AFTER

Lily

Mum scowls every time she sees me in Luc's room.?

She probably feels I will condemn the place with my Lily-ness and all traces of Luc's Luc-ness will be lost. It is one of the things she and Dad fought about during their numerous post-Luc's death fights.?

After the funeral, Dad wanted me to move into Luc's room so Krystal will have the bedroom we share to himself but Mum would not let it happen, over her dead body. I secretly sided Mum. I don't want to sleep in Luc's room. I still dream about her. Sometimes in the dreams I have, she is alive and stable – the way she was before she attempted suicide – but sometimes, she is dead. Stiff and unmoving. She would try to pull me down with her into her watery grave. I would wake up screaming, my whole body covered in sweat and shaking with sobs. If I sleep in Luc's room, her ghost will kill me.?

Other nights, when I am not being haunted by bad dreams, I will lie on my bed, insomniac. Could I have stopped Luc from dying? Then I remember it was out of my control. Nothing would have changed what would have happened.

I sneak into the red bedroom.? Everytime I come here, I am overwhelmed by the matching red walls and red curtains. I have begun to notice them more. The audacity of the colour presses down on me, suffocating me. The only thing that is not in a shade of red is the white bedsheet with fairies on it.?

The room still smells like Luc; it smells like coconut oil, shea butter and vanilla. The room is too bright so I pull the tall curtains shut. Luc would have done so too.?

Sometimes I come to carry her hidden bottles of alcohol and consume them late in the night. Whenever I think I have gotten to the last bottle, I would uncover another under her bed, or in her laundry basket or behind her toilet. The alcohol made it hard for me to sleep. If my parents have noticed the dark circles around my eyes, they have said nothing about it. I wake up groggy, staggering around the house with a foul taste in my mouth. My Mum is too busy grieving to notice.?

I notice how clean the room is and arranged the room is. There is no crease in the bedsheets, no piece of furniture is out of place. Mum cleans the room every Saturday evening whilst singing praise songs under her breath. She is the person who opened the curtains.?

I walk to the switch and fan regulator by the door and switch on the lights then put Squeaky on. Squeaky groans and squeaks so much that Luc feared it will fall from the ceiling and slice her in her sleep but Squeaky did not get her, the Atlantic ocean beat Squeaky to it.

There was a time that Lucinda was not Luc but Lucie.?

That was before she got admitted into the University, before she started wearing crop tops, mini skirts, lots of jewellery and nude makeup. It was before she started buying and hiding bottles of expensive alcoholic drinks in her wardrobe, before she started ignoring me and treated me like there was not a mere one year gap between our ages. It was before she met her soulmate, Joseph.

When Lucinda was Lucie, she used to sing soprano in the church choir and her only makeup was scented white talc powder and clear lip gloss applied in moderation. Her hairstyle was always modest and neat cornrows; her favourite clothing was t-shirts and skirts that were knee-length. We used to attend catechism on Saturdays and she used to do my homework for me.?

She wanted a cat; she would have named her Cat, but my parents did not want any pets.

We used to play ten-ten even though Mum said we were too old to play. We would suck ice cubes from the freezer so the water would roll down the length of our hands to our forearms then drip off our elbows to the ground. We would take goofy pictures with Dad's camera on Sundays after morning mass, posing in our church clothes and big grins. In the evenings we would cook instant noodles with scrambled eggs in it and eat outside with only bermuda shorts and bra tops.?

I run my eyes along the small photos on Luc's red wall. the photos were framed in red wooden frames. It shows the timeline from baby Lucinda, Lucinda's first day at school, Lucinda as the little bride at our parent's wedding, Lucinda on a swing at the playground, Lucie in the church choir uniform, Luce holding Dad's hand and Luc wearing her matriculation gown.?

In one of the Lucie pictures, Lucie and I are licking udara, and grinning showing our missing front teeth. Lucie's gap is up and mine in down. The next picture is from when Lucie newly transitioned into Luc

the age of toe rings

. It was taken by a friend of ours – James. She is smiling with her arms outstretched at her sides and her long hair is tousled in the wind.

I loved Lucie the best, I was heartbroken when Lucie became Luc.?

Lucie did not die, I tell myself. she is still alive in my heart, our house and her soul resides in the four corners of her red room. I still hear our laughter under our fairy duvet at midnight; I still dream of us playing tag and ten-ten. Our bond and the memories we created will always be alive.

Lucie was not all good; she was not a sweet angel or an innocent preteen. She used to hit me sometimes, especially when she got angry. I always forgave her though, because she was my only friend.?

She used to be naughty and play pranks on people. Once, she snatched a Bluetooth radio out of a neighbour's hand and ran with it with the boy in hot pursuit, then threw it up in the air and it landed in the bushes: broken.

The boy was not mad, maybe he had a crush on her or he was too forgiving or scared of her, but I was angry with Lucie. When I asked why she did that, she replied that he was making too much noise with the radio. Afterwards, I was expecting his parents to knock angrily at the door and demand compensation from our parents.?

Luc got her first period as Lucie. she woke me up in the middle of the night with her cries and I got panicky because I thought periods were just a myth. Dad came to see what the noise was about and saw the wet red stain on the red bedsheet and he wordlessly took the bedsheet off the mattress and washed it while I hunted for pain killers in the kitchen cabinets.

Mum came to give Lucie a pack of sanitary pads while scolding her for staining the bed and yelled at Dad for helping to wash it which made Lucie cry even more. She learnt how to wear the sanitary pad by watching videos on the internet under our fairy duvet.

Luc was always Luce to Dad. Most times, I was envious of the way Dad gave her attention and cared for her. To be honest, I felt we were always competing for his attention. And I always lost to Lily.

He would buy her presents when he returned from work in the evenings. Once, he bought her a furry tiger print scrunchie with rhinestones and hid it behind his back while she guessed what it was and after about five wrong guesses, Dad presented it to her and exclaim, "ta-da!" Luce squealed with pure delight. He used the scrunchie to make a bun with her hair then he handed a matching scrunchie unceremoniously over to me but I was very happy nevertheless.

Dad used to make breakfast for us every morning, cornflakes with too much powder milk or hot chocolate with too much sweetened cocoa powder and he would give us candy or toffee as he dropped us off at school with a cheery wave. Mum would complain that he was giving us too much sugar which would give us tooth cavities, but Dad would ignore her.?

Luce became backseat like me when Krystal was born. Dad threw a huge party to celebrate Krystal's arrival in our house and invited his colleagues and our family friends and relatives over. They drank beers in large frosted glasses saying "cheers" when they clicked the glasses together and ate homemade suya, while Mum's friends held Krystal, commenting on his cute cherub-like face and how much he looked like a girl over bottles of wine and fried chicken.?

Luc and I lurked in the shadows running errands, bringing more drinks or more food, wiping spilled drinks and getting our cheeks pinched by nameless relatives.?

Luc did not like Krystal at first. she said he was too noisy, pooped too much and cried too much; He was simply too much. The whole family had dark circles around their eyes and eye bags by the time Krystal was a month old.

I fell in love with Krystal immediately. I would carry him for hours and rock him to sleep; I would kiss his chubby cheeks and tell him made up stories. He always listened and stared at me like he understood. I loved how he had a full head of spirals and curls, how his fists were dimpled and how he sucked on his thumb like it was Mum's pink nipple.?

He was a tiny baby at birth weighing about 2.5 kilograms at birth

Mum said we were all tiny babies

but after two months, he became very chubby and had folds on his chin, arms and thighs.

Luc said Mum had an earth-wrecking orgasm the night she conceived Krystal and that is why he turned out so beautiful. She would say this in hush whispers when I'm holding Krystal, and we giggle behind our palms because we were not supposed to know what an orgasm was. Sometimes Krystal smiled or giggled too like he understood.

Luc broke our parents' hearts by refusing to study Medicine and Surgery in the University. She used to steal Mum's jewellery and sneak out to parties. She lived like she was not a part of us. Like we did not matter to her. Our parents used to complain about her sudden change, I would overhear them sometimes.?

I admire Luc's baby picture; she was a very plump five-month-old. She stared directly into the camera with her head cocked to the left as if she was asking a question. She had a mop of full shiny, curly black hair and small pink lips. Dad dressed her in a white overall and a pink tutu.

On her study table are her textbooks and notebooks arranged into a neat pile. I flip through one of the notebooks with a red hardcover and Luc scribbled on it with a gold glitter pen reminding myself of how her cursive handwriting looked like.

Waddling through the soft carpet, I throw the glass doors of her wardrobe open and skim my eyes over her clothes. Almost all of them are in a shade of red; crimson and ox-blood were her favourite. there is a few blacks and greys. Sometimes, I would dress up in Luc's clothes but Mum would yell at me so I'd return them. I have had few successes in stealing—no, not stealing— taking some of her clothes.?

I reach for the gold knob of the first drawer and pull it open, the first thing I see is the opened pack of tampons that she bought weeks before she died. Her friend Precious used them, not the sanitary pads that are more common so Luc decided to try it out. I watched as she opened it, took one out and stared at it. After a long while, she said she couldn't impale her vagina and risk breaking her hymen which will cause her even more pain because she is already suffering cramps. I gave her some of my sanitary pads.

I see the waist beads and waist chains I loved to steal from her, glistening from a corner of the drawer. She always stole them back though.?

I pull out her fancy red G-string and slip it up my bare legs under my damp towel, then I untie my towel and wear her matching red bra. Luc and I almost always wore the same cup size. I pick out a short red and black dress with ruffles for sleeves from a hanger. The dress has a wide A-line skirt and I slide my feet into her red slides then I finish up with a black head wrap. Looking into the mirror on the wardrobe door, I see Luc's wide eyes staring back. I wonder if she will reach for me through the glass. Does she mind that I am wearing her clothes??

My gaze lands on the silver ring on her left index finger. I twist it around on my finger; the metal stings me. My teeth pull on the flesh of my lower lip and I wonder if wearing the silver ring is wrong. I wanted to put it in the coffin with her but I decided that wearing it would be better. I could use it to remember her by the way. she almost never took it off even when she was bathing or swimming, even when she was fighting with Joseph.

My phone rings – no, Luc's phone rings – breaking my gaze from the mirror.?

James.

I cannot help smiling as I pick the call and press the phone to my ear. I have been hiding for too long, it is time I claim my life back. My smile falls when I hear the voice on the other end.

? ? ??