I Love You

My mom used to be a huge prankster, with emphasis on the used-to-be. She’s slowed down since turning fifty. Not that she’s a boring mother now, far from it, but she’s less dedicated to pranking me or anyone else as she was years ago.

One day, when I was fifteen, I came home from school and looked at the mailbox. Inside was an envelope. A blank one. It wasn’t signed, there was no stamp, nothing. Simply a pure white envelope.

I opened the envelope and read the letter inside;

"Hey, little brother!

"It’s been a while. In fact, the last time I’ve seen you – you were just two years old.

"By the way, it’s your older sister! Shocking, right? I hope mom told you about me."

This introduction weirded me out, but looking at the child-like handwriting of the letter, I assumed it was my mom trying to pull a fast one, so I kept on reading. I was honestly hoping for some funny twist at the end of the letter or something.

“Hey, I’m sure you’ve grown a lot and changed. I just hope you still remember me and all our moments together from your childhood. We had done so many things together before I left you and our parents.”

At this point it started feeling weird, mom and dad divorced when I was three or four. She never spoke about dad. She wasn’t happy whenever someone mentioned him around her. He paid child support, and mom always worked her ass off so I never had anything missing in my life. I thought mom was pulling one of those darker pranks she’d do every once in a while, like pretending she broke both of her legs one time before springing up into a dance just before I lost my shit.

I kept on reading, "If you don’t remember, allow me to remind you. I was there when you walked for the first time, I was there when you said 'Mama' for the first time. All these big moments, I was there. I also tried forcing you to play with my dolls, but you were having none of it! It was such a mess! I’m sorry about that, and I hope you’re not mad.

"Anyway, little bro, I’m glad to say that I finally know when you’re living. The new house looks gorgeous! Believe me, I’m dying to see you all again!

"See you soon,

"I love you. Eva."

There wasn’t even a joke at the end of it, just a weird old letter about some crap that made no sense. I felt disappointed in my mother’s comical abilities for the first and only time at that moment.

Walking inside, I heard mom in our kitchen; she was talking on the phone. She smiled and waved at me once she saw me come in. I waited for her to finish the call. Once she did, I dropped the letter onto the table and said, "ha ha, very funny mom! Had me dying over that thing…"

"Huh? What’s that?" she asked, seemingly genuinely unaware of the letter’s existence.

"You wrote this letter, didn’t you? What was it about my sister? Eva? You’re creative mom, that’s for sure." I said walking out of the kitchen.

"What?" she questioned, genuine surprise in her tone.

"Come on, mom cut the act… You wrote this thing, didn’t you?" I said, turning to face her once more.

"No, I didn’t." she picked up the letter and started reading it. Her eyes widened with genuine fear, and she started mumbling to herself.

"Mom?" I said. She just stood there, clutching at that piece of paper, mumbling to herself. Her eyes were wandering wildly across the text.

"Mom?" I called again. She was in a trance of sorts, completely fixated on that letter.

"Mom? Are you alright?”

She mumbled something, slowly shifting her eyes to look at me.

"Huh, I can’t understand what you’re s…"

"Eva… my little girl… my poor little girl… the fire…"

"What the hell, mom?"

"My girl, she died when you were 3, she died in a fire…"

It hit me, a whole whirlwind of emotions that I couldn’t even fully comprehend. My mom grabbed her phone once again and started dialing something. I just stood there, trying to digest what I had just learned. It was so, so strange. There was a moment of doubt, I thought once again my mom was just playing a trick on me. A prank and then she said it, “Go get your stuff, we’re going to grandma’s.”

It finally sank in. I tried asking, but mom had no clue what this whole situation about. She didn’t know where the letter came from. She kept saying she felt like we just had to get out. A feeling she described as having a cold hand clutch at her heart and press on it again and again. We moved to my grandmother’s. On the way there, I learned that I had a sister ten years older than me. My sister, Eva, died falling into a pyre during a local festival. The death of Eva caused a local uproar, and it was all over the local media. It also tore my family apart – the death of my sister led to the divorce of my parents. No wonder mom never spoke about it.

Our house caught on fire the next morning. No one knows what happened. I do remember hearing one of the neighbors talking to my mom about it at some point; he swore he saw a silhouette girl running around the house, moving about in a fit of pure rage the night we left.