I found her again in the bathroom, lying down ever so still. Her light brown hair clumped up all together at the head of the smooth white marble tub.
Our apartment was about three miles from LA and her university. I always drove her since she was so afraid of the idea of, in her words, “the steel box coffin that moved”. I worried for her like any older sister would. There was always that feeling of foreboding that something would go wrong. She often said so herself, “there’s something wrong with me.” Obviously our mother didn’t believe her, why would she believe her when it would consequently mean that the attention wouldn’t be on her. I think there was something wrong with our mother really.
Undoubtedly my sister was just as destructive as my mother, both to the people around her and herself. I wouldn’t want to bore you with the details of my sad sad pathetic life but my dad left when my sister June was born. Like any other sad sad pathetic tale my mother blamed us for coming in between their relationship, great parental figure right? I left the amazingly fulfilling trailer parks of Macon, Georgia at eighteen with June, sixteen. She always dreamt of becoming a hotshot actress and I always wanted to work in California so that was where we decided to go. There was no money to be had so we had to drift our way there, Georgia to Iowa, Iowa to Colorado, Colorado to Nevada and Nevada to California. We worked whatever job we could scramble to get and try to keep our dignities. I must’ve waited thousands of tables and her clean the floors of several greasy diners. There were times I just wanted to give up and go back but seeing June so happy for the first time just gave me enough strength. Bending over filthy toilets scrubbing the yellowed bowls with shit filled toilet brush does that kind of damage. Countless nights spent shooing away perverts and voyeurs from our motel door or window. I thought it was worth it at the end when we arrived at the pearly gates of San Francisco.
There was however one night that I try to not forget.
They needed me to work the night shift at the diner in Iowa and we were in a pretty shady town so I told June to not bother working there and to stay in our motel room. When I arrived home at five in the morning I found the door