roman Catholic this time)
a once-every-seven-years occurrence.

I wish I could go back to when I didn’t know who he truly was.
Before he spit vileness at my childhood self,
before he attempted an apology over my grandfather’s dying body.

My grandfathers absence haunts this house
his books in corners
his chair my uncle so casually sits in.
He died in this room,
looking out on the fields sitting in front of our windows.
My uncle may have been his son,
but my grandfather would always tell me
there’s no one more special to me than my daughter’s daughter.

I sometimes wish I could forgive my uncle,
move on a happy family,
stay in their guest room and drink eggnog in front of a fire on cold Oregon nights.

But as I look at him divulging his oh-so-dramatic life stories,
I feel rage.
A hell inside me-
the kind he prays he will never experience.
I sit there and let it bubble, never too close to the surface,
and sit through the rest of the night
tucking away time into my pocket until they leave.