Salisbury.Fake Life, writing

How Are Birds Even Real?

Note: This is a piece written in three parts in response to my mother’s near-fatal car accident in November 2024. It is my honesty as bare as it can be and while I had trepidation posting this piece, I am trying not to be ruled by my fear that she’ll have a damaged reputation after posting it. I’m tired of being responsible for holding the truth of how me and my siblings grew up. I guess I hope leaving it here makes some of the exhaustion go away.

11/14/2024 – Written at my mother’s hospital bedside

What does it say about how I grew up that all three of my mother’s children have been subconsciously preparing to get a phone call from a stranger saying she’s died in an accident she caused?

How do I describe—even a little—the fear that bolted through me when I heard the woman who stopped to help say they could hear the sirens?

Sometimes I am so tired of being my mother’s mother. My mother’s main source of any kind of human contact. It is excruciating to be the one fielding calls and asking questions of people in medical attire. Telling well-wishers, “thank you for stopping by” when I want to tell them to leave because she won’t shut up until they do and she has a broken sternum.

I want her to lie still and be quiet for once. Let silence help her heal, but I think the quiet terrifies her. She needs sound so she isn’t alone.

She’s lying down as much as she can and I see her pulse in the thin skin of her neck. Her eyes are closed and every now and then her nostrils flare as some kind of pain passes over her, and she fights back tears.

This woman gave me life and I am livid she is so careless with hers.

Birds have hollow bones. I remember thinking when I was a kid that was impossible because bones are full of marrow and such a vital part of being complete. Structure and stability in a consistency not seen in my life otherwise.

My mother keeps thanking me and my sister for being here. She’s telling everyone I told my boss I wouldn’t be in the rest of the week, but really I told her it was just today.

Is this a glimpse of what it’ll be like in ten years when I’m the closest and the time comes for real? Am I selfish for being angry my life has to be halted so I can help her restructure hers?

She broke her back.

She broke her sternum.

Her seatbelt cut slices into her hips and she has bruises purpling her stomach. She can’t walk because her left foot is twice the size it usually is. Her right hand has a gash across her knuckles and it has yet to be stitched up.

She had a morbid sense of pride when she announced there was a puddle of blood that morning from where the staples held her skin together.

Do birds have skin on their wings? Or is it just feathers? I bet they have skin. They have to, right? Follicles for the feathers to protrude and spines to remain.

She’s eating her sandwich and talking again. She slept for about twenty minutes. There is an emptiness in my whole body and my anger is rearing.

We are so fragile and easily shattered.

My mother is enjoying being taken care of, which everyone eventually does, but watching her direct my sister and talk to the nurses opens up a part of me I thought healed.

Am I a bad daughter for being so bitter?

I want to weep.

I want to go home.

I want to stop feeling so angry.

How do birds know where to go? How do they know the movement of their wings will beat enough to lift them into the air? Do they tuck their feet automatically? Press their tiny talons into the softness of their feathers as they soar?

Her hand is bleeding again. She’s making jokes. We briefly talked of the events last night, and I want her to feel guilty. Feel even a twitch of remorse for never listening when we tell her to pay attention while driving.

Does this make me horrible? Does this mean I’m not a good kid?

I hate myself in a way I didn’t know I could.

My brother says he thinks I’m just tired.

I’m about to combust.

The After

I haven’t spoken to my mother since Thanksgiving. She messaged me for Christmas, and I didn’t respond. How can I be so callous to a woman who just had a serious, almost fatal car accident?

Because she smiled when we told her we were afraid.

It was a micro expression she’d deny ever making, but I’ve seen it my whole life. A flash of satisfaction that she’s somehow won.

I can still hear the way she tried to breathe when she called me that night. The way her voice sucked at the air she couldn’t catch.

She told my cousin I wigged out because a stranger called me to tell me what happened. She laughed when she said it.

I wake up reaching for my phone thinking it’s ringing and it’s that woman again. She was so frustrated with me because I didn’t know what to do. I think her name was Nicole. I wish I could find out how to thank her for stopping.

And apologize to her because I thought my mom was dying and I wasn’t ready for it. 

The ER people were very kind to me when I walked in. I know I looked terrified. My hands were shaking, and I had them stuffed in my pockets. A chaplain brought me back to a less crowded waiting area, and told me what they were doing for my mom.

I couldn’t sit. Had she fallen asleep at the wheel like she has countless other times? Why was that my first thought? The chaplain returned and asked me if I wanted water. I laughed and said no, thanks, because I laugh when I’m scared.

The fear isn’t so big, then.

My stepmom returned my panicked call and asked me if I wanted her to come to the hospital and sit with me. I couldn’t speak, so she answered for me and said she was on her way.

The manager came by and told me they were doing some x-rays and other tests. The chaplain returned and gave me a smile. He was a beautiful young man, and I think I fell in love with him for that night because of his kindness. Everyone kept asking if I wanted to go see my mom, but I said I was waiting for my sister to get there.

If my mom was dying, I couldn’t do it by myself.

My sister arrived and we went to see my mom. I cannot put into words how dead she looked. Her eyes opened and she smiled, and said some random things because she was on heavy painkillers.

The towels they’d used to soak up her blood were on the floor. Her hand was covered in a bandage drenched with iodine, and the gown she wore was spotted with pinkish brown.

I have seen the inside of my mother’s skin. I have seen the way her layers were shorn apart by her seatbelt and I see it when I close my eyes.

I condensed my brain into a speck so I could fix her life.

I texted her piano students, called her insurance company, called her physical therapy, called so many places. I spoke to the men from her church because she wanted a blessing.

People visited her daily. She told the story in the same inflection to everyone who would listen.

“There were no lights! I would have slowed down if there had been lights!”

She hit the other driver’s trailer full of wood at 55 mph. There is no more front end to her car. I went to the tow yard to take pictures for her insurance company.

The insurance company she’d been with for a week.

The tow yard wouldn’t move her car from where they’d parked it, so I bruised my arms and legs getting into it, sandwiched between two (far less damaged) vehicles. I knelt on the rain-soaked, bloodstained seats trying to recover the items she wanted. I cut my fingers on the glass blown across those seats like sand.

It was when she smiled at my fear, I understood: I would never be what I wanted to be for my mother. It wasn’t the decades of mental, emotional, and sometimes physical abuse. She didn’t hit me all the time, so it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t when she told me with the strongest conviction that the church she belongs to was more important to her than her children. It wasn’t even when she closed my arm in the car window when I was trying to breathe during a panic attack because she was swerving while driving.

It was her satisfaction that she owned my terror. I was afraid for her.

She is a master at manipulation. She is so good at making you feel like you’re worthless, that you don’t even know she’s the one doing it. I have cried in the deepest depths of my depression in her lap. I have asked her to make it stop hurting because I don’t want to leave, I want to stay and figure it out. She drank it in like my pain sustained her and she could use it when I didn’t do what she wanted.

She threw my demons at me when I wouldn’t help her immediately. “I’ve done this for you. You can’t help me with one small thing?”

Deflated.

Ransacked.

Gutted.

I never wanted to be better than her. It wasn’t about seeking her approval, but being enough as I am. Being allowed to stop reaching for some bar she’s tossed to the highest peak and laughs as she kicks my feet out from under me.

I want to ask her how she ever got joy out of owning a broken thing. If seeing me wither whenever I gave in to whatever she demanded of me when I was already stretched to impossible limits was really that big of a high.

I remember thinking when I was younger how birds are stupid things. Their tiny brains and their flappy wings. The Canadian geese that pooped everywhere were just taking up space. Terrorizing small children.

I was a bird.

I read about Icarus. How he flew too close to the sun and plummeted to the ocean. He was stupid, too. Be happy with what you have, I thought. What you have is what you deserve.

But what if Icarus laughed as he fell? I read somewhere that maybe he did, and I haven’t been able to see birds the same since. Why would a boy who could fly choose to stay on the ground when the sky is infinite?

I am a bird.

The Now

The psychological torment I went through as a child is why I will never fully trust another person. If my own mother derived joy from torturing and owning her children, how can I look at anyone else and believe they won’t do the same? I tell people, “you are valued because of who you are, not because what you give me.”

And I believe that with the entirety of my being.

There are some who have taken advantage of my desire to make sure no one else feels the way I do. Some who have used my emptiness of self to try and add me to their collection of misery. But I refuse to let myself be lost forever.

I accept that there are moments of uncertainty, that there are times where I cry over my sink as I wash my dishes because I miss my mom. I will not tell myself I’m dumb for crying. I will not tell myself I’m fine, when I am very much the opposite.

There is so much I wish I could be angry about in regard to my childhood. It’s not anger I feel, though. It’s sadness. It’s grief for the kid I never got to be. Sure, I had moments of being a kid, but it was always tempered with “what’s going to happen when I get home? What kind of mood is Mom in today? What have I done to upset her? I can fix it, whatever it is.”

Ten-year-olds are not meant to fix their damaged mothers. I forgive the parts of her that are broken, but I do not forget the way she used those to destroy me.

Salisbury.Fake Weekly Update, writing

Writing Journal #6

Singing Justin Bieber’s “Baby” while unwrapping a peanut butter cup is peak Saturday morning behavior, I think. I don’t know if this is journal number six. I could look, but that requires more dedication to a numbering system than I particularly care for currently. I don’t know “Baby” past the chorus, so it’s been just a repeat of “baby, baby, baby, ohhhhh” progressively more offkey.

I haven’t been stuck. Well, no, I have been. Stuck in chapter twenty of the Lazarus Rising first draft. I’ve come across things I’ll “fix in post,” I tell myself. Scribbling late into the night because insomnia has come to visit again. Who needs sleep when words give so much more to me? I probably do need sleep, because the headaches that have come from this lack of it are just debilitating sometimes.

But yeah, finally got through chapter twenty, and I actually made it through chapter twenty-one. Finished that last night, and then when I woke up this morning, I had some clarity to restart the gibberish I wrote to open chapter twenty-two before I passed out.

Currently, peanut butter cups are eaten, and water should be next to consume, but that requires getting up again and I just sat down to keep typing up chapter fourteen. I don’t want to get half a book behind on typing again, so I’m going to spend today doing some of that. After I have brunch/lunch with some friends.

Depression has been keeping me company as of late. I see it. I wave at it when I get home. I tell it how my day has been, knowing full well it’s been right there at my ankles the whole time. It knows my weaknesses. It knows my sadness. Not a bad roommate, really. More like a mother giving you the silent treatment and you aren’t sure what you’ve done wrong, so you’ll keep trying your best not to mess anything else up.

I hope you’re doing okay. I hope you’re able to see the sun, and I hope the warmth sticks with you longer than you expect it to.

Until next time, friends.

Salisbury.Fake Weekly Update, writing

Writing Journal #5

I don’t necessarily have writer’s block, I have lack of interest in writing at the moment. I’m still trying to write, though, and so some of the stuff that comes out is useable and other bits are more scrappable.

I am not discouraged by this, though! Sometimes taking breaks is necessary. Give a brain a bit of a rest. I’m doing some reading, though. Currently I’m reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and The Temptation to Exist by E.M. Cioran. I may review one or both of those! May also just read them, haha.

I considered doing a game review of a game I recently watched a playthrough of, but I sometimes feel like a poser when I try to talk about video games. I’m not skilled in the slightest at playing them, so I usually watch games (without commentary). Big, big space horror fan.

Back to writing: I’ve done a few things with the language I made up for the Maker series, like named a metal and started … doodling? I guess would be the word for it, but seeing how sentence structure would work. Different cities would have different structure sometimes, I think, as a way to differentiate their cultures/accents/etc.

I think that’s about all I have in terms of an update for now. Until next time, friends.

Salisbury.Fake Weekly Update, writing

Writing Journal #4

I’ve been working rather steadily on the first draft of the third book. Lazarus Rising. Not the religious connotations it might seem to have, but kind of? Based purely on Tobias (the creator of Telaroth) liking the story of Lazarus so much he used the name as a way to distance himself from the problems he caused. It goes so much deeper than that, of course, but this book is one of the first we see into Lazarus. Characters go into the sister-world and it is truly one of the coolest places to spend an afternoon in my head.

I am currently doing some typing so I don’t have an entire book to type in a few months when I have the first draft done. But I’m writing chapter sixteen now. Just scootin’ right along.

I’ve been thinking more and more about submitting a few short pieces for magazines/journals/etc, but I know next to nothing about that process. I have a few friends who are regular submitters and they’ve offered advice, so when I get the confidence to start collecting rejections, I’ll implement what I learn from them.

Sometimes I beta read as well, and one of the things that surprises the people I read for is how fast I get it done. So, I’ve considered maybe turning that into a side hustle. Get some dollars for a hobby? I don’t know. I truly enjoy reading through people’s work and seeing how I can help them tell the story they want to. I don’t really do line-edits, but I do broader content and some typo assist. I keep waffling back and forth on asking for money for it, though, because it is something I really do enjoy.

But my father told me once never give my work away for free.

And the part of me that breathes words says the delight I get from doing this kind of thing is the payment I need or even want.

Things to think about, of course.

Aside from that, I have a secret-not-so-secret project looming for the summer months, and I’m excited about that in the sense that it’s a piece I never really thought I’d publish. It’s a romance novel of sorts, and one I’ve worked on for yeeeeears and years. Never putting it anywhere more than a now defunct forum.

I will get the first draft of Lazarus Rising finished, and then work on Daisy while Lazarus steeps. When I get to the fourth book in the Maker series, that’ll be a challenge because I’ve never written a draft–first person or third. Everything else has at least been through a first person POV version. Uncharted territory ahead, and it’s exciting but intimidating all at once.

Thanks for reading this ramble of writing thoughts. Until next time, friends.

Salisbury.Fake Life

Just Do Your Best

I’m not sure how to start this one, so I’m just going to dive right on in there.

When I was a kid, I danced for about nine years. Ballet. I did the whole competition stuff, but I also did a private studio that didn’t participate in competitions. We would dance in local events, though, and there was this Christmas festival every year where members of groups and communities could decorate a Christmas tree and people would “buy” the tree. Proceeds went to charities or something. I might not have the full details on that because I was little and didn’t understand why I danced at this thing, I just knew I did.

One year, I’d asked my dad to be there. I don’t remember why, but it was really, really important for him to be there. He had dental surgery that day, and the pain meds he was given ended up making him sleep through my performance.

My dad arrived at the venue and knelt on the floor and just hugged me so tight and said he was sorry he missed my dance. He even showed me the inside of his lip as proof that there was a reason he wasn’t there. The regret in his eyes and the way he hugged me for what felt like an hour while kneeling on that hard floor, all because he thought he had failed me.

But he was there. He did show up.

I still feel that hug to this day.

I have more dances for him to see. They’re just not ballet. People won’t remember everything about you, but they’ll remember you trying. They’ll remember you being there in whatever way you can. I hope you continue to be here. And I hope you are a little gentler on yourself because you are doing your best.

Salisbury.Fake Weekly Update, writing

Writing Journal #3

I’ve finished chapter eight of Lazarus Rising’s first draft. I’m writing from Fogg’s perspective in the beginning of this book, giving him some space to be seen. Not that he deserves such a grace given who he is. Some of the feedback I’ve gotten on Keeper is how dark it is, how violent Frankie ends up being in some instances. I guess I never really saw it as violence if she’s just using what she learns in defense of herself. Because that’s what it all ends up being, self-defense. I suppose I could probably leave some of the finer details out, but what I’ve enjoyed about my writing growth while working on the whole Maker series is seeing how I can use the darker sides of myself to propel a story. How I can give voice to the parts of me that otherwise wouldn’t be expressed. I’m not a murderous psychopath. But someone in my stories is, so I can take them as far as I want to, knowing I am safe from their evilness.

That then begs the question: how much of it is author-insertion? Do I have thoughts of violence? Do I run through the scenes that appear in my books like I want them to be realities? I don’t want them to be real. That’s the beauty of living in fiction, I can put people who don’t exist through extraordinary ordeals to show just how much they can handle–or not handle–and come out on the other side of it. It’s a wonderful thing, the power of creation. I don’t want the world to burn in reality, but I can sure write it doing that very thing in a book.

I’m going to keep going for tonight, and get as much done in chapter nine as I can. I’m almost done writing Fogg’s bit, and then I’ll have a chapter interlude for the Unbound, and then it’s back to Frankie. The page number formatting for this is going to be a nightmare, but I will get it done.

And that’s all I have for you today. Until next time, friends.

Salisbury.Fake Weekly Update, writing

Writing Journal #2 – Description

Back when I was a wee writer lass, I used to spend a lot of time on what I now consider “unnecessary description.” We’ll get into that here shortly, I just want to put a disclaimer of sorts here that I am not saying the writers who do this are bad. There are audiences for pretty much any kind of story written. I will also say when I was a younger reader, I did sometimes prefer the description I’m about to go into. As I’ve gotten older, however, I find it is less satisfying to have such direct references and specifics in a story. I like to wander a bit and imagine with some of the vaguer choices.

What I mean by direct references is the name-dropping of brands of clothing, specific types of furniture, exact songs playing during a moment, the color of the paint on the walls, the down-to-the-very-last-detail of the kitchen.

Telling me the main character is wearing Converse is only important if that plays a massive part in their characterization for the whole story. “Black and white shoes worn to the point of needing tape to be held together” indicates the importance of the shoes far more than the brand name does. The fraying, dingy shoelaces, old sharpie drawings of stars and smiley faces. These shoes are beloved, and it is far easier to see that through the description than being told what it is.

It’s the same as giving me a specific song playing in a moment. Unless that song becomes pivotal to the story later on, don’t tell me what song it is. I think book playlists are marvelous because it gives a vibe, but it doesn’t force me to think of a specific song. Giving me the opportunity to see a scene and feel it through the more purposeful description, such as “vibrant violin music played softly in the corner on an old record player” allows me to sink further into the moment far more than “Vivaldi’s Winter was playing.”

One of my favorite books of all time, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith has this magnificent moment where the main character is dancing with her sister’s betrothed, and she loves the piece playing, but she doesn’t find out what it is until after the dance has completed and a major moment happens for her. Debussy’s Clair De Lune is also mentioned, but again it’s after being described by the main character within the context of the moment it’s happening.

To reiterate, I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with using direct descriptions. There are audiences for such a thing, but I find it’s so limiting while writing, and relying on those specifics kind of takes away the wonder of a really good description.

This is a ramble. If you made it this far, thank you. I’ll see you next week.

Salisbury.Fake Life

Morning Thoughts

I’ve been awake since about 5:30a. That’s normal wakin’ hours for some folk, but for me, that’s not the standard. I think I had a dream where I was deep in my thoughts and that kind of made me wake up and now I’m thinking entirely too hard about loss. Of a sort.

When my friend Henry died, I still knew where to focus the love I had and have for him. It belongs to him, and I know he’d be annoyed I’m still missing him, but the fact of it all is, it is his to have.

When you lose someone because they became a part of your life and destroyed you, and letting go was the only way to keep yourself safe, the love has nowhere to go. I could internalize it, make it a learning opportunity for myself, but the reality of it all is, I don’t know how to do that.

I have spent most of my life making sure everyone else is okay. Not that my needs come second, they’re just flat-out unimportant. As a grown woman, I am starting to rewrite that thinking, but do you know how hard that is?

Sure, change is hard, but when my home isn’t being blown to bits and I’m able to afford heat during the winter, why should my self-image matter? I heard a refugee from North Korea say that people who are able to use words like depression and trauma say them from a place of privilege. She didn’t mean that it’s a privilege to experience these things, but when you come from a place those are probably illegal to name, what do you call it? I am free to tell someone “I’m not okay” and I won’t be thrown in jail for not being happy.

Change is hard. It’s even harder without some of the people I had to let go of, because I thought they were people I could turn to in my hard times. Being told someone is there for you only for them to weaponize your demons against you when you do something they don’t like is incredibly confusing. It’s debasing. It makes me feel shame for ever trying to be vulnerable to a person, and it closes me up.

I joke about how I learned a lot about myself this last year (accidentally the spicy kind of learning, haha, sorry, parents if you read this), but I really did. I learned how to say goodbye when it hurt every part of my kindness to do so. There is a piercing affect that has on a heart. I’m not new in this phenomenon. Millions of people have let go of those who hurt them. But I am new to the idea that it’s okay to go.

It’s okay to fall away, and it’s okay to cry months after you’ve done so. The love doesn’t have anywhere to go, so it has to settle in the back of my heart for now. One day, I’ll put it out into the world again, hopefully keeping some for myself this time. But for now, it’s okay to just hold onto it a bit longer.

Until next time, friends.

Salisbury.Fake Life, writing

From My Journal – Language Update

Hey, there friends! Happy New Year! I’m behind my own arbitrary posting schedule already, but that’s because I gave myself the deadline of January 31st to finish the first book of my series. I also decided that I am not writing with the expectation of becoming a best seller, but more for myself because I love telling this story so much. And that is pretty much where I find myself this evening as I scurry around for a post.

I’m doing a few challenges this January that I’ll talk about in February, but one of the things I’ve challenged myself for the entire year of 2022 is to read more. As with many writers, I find when I read more, I write more. And better. Obviously not on this blog because of the run ons, the inconsistent punctuation, etc, etc. The beauty of this blog is again, I’m writing for myself. I was going to start this year with a book dump of some books I recently finished reading, but I decided to go for a journal update. The last spreads I have to get done before I start the dictionary for the language I’m creating are the plot outlines of each book.

So, the photo for today is a look at the beginning of the dictionary for Moartean. I got the A section for English done last week, and that felt pretty cool. My strategy is to go through a “learner’s” dictionary and pick words that I think the Moarteans would use. The biggest thing for me is trying to figure out which ones could be used multiple ways. Moarteans are interesting people in that they are simple when it comes to words, but complicated when it comes to expressing themselves. Some words can be used interchangeably, while others are kind of “what is this person trying to say to me?” It’s an fascinating thing where I look at words like, “alert,’ and “alarm.” They mean similar things, but have different applications that require context. So, do I make them interchangeable? Or do I apply context to them?

I know it’s extra to create a language. I know not many people would want to do such a thing. But it makes too much sense to me, and incorporating some of it into each book, with the third book having the most in it, feels ridiculously satisfying. I created a prophecy using the language and reading it out loud makes the nerdy part of my brain tingle in a way that it rarely does unless I’ve spent an entire day writing or working on writing things.

I know I post a lot of things motivating people to believe in their goodness and their worth, and that will still be a thing, but this year I’m going to try and incorporate more of what I love into this blog. It’s still a lifestyle blog, but writing is what makes me feel the most real. I know that sounds so pretentious and cliche, but I don’t do a lot of appreciation of myself. Seeing the world I’ve created in my head over the last decade come to life on the page is a feeling I don’t think I have the words to give you. If I could pass the brightness to you, so you could get a glimpse of effulgence I feel after wearing my neck out from being hunched over a notebook for a day, I would give it to you. I would love to share that joy with you.

And that’s a small look into my last few weeks, creativity wise. I hope your year has started well, and I hope you are being kind to yourself because you deserve kindness. I’ll see you soon with a look at some of the books I finished already this month.

Until next time, friends.

Salisbury.Fake writing

From My Journal: Character Sketch

Serena Shorn

  • Naturally brunette, dyes her hair platinum blonde
  • 5’6”
  • Blue eyes
  • 132 lbs, very fit and toned
  • Usually wears “preppy” clothes, pastel colors (rose colors make her very happy)
  • Loves high heels

Serena is Zelda’s oldest daughter, and Frankie’s half-sister. She’s a tragic character. She has spent most of her life trying to be something everyone wants. She has no idea who she is. Feels inadequate next to Frankie. Even though she got married to Logan (will be posted another time), she sees how her sister is successful with her job, her house, etc. Frankie is happy even though she has less than Serena in terms of material possessions. Serena’s discomfort with how little she likes herself is something she doesn’t talk about because she sees it as weakness. She believes she should be silent about her struggles so no one knows she feels so aggressively to herself.

Her relationship with Logan is difficult. He’s verbally and psychologically abusive. She does her things to keep some form of control over her life, but comes off as high strung, high maintenance. Again, though, it’s her way of maintaining how people see her. If she is the one with the attention, controlling what people see, she makes sure no one can tell she’s lonely. She overheard the wives of the country club calling her a trophy and she cried for a long time about it.

Serena and Zelda have a rough relationship, too. Serena thinks her mother only cares about Frankie. This isn’t true, but the “evidence” she uses to prove it usually ends up being things she’s blown out of proportion or twisted out of context. She tries to bend events so they fit her narrative, and when they don’t, those events are like they didn’t exist to begin with. She doesn’t have any true friends. There is one wife at the club who feels sorry for her and tries to help her, but she takes her kindness as judgment, so she pushes her away.

Serena doesn’t want to believe Logan would ever be anything other than loyal. If she ever suspected the opposite, she worked harder to be what he thinks she wants. She suffers quietly for what she believes is love. When she is murdered, she dies knowing Frankie is on her way to help her, that even after all the years of fighting, the verbal abuse she threw at her sister, Frankie still loves her and is coming to save her.

It is truly a massive loss for Frankie, one she attempts to avoid dwelling upon. While she still has her mother, until the end of Fulcrum, she loses the chance to rebuild her relationship with her sister, a loss that begins Frankie’s emotional growth.