As they walked along after the matinee, the older brother teased his sister, “Hey, guess what, Frankenstein lives in the attic and he’s goin’ get you.”  With a flushed face the little sister responded, "Nah-ah, besides the attic door is locked."  And her brother smirked, “Think Frankenstein cares about locked doors?"

Throughout their childhood, the brother jumped out behind closed doors, terrifying his little sister, and with each fright he gave his own fear seemed to lessen.  After a startle the sister thought, ‘Does my brother love me, like I love him?’, and she concluded, “He must, why else would he try to scare me to death?’

Within the decade, a sudden brain hemorrhage took their dearly loved mother.  Now, untethered in their mother’s love, the siblings changed, tightened, within,  While their father, a traumatized, war veteran, swiftly fell off the wagon, and the brother and sister cast off, rudderless, uprooted into troubled waters.

And with their hearts snapped shut, immersed in relentless grief, they parted ways.  Some years later, their father died, bequeathed them both his unhealed pain. The brother, the sister, slid secretively into alcoholism, conceded the family custom, invested deeply in their despair, the two went on, married, raised families, conformed.

And time went by, as alcohol soothed the pain until the brother breathed his last, his belly taut with fluid, his liver destroyed, a life sentence ended.  While she, the lone survivor, mysteriously yielded unto Grace and was pardoned, recovered, she finally understood, she knew deep inside; everyone did the best they could, even her.

…and within a circle of one; I loved them all forever and ever.