Space

The rain lashes down, beating a bitter rat-a-tat-tat against the roof of the car. The headlights reflect back the murky fog that had descended over the valley as the soft day had slipped into an angry listless night. I stare out the window: the dark hedgerows with their gnarly branches reaching out into the narrow country lane, the faint light of a distant farmhouse, the droplets beading on the glass obscuring whatever else lay waiting in that dark dismal fog. 

I shift in my seat, attempting to wake my numb legs. My brother’s head slumps against my shoulder, pushing me closer to the icy window. I gently push him back. Seconds later, my brother is once more sprawled across the backseat of the car. His head is a cumbersome burden on my stiff shoulder.

Groaning softly to myself, I shove him emphatically to the other side of the backseat. He lets out a terse snore. I wait. His head stays where it’s supposed to stay. A smile flickers across my face. I stretch out my legs gleefully, but my elation is rapidly cut short when once again the slumbering giant drapes himself across the backseat and we are back where we started. 

Growing up the younger (and quieter) sister to a raucous boy, space was a frequent source of contention: our shared bedroom as children, the kitchen table, the backseat on long road trips across Ireland. I was always aware of the physical space that my brother took up in my life, the unremitting sound of a soccer ball being kicked against a wall when I was attempting to study, the way he usually fell asleep on top of me during long car journeys, and our elbows banging into each at dinner. Like most siblings, I took it for granted that this was how it was.

Two years ago, my brother picked up his life and moved 6,000 miles away. The spaces that had been sources of conflict for the past 16 years were suddenly all mine. I no longer spent plane journeys and car trips pointedly shoving him back to his own seat. I burned the midnight oil and no one complained about my bedroom light escaping under the door. I could finally study in silence. 

When he first left, I did not realise how lonely I would be or how empty these previously shared spaces would be. Over the last two years, I’ve had to learn how to fill these mutual spaces that we grew up in on my own. At the same time, we have also created new mutual spaces, through random whatsapp messages, letters sent across the Atlantic, and strange summer days in the north of Wales. Although I may now only see him in person once or twice a year for a few short days, with the loss of our childhood conflicts over space, we’ve become not just siblings but friends.


P.S. A soft day means a day with very light rain