My grandparents left when I was 14. They didn’t die, they didn’t migrate to Florida with their fellow whiteheads. My grandfather molested my sister. His own flesh and blood forced upon his own flesh and blood. I don’t know exactly how it happened but I almost wish I did so the image of it I replay in my brain would stop. The ghost arms of the ones that had hugged me so many times before then trapped my sister. She had to lock herself in a bathroom. What was he doing after she ran from him. Did he cry? Did he realize what he did? I never saw them again. They followed my aunt and her newly adopted girls to New Mexico. They left us. They left me. And f*** if I don’t hate myself everyday for thinking of them. They left me. They left me and I loved them. I hate myself because I know that I still do. I love the memories of tea parties in their itchy lawn, making terrible easter eggs at their table, my grandmother always cackling at my jackolantern smile without teeth. I miss them. I hate that I miss them. He molested my sister. And I love him.

My older sister saw my grandmother in the store one day, she got to see them one last time. But she was angry, her little sister's cries in her head and bitterness on her tongue as she went up to the now foreign woman standing in the aisle. She was probably buying the favorite food of her husband who molested her grandchild. My sister told her hello. Hello. That’s all. In every scenario where I would see her, I could never bring myself to say that word. I had so many questions and accusations there would be no time for greetings. There shouldn't be a need for greetings, she should've never left. But as my sister stood there in the small store saying hello to her grandmother, something snapped. The withering woman’s last tether to us pulled at her. What did it say? Did it tell her to stay? Did it tell her to pull her grandchild into an embrace there under the luminescents? Something snapped and she started crying. I’d never seen her cry and now I think I’d like to. I’d like to see the tears follow the weathering of her skin down until they dripped from her cheek. I’d want to watch as her tears fell to the floor, I hope she cried, I’d like to know if she is still crying now.

When I see her she’s laughing with white dandelion tufts floating all around her. Her voice hums through the warm air below a blue sky. She would wrap her arms tight around me pressing me into her bosom, telling me she loved me, that she loved me so much. I was a stupid little girl, taking in the fact that a grandmother loved her grandchild as simply as the clean air around me. I believed her. Why did I believe her?  Now I believe that a grandfather can molest his grandchild. Now that sky has turned to a twilight. I cannot see her anymore, she’s hiding there in the dark. And there I am. They left me. And I care. I care that the man who touched my sister isn’t here anymore. Through everything when I turn naively over my shoulder I’m reminded of that looming twilight. I hate that sky. But the realness of the dark hues is solid. My grandparents left me. I love them. They don’t love me. They left me.