Calling Mejol

I plan to call Mejol tonight.

She is, I think I've said before,the sister I never had.

My parents thought they wouldn't have children, so they semi-adopted Mejol--my mother's sister's daughter. She went with them on vacations. She slept over with them.

They loved her.

Then I came along.

And Mejol stayed.

We were always together, for most of my childhood and afterwards.

When I was in high school, she locked me in her room with an album by Bob Dylan and Catcher in the Rye. An afternoon that changed my life.

When I graduated from high school, I went to visit her in New Orleans. She was with me the first time I ever got drunk.

We've shared other things to intimate and private to write about.

l love her.

We lost touch for some years but I call her almost every week now.

She lives in Baltimore and if we'd been there more than the 40 some hours we were I would have seen her.

Men, it seems to me, tend to leave the past behind.

I do that--except for Mejol.