I Thought I Had More Time

My sister and I stopped speaking over something that, looking back now, wasn't worth losing a single afternoon over.

Her name was Lauren. She was three years younger than me, and we grew up in Riverside, California. We shared a bedroom until I was fifteen, fought over clothes, covered for each other when we came home late, and knew exactly how to irritate each other in ways nobody else could.

We were close as adults too, although not in the call-each-other-every-day kind of way. Lauren lived in San Diego, and I was still in Riverside with my husband and two kids. We'd talk a couple of times a week, see each other on birthdays and holidays, and occasionally take our mom to lunch together.

Then our mother got sick. Nothing terminal, but she needed surgery and several weeks of help afterward. Lauren and I disagreed about almost everything—where Mom should recover, who would stay with her, whether we should hire someone during the day, and who was doing more.

That last part became the problem.

I felt like everything had fallen on me because I lived closer. Lauren felt like I constantly reminded her of that. One afternoon, standing in our mother's kitchen, we finally exploded.

Lauren accused me of making her feel guilty whenever she couldn't drive up from San Diego. I told her maybe she felt guilty because she should.

I still remember her face when I said it.

She told me, "You always do this. You keep score."

I said, "Somebody has to."

There were more words after that. I honestly don't remember most of them, and that's one of the things that bothers me now. Something important in my life was breaking, and I can't even remember what I was supposedly fighting so hard to prove.

I do remember how it ended. Lauren grabbed her purse and said, "I'm not doing this with you anymore."

I said, "Good."

Then she left.

That was March 2019.

For the next few months, we communicated through our mother like children. I'd say, "Tell Lauren Mom's appointment is Tuesday." Lauren would tell Mom, "Tell your sister I'll take you next Friday."

Our mother hated it. She kept saying, "You're sisters. Enough."

Neither of us listened.

Eventually Mom recovered, so there wasn't even a practical reason for Lauren and me to speak anymore. Birthdays passed. Thanksgiving passed. At Christmas, we were both at our mother's house and barely acknowledged each other. We sat at opposite ends of the table.

I remember Lauren laughing at something my son said and feeling annoyed that she could sit there laughing as if everything were normal.

I think about that now and can't believe how stupid anger can make you. Someone you love is sitting ten feet away, laughing with your child, and somehow you find a reason to resent the sound of it.

The following February, Lauren texted me.

Can we please stop this? I miss my sister.

I read it while standing in line at Target.

I didn't respond.

Not because I didn't miss her. I did. I missed sending her stupid pictures. I missed calling her when Mom was driving me crazy. I missed the way she'd answer the phone with "What do you want?" even though she was usually the one who had called me first.

But I wanted an apology.

More specifically, I wanted her to apologize first.

A few days later, she called. I let it go to voicemail. She left a message saying she was going to be in Riverside the following weekend and asked if I wanted to get coffee. She said we didn't even have to talk about Mom.

I listened to the voicemail twice.

Then I put my phone down and went on with my day.

She called once more that weekend. I didn't answer that one either.

I told myself I needed more time.

The truth is uglier than that.

I wanted her to try harder.

Three weeks later, on a Monday morning, my mother called me at work. Lauren had been in an accident on Interstate 15 coming back from visiting friends near Temecula. Another driver crossed into her lane.

She died before my mother reached the hospital.

She was 36.

There's a strange thing that happens when somebody dies while you're angry with them. Your brain keeps trying to continue an argument that suddenly has nowhere to go.

For weeks, I replayed that day in Mom's kitchen. I rewrote it a hundred different ways. Sometimes I didn't say what I said. Sometimes I followed Lauren outside. Sometimes she came back in and we figured it out.

But mostly, I replayed the phone calls.

Especially the voicemail.

I'd deleted it from my regular messages, but it was still in the deleted folder. I found it the night after her funeral.

Her voice sounded completely ordinary. That was the hardest part. She wasn't crying. There was no dramatic speech. She just sounded like my sister.

"Hey. It's me. I'm going to be up there Saturday. Do you want to get coffee or something? We don't have to talk about all the stupid stuff. I just don't want this anymore. Call me."

There was a short pause before she added, "Love you."

I listened to that message so many times that eventually I knew where she took a breath.

For a long time, I hated myself for not answering. People tried to comfort me. They said I couldn't have known. They said sisters fight. They said Lauren knew I loved her.

All of that was probably true.

None of it changed the fact that she had opened a door and I chose not to walk through it.

My mother died four years later. When we cleaned out her house, I found a box of photographs in the hallway closet. There were hundreds of pictures of Lauren and me—Halloween costumes, school pictures, Christmas mornings, bad haircuts, graduations, my wedding, Lauren holding my daughter the day she was born.

I sat on the floor going through them for almost two hours.

Thirty-six years of being sisters.

And somehow, while Lauren was alive, I'd allowed one ugly year to feel bigger than all of them.

That's the part I have the hardest time forgiving myself for.

It's been more than six years now. I still have Lauren's voicemail. I've changed phones three times and transferred it every time. I don't listen to it much anymore because I don't need to.

I know every word.

All I want to say is that If you're not speaking to someone you love, I'm not going to pretend I know what happened between you. Some relationships need distance. Some people hurt us in ways that shouldn't be excused simply because they're family.

But sometimes it isn't that complicated.

Sometimes it's pride. Sometimes it's an argument neither person can even remember properly anymore. Sometimes two people are sitting on opposite sides of the same silence, each waiting for the other one to cross it first.

If that's where you are, think carefully about what you're protecting.

I thought answering Lauren meant admitting I was wrong.

Now I'd give almost anything to sit across from my sister with two cups of coffee and tell her she was right about everything.

She tried to end our argument.

I thought I had more time to decide whether I was ready.

I didn't.