Talking Winds

Baby Sister

What Micah remembered most about his little sister was that she loved the water. It didn't matter if it was the ocean or a bathtub, Lilac was at home in the water. One of his earliest memories was of him not knowing what to do as his then two year old sister wailed terribly while their mother and the man she claimed was their father argued just as terribly in the background.

He had only been five, so of course he had no idea what to do with his wailing sister. But he just knew somehow that her crying was making the arguing going on out on the front porch much worse, he just knew. But he was pretty sure she was crying because they were arguing as well, and on top of that she was hungry, both of them were hungry. Momma hadn't cooked breakfast that morning or anything for lunch and dinner the day before, too caught up in worrying about where her boyfriend was to worry about feeding them.

He had tried to find her something to eat at first, searching through the fridge and even getting a chair to search through the cabinets even though Ray hated when they were in the kitchen, he thought it would be okay with both adults as distracted as they were. But the fridge was only home to Ray's favorite drink, a drink they were diffidently not allowed to touch. The cabinets only had one thing and that thing was mustard. He hated mustard.

So there had been nothing to eat. So he tried to play with her to make her stop, but she wouldn't even crack a smile at any of his usual funny faces and didn't even stop crying for a second when he pretended to smack himself like she usually went wild with giggles over.

Nothing worked, but then he realized she was smelly. He had no idea how to change a diaper, but he knew if you were stinky you were suppose to take a bath. It had been a long time since momma had given him a bath and he thought it had been just as long for Lilac.

So that was how the idea came to him. Maybe being clean would make Lilac stop crying. So he picked her up off the soiled mattress she sat on, his baby sister hardly weighed a thing, so it was no big deal for a big boy like him.

He took her to the bathroom and awkwardly placed her into the round white tub without hurting her or himself. She had sniffled then, stopping her wailing for a few seconds to look up at him with big, wet, brown eyes before starting up again.

Micah had taken a step back and hoped from one foot to another as he tried to remember how to work the water. He remembered the one with the yellow sponge thing hanging from it made the water hot hot and the other one made him so cold his teeth clinked together.

Momma always made it too hot and didn't care if he cried, but he wouldn't do that to Lili but he didn't want to make her cold either even though the house was so hot his power ranger pajamas were drenched with his sweat. So he thought maybe he could make it middle, not hot or cold.

So he started with the hot water first, knowing it took a long time for it to actually warm up and then added the cold. Lili had almost instantly stopped crying when she saw the water begin to rush from the long neck. The giggles that followed were music to his ears.

It was that day Micah discovered his sister loved water.

As they got older it became more clear from their trips to the community pool where she learned to swim so quickly he nicknamed her duck, to that one time Julio somehow stole fifteen water guns and four packs of water balloons from Toys r us and they had a huge water wars battle that went on for hours. His sister never smiled the way she did when she was around water and he loved to see it.

They lived in a city, so his sister had dreamed of bigger bodies of water, a lake or pond, but she really wanted to see the ocean and he promised her they would. He promised he would buy her an island when they got big and got away from momma and Ray, and then she could be surrounded by water.

Micah was serious about his promises, especially ones made too his favorite person in the whole world.

But when Micah was eleven things changed. CPS started coming around more and his teachers started asking him about his 'marks' and bruises. They asked Lilac too and he knew because she told him, she told him everything. But she always had less marks then him, he made sure of that.

Then one day a woman came with two police officers and took them away and at first they were able to stay with one another.

But then Micah met his father, his real father. His father was like no man he had ever seen before, tall and dressed in a dark suit with shiny shoes and a golden wristwatch. No baggy pants, no wife beaters, and red hair like him, cut neat and trim. His father told him with genuine tears in his eyes that he had been looking for him for a long time.

His father wanted to take him home and Micah had always wanted a father and had no problem with it, but he wasn't going anywhere without his little sister.

His father had let out a loud breath and nodded, but Micah knew he would hate the next words the man who looked exactly like him would say. And he did. His father said he had no rights over Lilac because she wasn't his daughter and that even though they were taken from their mother she still had rights to them, but mostly Lilac. He was told that it was up to his mother if Lilac could be placed in the custody of her ex husband like her son or be placed in foster care until she was deemed fit.

His selfish drug addicted mother chose foster care and to split them up. His mother was the first person Micah had ever hated.

They were split up, Micah going to live with his dad, Lilac placed with one foster family here and another there. His dad made sure they got to see each other as much as possible though, and there was even a rare occasions of her spending the night with them. Those times were like double edged swords, on one had he got to spend time with his sister on the other he could see the hurt in her eyes when she saw the life he was living, one filled with his own bedroom, video games, a big house, a dog, a kind stepmom, and private schools verses her life as a foster child. It was hell for a boy he prided himself on being his baby sister's protector.

He hated to watch his sister leave and see the tears in her eyes she wouldn't allow to fall no matter how much he told her it was alright. He acted like a terror the weeks after each one of those visits, just wanting someone to help his sister. His dad was trying though, he worked with the foster care system because no matter what, their mom wasn't going to Lilac to live with them, until one day he told Micah he had found a perfect couple that would be long term for Lilac.

And like Micah, Steven Donnell word and promises were to be kept and upheld. The Hope family did take Lilac in and she remained their from the age eleven on until it happened.

Micah was in college, studying to take of his father's construction and Fishing company companies, when he got the news.

He hadn't been too worried about his sister, the Hopes were good people and she was happy with them and they loved her dearly. He had honestly been a little too busy for his sister, with his classes, sports, and the many women he liked to... befriend. He was ashamed to say after the fact that he did ignore some of her calls and rushed through the calls he did answer. He bailed on Thanksgiving which was when the two families normally came together for a big holiday celebration, thinking he would just make it up to her next time. He had no idea.

He knew his sister was getting bullied, he just didn't know it was so bad. After all he had experienced a little bullying himself when he was in highschool, although it had been him who was the bully in a sense. He had outgrown it (his dad put the fear of God into him) by junior year though, and was actually pretty good friends with the guys he gave a hard time by senior year and still was in contact in college. He never thought that maybe girls did it a little differently. He never thought that maybe girls didn't outgrow it and end up putting all of their differences behind them after a little adult interference.

He never in a million years thought his baby sister would kill herself over some s**t given to her because of some high school bullies.

He was destroyed. He actually did wreck his car trying to get back, because maybe...just maybe if he got there quick enough it wouldn't make it true. He was fine physically, not a scratch on him. How could that be true when...when his little water loving sister was...

He's not sure when his soul crushing grief turned into anger, maybe it was between the time he was starving himself and when he couldn't even get a wink of sleep because of guilt.

He needed to know what happened and why.

It was a story as old as time, a story of teenaged girls, social media, and a boy. Key details were a little skewed considering after the fact when his baby sister was dead, none of those rotten kids wanted to claim what they had done or take ownership. Everyone was to blame but then again no one was...according to them, but there was one name that kept popping up in every single rotten thing that happened to his sister and that name was Jasmine Hopkins.

Jasmine Hopkins a high school 'it' girl, pretty, popular and apparently a twin. That's how her social media bio described her anyway. He couldn't find one picture of Jasmine by herself, every picture was with her twin, so much so that he honestly he had trouble figuring out which was was exactly Jasmine even though they looked nothing a like. They were like night and day, one fair with wavy, black hair and the other dark like rich dark chocolate and a more curly patterned hair. The twin's name was Addison Hopkins, but he didn't care about her.

But if he followed the tags correctly he was able to deem which was which.