A sigh in the wind.

Once, when she was seven, she would run in the summer sun, hair whipping in the wind. Olivia would run after butterflies and blow on dandelions. Sometimes, she would walk around the block, looking at windows to see what other people were doing. Other times, she would watch the boy next door. She would watch the windows of his house to see if she could get a glimpse of him. She would play with her sister, Rosaline, until their mom called them in for dinner. Later, she would miss these days, but not then. Then she was happy, content just to be.

Later, when she was 9, she would find herself watching the boy next door more and more often. He was a year older than her, so they didn’t see much of each other even though they went to the same school. She thought he was cute. He was brown-skinned with freckles speckled across his nose, and she liked his curly hair. Once, when she was walking home, she tripped and fell. The boy--his name was Lucas--had been walking just in front of her. He turned around and helped her up, had asked her if she was okay. She told him that she was and continued walking. But the brown-skinned boy walked with her now, all the way back to her home. When she asked him why, he said he was just doing his duty. Lucas was her first crush.

When she turned 10, her father told her she could no longer be weak. She had to be strong. That’s when she started wrestling. She got thrown and smashed, and wrecked. The feeling of her body being squished onto the wrestling mat became her daily ritual. She hated it, but her father was firm. This, she had to do. He would not have a weak girl. She would go home crying. She was too weak to beat the other girls. And she often had to go against boys who just threw her around like a doll. At night, she could hear her parents fighting about grown-up things. She didn’t understand it. There was just a lot of yelling. But if she covered her ears, it would go away. She could disappear into herself.

When she turned 11 and began to think herself too old for childish games, her mother taught her to dance in the rain.

“This is what dancing is like,” her mother had said. She smiled as the rain poured down on her, clothes already fully soaked. “I taught your father how to dance a long time ago. He used to dance with me. Inside, outside, in the snow, in the rain–everywhere.” The girl didn’t know what her mother was remembering, but it certainly wasn’t her father. Because when her mother spoke of him, she spoke of love. Of something different than what the girl had always known between them. Her mother would run in the pouring rain, arms outstretched as if to catch the drops falling down. And Olivia would run after her. They would laugh and smile. She didn’t know it at the time, but the brown-skinned boy was watching her out his window. Later, she would miss these moments.

At 13, her father left for good. And she would wonder if everything had been a joke. The wrestling, the ice cream trips, her birthdays, when he would pick her up high in the air and tell her she would always be his girl. She never knew why he left. One day, he just went packing. She never saw him again. It hurt her mother the most. Even though they had been fighting for as long as she could remember, it was clear that she still loved him. When he lef,t a part of her went with him. For a while, her mother was very sad. Too sad to get out of bed. When it rained, it would be worse. She had a picture of him and her together--a close-up of their faces, in front of a rocky stream. They looked so beautiful together in that picture. For hours, her mother would look at it, stroking the frame. Caressing it as if she could go back to that moment, feel the happiness she had once felt. It was at this age that Olivia began to pray every night. She wasn’t religious. She didn’t pray to anyone or a god. She would sit outside on the front steps of the porch, praying to no one. Praying to the moon. For years, she would do this every night. And every night she would ask for the same thing. Her dad. She knew other girls. Other girls wished for presents or a brand new phone. She wished for those things once, too. She didn’t wish for those things anymore.

When the girl turned 15, she began dating Lucas. They would go to the mall together. They didn’t have any money to buy anything. She was happy just to look at things with him. But Lucas wasn’t. He wanted to buy her things. That summer, he got a job and began to work a lot. She knew he wanted to make her happy. She just wished he would be around more instead of working. He didn't understand that that was the greatest gift he could give her.

At 18, they ran out of money. Her father’s money was no longer enough to support them, and her mother’s work was a small income. She had no money to pay for college. She began working at the local ice cream parlor in order to make ends meet. One day that winter, when she came home, she found her mother sobbing, shrieking. Her mother had never recovered from her father's leaving. Olivia had never given up praying for her father to come back. But it was at that moment that she knew she would never pray again. Here she was, her mother shrieking and sobbing uncontrollably, and her father nowhere in sight. Olivia tried to comfort her mother. She rubbed her mother's back. Told her everything would be okay. But she knew that nothing would ever be the same. Her mother would never be that woman. That woman who had once danced in the rain. That woman left with her father. After a few days, her mother stopped sobbing. She would just stare blankly out the windows, out at the garden, which had become gnarly and overgrown without her mother’s care.

Soon, her mother grew ill. And when Olivia took her to the doctor, they did an MRI scan and she tested positive for cancer. Cardiac sarcoma, the doctor said. A cancer of the heart. It had been growing for years. Slowly. Festering as she ached and grieved for the man who was the love of her life. She was a strong woman. It had taken 5 years for it to develop. But she was very sick and died a week later.

At least the girl still had Lucas. Lucas, who had known her since she was five. Who would never leave her, who would always be there to guide her through life. They’d been together for 3 years now. Known each other for 1 year. She loved him. But he had gone off to college. It wasn’t too far away, and he came to visit her often, unexpectedly showing up at her door late at night, a bouquet of flowers in his hands. On these occasions, they would embrace each other, and she would smile. This was enough for her.

-----4 years later: Present Day-----

Olivia

My Lucas is dead. The heart attack happened on the day of our wedding last month. The priest had asked him if he took me as his wife. Lucas had looked me in the eyes. Touched his hand to my cheek for a moment. And kissed me, lips on lips, for a long moment. When he pulled away from me, his eyes were bright.

Then he said, “I do.” And crumpled to the floor. He died right in front of me. I held his face in my arms as he took his last breath. And that was the end of us. Finished at the starting line. I have nothing left now. I am a curse. It seems that everyone around me gets their hearts broken--both emotionally and physically. My father is gone. My mother is dead. The love of my life is dead. Every day this month, I’ve called Lucas. And every time, I hope that maybe it’s all a bad dream. That he will pick up, and everything will be okay. Every time I call, I hear his voice. Hey, sorry I missed your call, just leave a message after the beep. And every time I leave a message. And in those moments, I can pretend that everything is fine. That in a few hours, he will call me and everything will be as it was before. Before I lost my everything.

I spend my days now lying in bed. Waiting for nothing. Letting time pass me by. I own Luacas’ money and all his possessions now. After all, I was his wife. For 5 seconds, I was married, only to be widowed. Rosaline lives with me and provides for me. She makes me breakfast in the morning and dinner when she gets home from work. I am like a small child now, who needs to be cared for and nurtured. I don’t eat much, and I look like a stick. I take out my phone and begin to call Lucas’s number when my sister walks in.

My sister looks at me sadly as I am sent to voicemail for the thousandth time. “Olivia.” She sighs. Her eyes are sunken in, and she looks tired. Caring for me has taken a toll on her. “How many times are you going to call him? He’s gone. Calling him will never change that.”

I began to cry like a small child. “ I--I just wanted to hear his voicemail. To hear his voice, tell me to leave a message.”

My sister sighs again. “Two months. It’s been two months, Olivia. I can’t do this forever.”

I sobbed louder. “Then go,” I say, “if you don’t want me, just go. I’m cursed anyway. Everyone I love is gone.”

“I’m still here,” she says quietly. She strokes my hair comfortingly.

“I’m grateful for that, Rosaline…” Another sob escapes my mouth. “I’m--I’m just broken. And-and I don’t know how to fix myself.”

There are tears in my sister’s eyes now. “What happened to the girl who used to dance in the rain. Who used to run in the summer sun? What happened to the girl who would sit on the porch every night through rain and snow, and storm just to pray to the moon every night? Huh? What happened to that girl?” A tear falls from her face as she says this, and I realize how much she has missed me.

“That girl--” My voice cracks. “That girl is gone.”

My sister looks away then. “Come outside to the garden with me.” She walks out of the room, and I surprise myself when I follow her. As we move towards the back of the house, towards the backyard, I see it. My mother. She stands there in the yard, tending to her garden. I open the sliding door to the backyard and run towards my mother, and I hear my sister let out a laugh of glee at my sudden energy. “Don’t you see?” I half sob to her, “She’s here. She’s really here.”

Rosaline gives me a confused look. “Who’s here?”

I frown. “You can’t see her? Our mother--she’s here in the garden.” I step towards my mother and lay my hand on her arm. She continues to tend to her garden, and I realize she cannot see me or feel my touch. But I can feel her; she is as real as my sister staring at me in disbelief. My mother looks young and happy. She looks my way and smiles at someone I cannot see. She moves towards them, walking in my direction, and embraces them, arms hugging the back of their neck. But here I am standing in their place, and I’m almost sure she doesn’t know it, but she’s embracing them and me at the same time. For a moment, I just stand there in shock, my arms at my sides. And then I hug her body to mine, and I know this will be the last time I hug my mother. I smile to myself. I can smell her hair, the scent of her flowery shampoo. I see her smile contentedly as I press my head onto her chest. Then she lets go of me, steps back, and looks me over. She waves to me--goodbye, the sun shining in her hair as if she were an angel. A sense of peace and calm washes over me as she turns away from me, walks to the end of the garden, and fades away. I splay my arms out wide and throw my head back, feeling the sun on my face and letting out a laugh of joy. I feel free. My sister comes up from behind me, wrapping her arms around my body. I feel her rest her head on my right shoulder and smile at me. I am so grateful for this moment. For my sister. For everything I still have, and I realize I have so, so much. At this moment, I know that the world is full of flowers and all I’ve to do is stop and smell the roses.