Kelly’s Shadow

My mother loved my sister-in-law more than me.  More than she loved my brother, I think.

My brother met Kelly in high school; the first day of high school, outside the library when they bumped into each other.  It could have been a scene from a TV show.  Kelly could have starred in a TV show; she was beautiful, funny, and kind.

Everyone was heartbroken when she broke up with my brother at the end of high school.  They went to different colleges and Kelly didn’t want to do long distance, she said it was better to break it off right away than let it end messily over email.  They could still be friends.

I say everyone was heartbroken but that’s not the truth.  My brother and my parents were heartbroken, but I wasn’t.  I pretended to be, as I’d always pretended to like Kelly, but I didn’t really like Kelly so I wasn’t really heartbroken.  I was glad to see her go.  Now I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking I was jealous of Kelly, but that’s not true.  I knew my mother loved her more, but I didn’t really mind, my mother and I always got along and just because she loved Kelly more didn’t mean she didn’t love me at all.

I couldn’t like Kelly, because of her shadow.  She didn’t have a shadow like other people, her shadow was a stumped, crooked thing, that hopped and limped behind her when she walked.  I’d stare at it and wonder what kind of thing would cast a shadow like that.  Sometimes, when Kelly laughed, I caught the shadow opening its mouth to bare rows of sharp, snaggled teeth.

The only time I didn’t see the shadow was when Kelly ran.  She was a track star in high school, and when she ran she had no shadow.  I didn’t like it when Kelly ran because I didn’t know where her shadow had gone.  Maybe the shadow didn’t like it either, because Kelly didn’t make the track team in college and I never saw her run again.

No one else saw the shadow for what it was.  At least, not that I know of.  I never told anyone, or asked them if they noticed anything strange about Kelly.  My brother would probably punch me and my father would say I read too many trashy books with monsters in them.  My mother might think I was jealous.

If I told anyone else it would surely get back to them.  Or Kelly.

My brother and Kelly got back together after college.  (My brother’s name was Jack, by the way.)  They had both dated other people, but none of the others stuck, and when they came back home they bumped into each other.  Fate, or Kelly’s shadow, didn’t want them to be apart.  They got married a year later.  I was Kelly’s maid of honor.  The wedding was outside, and I had to stand in her shadow.

Sometimes I’d think that I was imagining the shadow.  That maybe I did read too many horror novels, that maybe I was just a tiny bit jealous.  Once, when Kelly stood with her back to me, it turned to look at me and flicked a long, snaky tail at me.

Jack and Kelly didn’t have any children, because Jack died on their honeymoon.  They went to Japan and he ate bad sushi and died in extreme pain.  Kelly came home sobbing; a complete wreck, a bride and a widow at the same time.  My mother and father asked her to move in with us, and she did.

I was halfway through high school at this time, and whenever a boy asked me out on a date, I looked at his shadow.  I looked at everyone’s shadows.  They were all normal.  But still, I didn’t like to go out on dates, because it was usually nighttime.  I didn’t like to be out with people at night.  You couldn’t see anyone’s shadows.  You had no idea what they were or what they were doing.

I was supposed to go off to college this year, to the same college my brother and mother and father all went to.  Both of my parents have died this year, though, and I don’t think I’ll be going.  My mother died of a sudden stroke and my father crashed his car into a tree.  We went to my mother’s funeral in February and my father’s was just today.

I’m sitting at home now with Kelly; she has been doing nothing for the past hour but stare at her hands in her lap, and now she looks up at me.  “What are you doing, Anna?” she asks.

“I’m writing a story,” I reply, blocking the computer screen from her view.

“Can I read it?”

“Maybe when it’s finished.”

She nods.  She looks sad.  “It’s just us now,” she says, thoughtfully.  “Just us three.”

I glance at her.  “I suppose so.”

“Are you going to leave?”

I shake my head.  “I don’t think so.”

“That’s good.  You’re not going to leave?”

“No.”

“If you left, I would be alone with it.  You’re not going to leave me alone with it?  I can’t be alone with it.”

I look at her for a very long moment and she looks at me.  It’s just us, now.  Just us three.

“I’m not going to leave you alone with it, Kelly.  You’re my sister.”

She smiles at me.  She has a beautiful smile.  I don’t know what her shadow is doing.  I suspect that it is snarling at me, I know it doesn’t like me.  But I can see it, and it can’t hurt me.