Free Trail of Broken Wings by Sejal Badani

reaches far deeper than her leaving. She has still not said the words, but I know it in my heart. The way I know how she sleeps, how she eats, and most important how she lives. Even though I have no idea where home has been for her, I know she is going. We spent hours huddled in the same bed as girls. Without fail, she would curl her body into mine, whether it was searching for heat or the protection of another body during the night. Angrily I wouldpush her away only to cling to her once sleep overtook me. “You just got here.”
    “There’s no reason for me to stay.” Her words are a whisper, fear fueling their admission. “He doesn’t know I’m in the hospital room. Even if he did, he wouldn’t care.”
    “That’s why?” A scream starts to build in me, but I swallow it. “You’re leaving because of him?”
    “No, I’m leaving because of me.”
    “What about us?” Through the window, I see my next-door neighbor leave the house across the street. Holding on securely to her young daughter’s hand, she looks both ways before crossing our quiet tree-lined street. The houses in this town are large, most built in the last decade. It is a neighborhood of new money inhabited mostly by entrepreneurs who have garnered their wealth via the tech industry. Luxury vehicles sit in the driveways. Hispanic gardeners and housekeepers take their lunch breaks by gathering into a group on the sidewalk or in their trucks to eat tamales. The walls that surround me have become my home, one that I would never have imagined owning, but the indulged child in me would surely have expected. “You never think about that.”
    “You don’t need me,” she says. Her voice is barely a whisper, but her declaration is weighted with heartache. “You’re fine.” She motions around her. “You have everything.”
    “I have a house.” The walls I admired only moments ago suddenly become a barrier between us. “That’s not enough.”
    “It’s so much.”
    It suddenly occurs to me that she is not content with her life. Never would I have argued she was happy. That emotion feels disallowed. With a past molded by infinite sadness, how could she claim happiness as hers? The two sentiments seem impossible to link, and therefore one must take precedence over the other. Yet I believed she had at least reconciled herself with what had happened. That somehow, somewhere she had resigned herself and found purpose.
    “Do you want this?” I ask, gesturing around me.
    “No,” she says. “Not anymore.”
    “When?” Searching, I can’t find a likely time. Never did she talk about the white picket fence or the two point five children. Her dialogue was always of faraway places and people. Which required no more of her than she could give. The stability, the mansion on the hill, that was my pursuit.
    “A long time ago.” Her head drops; she takes a deep breath. In seconds she seems to shake herself out of her reverie. “It can never be for me. I accept that. This is why I have to leave. I don’t belong here. I never did.”
    “We are your family. Who else do you belong with if not us?” Her indifference infuriates me. Regardless of what happened, we belong together. As a family, we have to get through this. She left us behind years ago. Once was enough. “You don’t get to run away again. That’s not fair.”
    “It’s not about me,” she says. We both know she’s lying.
    “Why didn’t you come to my wedding?” The anger I suppressed on that day rears up, surrounding the empty space between us. Like an art piece come to life, I am beyond recognition. “I wanted you there. I deserved that,” I scream. The time for an answer is long past. If she is going to leave again, I need to know the woman she is now. Because never would I have imagined the sister I grew up with would abandon me on the most important day of my life. “Why did you stay away for so long? I needed you.”
    “Because there was nothing I had to give you.” She