I wish I could let go of the past. I wish I could just forget everything that my aunt did to us, because I still carry so much anger and hate over that. I don't want to feel this....goddamn GUILT over it anymore.

The last time I saw her, she was being driven away by my mother. She had lived with us for a few months, sleeping on a cot in our living room. At this point she had been to rehab once or twice. Alchoholism and perscription drug abuse.

She promised she would stop drinking. She got a job. She seemed to be getting better.

Then that night happened. It was a school night. My brother was in his room, and so was my father since he had to work at 4 am. My mother was working a double shift, and it was about 7. I was doing homework. My mother called to tell us when she would be home. My aunt was supposedly at work until 5 and should have been home by now. She worked down the street. Even walking, it would have taken about 45 minutes to get home. Mom asked me if she was home. I said no. There was a pause and my mother said "Call me back when she gets there." She had reason to be distrustful of her. My aunt had a history of saying she was one place and going another. So I waited. And waited. And waited. 11 rolls around. Still nothing. My mom calls back again. She's on the way home. I tell her Flo's not here yet. My mother does what she's done for years in this situation: decides to go to my aunt's favorite bars, see if shes there. I begged for her not to go...the bar's my aunt picks arn't in the best area in town. She went anyway. Flo wasn't in any of them. Its 1 now. I'm waiting at home, terrified, staring out the windows.

1:30. Finally. My aunt knocks on the door. She doesn't have a key. I call my mom to let her know she's here. I don't let her in at first. Finally, my mom calls and says to let her in because she's only five minutes away. I wait another minute or two before letting her in. My mom pulls in the driveway behind her as I open the door. I stare at Flo. She's drunk.

"Didn't you hear me knocking?" she asks.

I stare at her for a few seconds. "Yes."

"Why didn't you let me in?"

"I didn't want to."

She stares at me. Mom shuts the door behind us as I walk away from her. They begin their usual argument. The I'm not drunk yes you are one.

I can't take it. I forget what exactly set me off. I just remember screaming at her. I tell her she is ruining our lives. I tell her I don't care if she dies because the person that I loved is already dead and gone. The person she was is dead and gone. All my anger, all my frustration, all my hate came pouring out. Fueled by nights of listening to my mother and my grandmother cry because she's missing, by days of having to help my grandmother clean the beercans out of her drawers, fueled by the fact that she was blaming everyone I loved for what she was doing to us. I ended by telling her that I never wanted to see her or talk to her again.

But I didn't cry.

My mother took her to a friends house where she stayed for a while. She got worse. She doesn't call her daughter. She bounces around jobs and houses. She's going to die sometime in the next 5-10 years and I have to grapple with the question: Will I go to her funeral?

I don't know.