photo story one

This must have been around Christmas, the only time we saw crazy aunt Doris.

Her presence anywhere was misery for all. She must have been the locus of one of the family's unmapped wells of guilt, I can't think why else they tolerated her.

I remember one holiday dinner.
It was a very long time ago at my great grandparent's house, when I still sang along with cousin Donna's accordion recitals at the head of the table. Aunt Doris started an argument before hanging up her coat, puncturing the holiday euphoria like a hatpin.

When she tried to kiss me I snarled "You ruin everything, just go away!", creating one of those moments of crystal silence too perfect to endure.

I bolted for the guest room before it crashed apart, sliding underneath the bed on the polished hardwood floor and clinging to the slats like a koala when they tried to pry me out.

After much tumult I was frog-marched back to the living room, ordered to apologize and placed in front of my great grandpa's Good Chair, where a theatrically distraught Aunt Doris was holding court.

"Everybody hates you!" I yelled in her face.

Chaos.

I never did apologize.
The mythology of my youth credited this minotaur to immobile stubbornness, oblivious to the unknowable dynamics of adult relationships and how blood ties multiply their complexity beyond seeing.

Nobody honestly wanted me to apologize because everything I'd said was true.
I was the only one able to speak it, the only one outside the black gravity of her shared shrouded past.

My Grandfather's funeral was her last invitation to a family gathering and again she was yelled at

Before the service she charged our pew and grabbed both my arms, feverishly demanding I not cry, as vast Heavenly rewards were being heaped upon the dead man even as we poor sinners slogged forward through the trench of sorrow in our prisons of mud.

Mom chased her off loudly, uncharacteristically protective.

That was the last I saw of Aunt Doris for 30 some years, until we didn't speak at my cousin's wedding.
She looked exactly the same but only came up to my chest, a human Bonsai.