Swollen, ashy-painted cotton eyelids blanketed the sky. I loved this weather more than anything; the moments before it rains, the smell of the sadness of the sky before its cries and the somehow beautiful, dark colors it casts upon the earth. I leaned against the giant oak tree in my backyard, letting its bark mold against the bare skin that my tank top wasn’t covering. My eyes climbed a wooden ladder that lead to the rickety tree house Papa built years ago.

“Dark clouds!” Maisy held her hands up to the sky, beckoning water. She tipped her head back and parted her crooked lips, sticking her tongue out. Her laugh escaped her throat like vomit, sporadic and bubbly. Maisy didn’t understand many things, but she knew dark clouds meant the sky would turn into a shower, like the one in Mama’s bathroom.

“The rain won’t come unless you do a Rain Dance, Maisy.” I reminded her, smiling at her innocence. She looked down at me, her eyes glazed over in contemplation. I sighed and stood up, wiggling my arms towards the sky and shaking my hips. Maisy’s features were suddenly glowing; her crooked smile released her vomit laughter as she mimicked my dancing.

“Fly?” She suddenly extended her long arms towards me and clasped and unclasped her fingers. She did this every time we were outside. Every time she’d ask me, and every time I’d wrap my arms around my older sister and lift her feet ever so slightly off of the ground, spinning her around and around. That was enough for her.

It was hard for me to be Maisy’s everything sometimes. I was beginning to get frustrated from dropping everything to be there for her. Exhaustion was drowning out my common sense.

“Maisy, not now. Sissy is tired.” I mumbled, sitting myself down, back against the oak tree.

The inevitable came. Blood-curdling screams echoed throughout the yard. Maisy stomped her feet, pointing at the sky repeating her demand, fly. I looked up at the sky, my heart numb with the amount of times I had to hear her scream and cry like a seven year old when she was eighteen. I was tired of explaining things.

“I can’t give you everything!” My anger over-flowed past my tongue, and I had screamed louder at Maisy in that moment than I had to anyone in my entire life. I ran inside crying, feeling the need to be able to be the child I was for once.

Mama was in the kitchen, cleaning up the broken glass that Maisy knocked off the counter when she jumped off of it. I wrapped my arms around her, clasping my fingers on her cardigan. We sat there for a while, no one spoke. Nothing needed to be said, Mama knew.

Suddenly, there was a scream. Mama screamed Maisy’s name and we both ran outside. Rain began to trickle from the sky, thunder loomed in the distance. Maisy lay on her back under the oak tree by the ladder that lead to the rickety tree house; her limbs sprawled awkwardly around her. She was more still and lifeless than she had ever been, even in her sleep.

I sprinted to her side, holding her head and looking over her, she looked past me, staring at something in the sky. Rain dripped against her face, but she didn’t blink once. Her crooked smile sparkled through the darkness of the storm.

She had flown from the tree house, my only sister.