A Girl Forgotten

   1954          

 The greenery of the beryl hills lined with cold streams of beauty was under the feet of a girl forgotten. She was alone in the world and existed to prove everything wrong.

  “You’ll be pretty someday, Essie, I know you will.” Said Sine, the beautiful sister. Saoirse despised  the nickname Essie. Yet, she bared it today. She was standing in front of the mirror, her willowy body hiding under a hated pink bridesmaid dress. This was Sine’s wedding, the day she had dreaded since the age of ten. She would feel so inadequate compared to her sister.  They would all say she was ugly and would never get married and be a rich spinster. She nodded and forced a smile. Her sister looked stunning, as if she was glowing with beauty.. The meadow had grown to be an emerald and the sky was azure. Saoirse almost looked pretty, the pink bridesmaid’s dress taking away from her features. Her blue eyes didn’t look as intense as they usually did. Her sunken cheeks were made less harsh with a large amount of blush, and her straight, up and down figure was masked by the dress she despised. Saoirse was intelligent. She was the scapegoat of the family. Her twenty-three year old brother was away at medical school in Germany, and her twenty year old sister was getting married. Ah yes, Sine, Sine was getting married, Sine didn’t turn down the only marriage proposal that she ever had a hope of getting, Sine was pretty, ah yes, Sine was perfect. All the attention was turned towards Sine. Saoirse got all the blame. Sine spills red paint on mom’s beloved wedding dress, ah, Saoirse three weeks grounding. Saoirse didn’t know why she took the blame, maybe it was because she wasn’t as pretty as Sine, or not as outspoken as Scott.Her father despised her. Her grades were perfect, she was seventeen and set to be valedictorian. Sine cheated on all her tests. She didn’t see the point in it, she would just get married anyways.

  “Smile!” The photographer said. Saoirse’s father flinched.

  “Daddy, it’s 1954, get with the technology.” Sine said, smiling.

  “Sorry love.” Saorise’s father said, happy for a second. Saorise tried to smile for the picture but struggled, thinking that she was the frog among swans, sticking out of a bed of roses like a bloody thorn. Saorise flinched, the white light of the camera blinding her from happiness, binding her forever like this. She remembered Christmas, the day when everything went on pause, and they were merry. A week from now would be Christmas. The very day, the affluence of her situation really was apparent. Her cadaverous body was held closely to the dress now. 

  The pottery wheel was occupied by Saoirse’s sculpture, moving with her hands. She formed a bowl, her fingers shifting with the rhythm of the piano her sister was playing. Her face was covered with clay and her apron was covering a sweater and rolled up jeans. Christmas was here. The magic of lies to the family filled the air. Saoirse got up from the wheel. Saorise was forced yet again into pink and forced her flaxen hair into a taut braid. They won’t win this time, she thought. She put on her olive green riding pants and a grey sweater as well. She let her hair free and walked to just see their faces when Aunt Lillian walked in. She was free from her cage, no longer restricted. But Aunt Lillian wasn’t there. Because Aunt Lillian was hanging from the ceiling. Because Aunt Lillian was dead.

  The long, light coils of Saoirse’s hair fell onto the frigid, sable marble floor.  Saoirse was holding scissors in her thin, pale hands, her eyes red from tears. This is your fault, you could have stopped it. Could have stopped death in its tracks.  Did she ever Your fault, your fault, your fault think about how fragile Aunt Lillian’s emotions had been, ever think about why she only came once a year. No, no of course not, she had been too busy hating her, shedding tears over nothing but side comments Aunt Lillian had made on her body, her face, never her mind, her mind was a machine that never made mistakes, never failed. Her hair was short now, the long coils that were her solitary beauty lay on that marble floor, alone. In the end those coils made it to Aunt Lillian’s grave, sitting over her, watching.  Grief had become a sickness of the mind, occupying her thoughts, but they weren't thoughts anymore, they were regrets.  

 Sine visualised him when with her husband. Her husband was bound to her, like a weight she desperately wanted to relieve. Her husband was older, sixty- four and a half, and she was lonely. He loved the stock market, it had made him his affluence. He envied Sine, though he was a ridiculous man, he knew his white walled home of 9,000 square feet couldn’t contain her spirit, couldn’t contain her. She was his greatest accomplishment, his swansong. She was the famed Sine, of course. The beauty of the Ripley, after all. His rose. Only he didn’t know she had thorns.

   Saoirse’s tears littered the poetry journal, the ink seeping down the immaculate white pages. The echoes of guilt returned to her mind. She hadn’t been taking meals for quite some time now. The white walls of her room had become a prison, a place to hold her guilt, a place to wish she could change. She was going to America tomorrow. When she had booked her ticket on the phone she had stuttered, the words coming out of her mouth a twisted version of her thoughts. She had never been on a plane before, never left Liillas for that matter. The pen she gripped in her hand was dripping ink onto her sable floor, going unnoticed among the black.

  Saoirse boarded the plane, her shoes making no sound as she walked down the aisle, looking for C11.  Saoirse remembered when she had been beautiful, when she was loved by her father. Fatherly love was a love you couldn’t mimic, a love that you would retain for life. Ah, they used to play tennis, run around together. When she was young it didn’t matter who thought she was attractive, who would marry her. Those days of ponytails and baseball gloves were over now, and all that was left of them was a scared little girl trying to freeze time.

  Saoirse was going to America to meet great writers, poets, and mathematicians. She had her high school equivalency test and was now going to college. She also had a talent for chess, but had to neglect the game ever since her brother had left, he was the only one that either understood the game and wanted to play with her.  Saoirse knew Sine loved her very much, but she was too incompetent to understand the game. The pieces were left untouched by her long fingers and abandoned by the family to carry dust. 

  Sine jolted awake. She rolled over and looked. It wasn’t him. It was her husband, his snores echoing down the hallway that followed the pink walled room. Her auburn hair spread out against the white pillow, clashing with the fucisa room. She got up, her nightgown flowing out of the bed. Her husband was a heavy sleeper, he wouldn’t notice. Her feet were cold, possibly recoiling from the marble floor she walked on. She knew that was the real reason.  Her feet had become as cold as her feelings to him, as cold as her feelings to this house. She saw him when she closed her bright eyes. She wasn’t even sure if he was tangible, a fantasy she had created to warm the iceberg of her isolated heart auctioned off to a stranger. Her beauty was kept alive for a man she couldn’t respect, a man who marveled at her every second she did something different than his “plan”. She was no man’s plan.

  The plane landed. Saoirse’s hands were cold. A man said in an American accent sounding strange to her 

 “You must get off the plane now, miss.” The American said. He had his dark hair slicked back, reminding her of her father. Her face was cold for a minute. Speaking was rare in her household. Her mother had been mute. Even after their mother’s decese, only Sine really spoke. But even after so many years of silence, he sounded like her father. Her father had been American, falling so deep in love with her mother he moved to Ireland. The American in his voice stayed even after years in Ireland. Saoirse then smiled, got up, and in doing so, tripped over the man. 

  Edward, or as he had been known by everybody since the age of five, Eddie, met his match in calculus 104. She was a strange girl, with shorter hair than he’d ever seen on a girl. She was about seventeen, only a year his junior. They looked at each other briefly when she walked in, her eyes cold and unfeeling.

                                              1953

 “No.” Saoirse replied to the frog looking man kneeling before her.

 “No?” The frog looking lord scoffed, though it sounded more like a croak to Saoirse. “No.” She repeated, her face solemn.

Sine’s face strongly resembled Lord Frog’s for a second. Saoirse had already turned her back and started walking. She had her scar from that day. The scar on her right eyebrow. From the day her father’s blood boiled over.

  Sine put her hands on the pottery wheel Saoirse had given her. Saoirse adored pottery. Sine’s hands, warm on the frigid metal. She sat down, and inhaled the scent of her cage, the Kelly estate she had admired when she was just a girl. She felt like a little girl still, she was still talked down to, and was instructed to speak when spoken to. She still walked with light footsteps, exploring the estate like a child that had wanted to see the house from the inside.

 Saoirse’s long, slim fingers lingered on her scar for a second. She remembered her father’s eyes, but they weren’t his eyes, they were the eyes of a man with the desire to hurt her, a man that didn’t love her the way her father had, before she had rejected Lord Frog, before her world had ended. Sine had saved her that day, Scott had turned a blind eye, the coward. It was better that Sine had got to her, because he would not have ruined Sine’s beauty. Saoirse stayed alive that day with only a scar on her right eyebrow. 

  Sine received a letter from Saoirse when she arrived in America. Sine delighted in her sister’s writing, her words flowing winsomely together. Sine had received word Saoirse had arrived safely, and was delighted at this news. Sine had always dreamed of America, but she was here, not in America, doing needlepoint instead. 

    Eddie ventured to his apartment, the place where he and the other great minds of the time resided, packed together closely because they were too young to be respected. He noticed his peers were already asleep, and, in an attempt not to disturb their sleep, kept his feet wary of the air mattresses on the brown carpeted floor. The men made no sound, silently coexisted with each other, not talking, occasionally remarking on the weather or the time of day. 

    Saoirse bit her lip as she traced her eyebrow scar with her finger. Her last name was revolting, and her middle name was winsome. Her mother had chosen her to have her name. Roisin. Her mother had appeared perfect to her.   Excerpt from the diary entry of Miss Ripley concerned in the Ripley case:

   I feel blank. Like my life has just ended. I’m going for a drive, I don’t know if I’ll come back for awhile, don’t know if I’ll come back ever. I trusted…., no matter now. 

                                                 1956

 Saoirse beamed, she was truly beautiful to herself now. Her eyes were no longer wanting now, her waiting was over. Her feet were finally planted on the Earth. The words in the article about her were true, she was smart. She had graduated now, her mind that had raced for so many years in that place, that place where her mother’s spirit wandered hopelessly.

                                             1946 

 Sine’s tears littered the floor where her mother lay. The man standing above was her father. He was twitching. He was so repulsive in the moment, the love for him had left her heart at that young age. 

  “Sine, she asked for it.” The shell of her father assured her.

1956

Saoirse glided around the Kelly estate, free as a bird, didn’t eat on the flight. Eddie’s eyes lingered on Sine for a moment, and their eyes met. Saoirse didn’t notice, and walked on, as if nothing had happened. This continued at dinner, and through the night Sine realized Eddie was him. Saoirse noticed at dinner, and ate nothing.

  1955

“Will you marry me?” Eddie inquired

“Yes, yes.” Saoirse replied happily, her thin face contorting into a smile.

1956

It had been a long vacation, the longing and the looks longer. Eddie burned inside, every time Saoirse looked at him he felt guilty for not loving her anymore. All he thought about was Sine, her flaming auburn hair and her old husband sleeping more than living. He pined away, burning inside. One day it just became too much.

Sine’s happy voice cut through the dark estate. She turned, and they kissed in that corridor. Saoirse moved through and bared witness to, her betrayal, her happiness dead, and got in that yellow fateful car, to drive by the sea

It was then Saoirse realized how hungry she was, that exact time, in that yellow car. Her consciousness was lost, and her life taken.

Sine’s heart had been cut into, her sister’s neck had snapped, tree crashed into, life ended. So I documented it all, and two people I loved died that day.