My Sister's Husband Called Me by Her Name
by Mira Lang
At my sister's memorial, her widower called me by her name — and he wasn't confused. Robin has been dead for eight years.
We buried my sister eight years after she disappeared, in a coffin with nothing in it. Her husband stood at the front of the Legion hall and thanked everyone for coming. Then, in the kitchen, with his hand on my wrist and the coffee urn ticking behind us, he said, "Robin. Don't." Everybody heard it. Everybody decided not to. My mother said he'd had a long day. My brother said I was making a thing out of nothing, and he said it the way you say it to someone you've said it to before. That night Aaron texted me twice. The second one said: You didn't say anything back. Robin used to do that too. I have spent eight years being handled — softly, patiently, by every person who loves me — and it took one word in a church kitchen to make me understand why. They aren't being gentle with me because I lost my sister. They're being gentle with me because of what they think I did to her. And now I've charged my old phone, and the last message Robin ever sent me is not the one I remember.
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