A Dark Story, A Darker Memory

I find myself haunted by the ghost my sister could’ve been. I daymare of a crying baby, soaking wet. She follows me, begging me to remember her.

Since I was a young girl, I was responsible for myself and two kids; my brother and my sister, 2 and 8 years my juniors, respectively. When parental supervision was not available, it was I who was supposed to make sure they ate, did their homework, didn’t sit too close to the tv, didn’t run into the street, etc. For the most part, I think I did my best with what I had to give — limited knowledge of child-rearing and a motherliness that lacked some affection. What I lacked in kindness, I made up for in tyranny. I ran a tight ship. That was the only way I knew how to take care of children, through commands and a tight grip around their wrists as we walked the streets together. My job was to keep them safe, alive, and in reach; but because of one instance, a part of me feels like I failed.

I must have been 9 or 10 years old. I’m not sure. I had a sleepover/pool party with a friend in my new-ish home. We played inside the house and outside in the backyard, screaming and having a good time. I cannot actually recall the sequence of events that led to my baby sister falling into the pool that day, with me nowhere in sight. She may have followed us outside and I didn’t notice, leaving her in the backyard alone. Then again, she may have been with us all along and I had forgotten her. I also cannot seem to recall how, or if, I realized she was missing. I don't know if I looked around for her and decided to check the backyard or if I happened to go back outside to play. Either way, the next thing I remember is walking towards her and she is soaking wet, crying. Crying because she was scared and damp, and, until that point, completely alone — I think. I must infer as to her state of mind because she couldn’t speak much, she was only 2 years old.

When my parents decided to buy a house with a pool, we thought it wise to teach my sister that if she ever fell in, she should put her head down and kick until she felt the wall. That is the reason my sister survived that day. That is what she did. She was alone and drowning in a nine-foot-deep pool, without any trace of the person whose duty it was to make sure she was safe, and she put her head down and kicked until she reached the edge. She saved herself.

I’m in my mid-twenties now and I think about that ghost baby often. It’s such a disconcerting memory that I have never even dared to ask my sister if she remembers what happened that day. To be honest, I hope she doesn’t recall that feeling of aloneness and nearing death — however that feeling manifests itself in a toddler.

I pride myself on taking care of my siblings. I have always regarded them as my own, which is in some way validated by the fact that strangers have mistaken them for my children in public. However, the truth is, the one time my sister needed me, I wasn’t there. I was somewhere playing while my child was drowning, alone. I can’t find relief from that thought, let alone forgiveness in myself. She's 16 now and still, I spend my life trying to save her — from harm, from boys, from school. But, no matter what, I can't save the baby. In my mind, I see her soaking wet, crying. I think of what would have happened had she not remembered to put her head down and kick her feet and, instead of me discovering a crying baby, discovering a baby who would cry no more.