"This isn't the most perfect time to fly a kite." I hear my sister say from somewhere behind me. I ignore her though knowing that I will get this kite up. Believing in something false. Believing in magic.
"But I want it to." I press as the wind picks up and the kite flutters to my feet. A red smudge on the white beach. I glance up at my sister who sits with her feet in the water as the tide laps around her.
"Do you miss him?" I ask and she shakes her head.
"No."
"I do." I say as memories of my younger brother flashes threw my mind. A face so familiar, beginning to fuzz at the edges. I picture him before the cancer and with his smile of confidence.
"I used to cry at night, Linds. But I think he wouldn't be very happy here. I think, he might be with us. Free from everything he hated. Free from pain, you know. Its almost like I'm happy hes not here. I hated to see him so sad." She continued. I rapped the kite around my arm and dragged it over to her. She looked up to me as I sat down and she handed me a shell.
"I cant let him go, Audi." I put the kite down and pulled my knees to my chest. I could hear her moving beside me, unfolding the kite, smoothing the edges, and holding it up to the windless sky.
"Sometimes when you love someone so much, letting them go is a way to forgive them." And I raised my head just as a wind blew from the east and made the kite flutter. Audi let it go as it rose into the sky and over the water, dipping and dropping.
I pulled on the string to keep it up and we both watched as it got closer and closer to the sky.
"Its always the best thing to let someone go with the wind." I started pulling the kite in as it dropped towards the ground the air becoming still again.
"But what if it falls. What if there isn't a breeze."
"Then we will always be there to catch it."