The Meadow Annual Literary Arts Journal 2022

64 The Meadow Prayers I Said Melanie Unruh It’s one of those rare cloudy days when only the dark, hulking base of the Sandias is visible, the mountaintops ringed in white haze. The whole desert shivers blue, reverting back to the seascape it once was. I gaze out the tiny square of my kitchen window, taking in the bruised cityscape. My body hums with an inexplicable urge to go dig in the clay-like dirt and unearth the bones of ancient sea monsters. Instead, I listen to the voicemail again. “Michaela, it’s Mom. It’s 7:55 on Friday morning. There’s a bit of a situation with your sister. Apparently she was trying to shoplift at the grocery store last night. They found her with these steaks—Oh, God, does it really matter? Anyway, your father and I are working out the bail situation. Please call me.” I’ve given up on explaining to my mother that cell phones provide dates and times for messages. Even in a crisis, she has to share this useless information. I try not to think about my sister. Those times when I do, she feels like some kind of childhood artifact I turn over in my hands, searching for something—a smell, a sensation, a sound, anything—that will tell me that I didn’t just imagine growing up with a sibling. Whoever she has become now is a grotesque caricature of the girl I used to sit beside at the dinner table, slipping my cooked carrots to her because I hated them and she loved doing anything sneaky. Whenever my sister, Brigid, is about to come roaring back into my life, I get a sensation like an animal before a storm: my skin prickles and I have a sudden urge to lie down. But there is no time. I take a mug of coffee out the back door to my roommate Judah’s new, slightly lopsided yurt. Nothing’s hooked up yet, so he still has to cook and use the bathroom in

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