Years (minutes) later, I remember standing in my kitchen, hands pressed flat to the edge of the counter, directly adjacent to the living room. In the living room there was a couch, a coffee table, a recliner, and an easy chair. In the easy chair (grey with brown thread running through the rough soft comfortable familiar fabric) was my brother. In my brother, a longing he couldn’t express, and a rage I didn’t yet see. In me- a crushing terror I couldn’t define. Standing there, in the kitchen, with my hands pressed flat to the counter, so hard the knuckles turned white and bony- it was all I could do to recognize what I felt as terror, let alone attempt to pinpoint its source. My face felt exposed. My skin suddenly cold. My stomach living in my feet, and my heart in my throat. Was it Him that dis-located my organs like this? I didn’t know that then. I’m not sure I know it now. I only know that I stood stock still stationary gripping the counter when he asked me.

What did he ask me. He asked me if I remembered. And what did he ask if I remembered- Phoenix. He said Phoenix. Phoenix- a bird that consumes itself into ashes and eventually is reborn from those ashes. Phoenix- a place in Arizona; dry arid and desolate. Exotic, fraught with heat. He wasn’t asking me about a bird. He wasn’t asking me about the heat in Arizona. He asked me if I remembered Phoenix- if I ever thought about it; casually with one arm resting beneath his chin, eyes leveled at the television he asked me. No. I did not remember it. I did not think about it. ever.

I lied. I thought about it all the time. Alone, in the company of others, in silence in roaring sound I thought about it. I think about it still. Often. More often that I should. Or maybe not often enough. Who is to judge the correct rememberance of a childhood abuse? Who is to know? I do not.

I walked away from the kitchen. I walked away from the counter and my knuckle white hands. Walked away from the living room and the chair that held him. I did not remember Phoenix. I did not know that the bird was supposed to be reborn from the ashes. I only knew that it burned. My thoughts were of a bird- exotic, fraught with heat, and ashes.