EMILY PRATT SLATIN

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She/Her/Hers Lesbian

Retired Career Fire and EMS Lieutenant-Specialist, Writer, and Master Photographer, living in Vermont.

How Many Secrets Can One Person Keep?

October 31, 2026—Buffalo, New York (Amelia's House)

Today would have been Mom's 82nd birthday. The lawyers have informed me that her estate is officially closed, which is an interesting distinction considering I am still cleaning up the mess she left behind. I started the cleanup years before she died, once she had formally been diagnosed with hoarding disorder.

Being back in Buffalo has been a surreal experience for me. I suppose it is anytime I return to the places that helped raise me so many years ago. Every time I return to Upstate New York, I remember coming screaming down these roads Code 3 in the late 1990s, lights and sirens blaring.

I was younger then.

It feels like a lifetime ago. Back then, my family was still alive. They had stopped talking to me only a few years before. They died. I never got to say goodbye.

There are family stories everyone agrees upon because the person who could contradict them stopped attending holidays. I remember the wallpaper, the dog’s name, the smell of wet wool, and the sentence no one else appeared to hear.

Mom and Dad provided for me and gave me everything I could ever possibly want or need, but they kept me inside a broken system full of abuse and neglect. There was never a shortage of possessions, and I suppose that from the outside, my childhood looked rather privileged.

My father used to kick Penfold when he tried to protect me, and then Dad would hit me. So I learned to hold Penfold close, letting him bark loudly enough to scare Dad away while I cried.

I had no curtains on my windows, and the moonlight filtered through the pine tree, casting its shadow across my bedroom floor. The moon, who knew only of love and borrowed light, would shine upon me while my father was stealing my joy as I was trying to escape.

Mom was there. She always was. She observed, and did nothing. She was afraid of my father because he hit her, too. Understanding why someone failed to intervene, however, does very little to change the fact that they didn't.

There comes a point when a person must decide whether belonging is worth the price of abandoning herself.

Before Mom died, I asked her to help me reconnect with my cousins. To her credit, she did exactly that. I reached out, sent messages, and received absolutely nothing in return. Not a conversation, not an acknowledgment, not even the courtesy of being told to go fuck myself. That would have at least, been something.

After Mom died, my cousin James came to her house, took a couple of her things, and left. Among them was my grandmother's Chinese plate, which had once hung on the living room wall of my grandparents' farmhouse. When my grandparents died, Mom went to their house, removed the plate from the wall, and brought it home. It subsequently occupied a place in our dining room in Stamford, on the wall leading to the sun porch, where she positioned it specifically so that it would be the first thing anyone saw when entering the room.

Personally, I couldn't have cared less about the plate. It had always just been there. In fact, keeping the damned thing attached to the wall was something of a chore, considering it had never been designed to hang there in the first place. Nevertheless, it remained a permanent fixture of the house for years, and James eventually left with it.

I still own things that no longer serve any practical purpose. A railroad lantern. Cameras that smell faintly of machine oil. A pocketknife with more history than edge. Objects collect fingerprints long after they stop collecting usefulness.

I spent part of today helping Amelia install a new washing machine and dryer at her house. Lowe's had sent over a delivery driver who informed us that his responsibility was to deliver the appliances, not install them. According to him, we would need to find a professional who was capable of making the necessary connections.

Amelia, being Amelia, promptly informed this gentleman that I am her wife, and I had years of commercial electrical and plumbing experience, and therefore was perfectly capable of handling the installation.

I nodded and thanked him for delivering the appliances, and assured him, that yes, I have this situation under control. I let him know that Amelia and I owned an apartment building in New York City for a number of years and I had replaced all sorts of appliances probably twenty times by now.

He laughed. Mockingly.

Before leaving, the delivery driver had asked us to complete the customer satisfaction survey and give him a perfect ten. I told him, of course.

Amelia and I went to Lowe's, sourced the parts we needed, and returned to her house, where I got to work. Whomever owned her house previously had no business upgrading or repairing, or attempting either for any reason ever. There was a considerable amount of swearing involved, but I made it happen.

Sure enough, approximately an hour after his departure, the survey appeared in Amelia's email. She completed it, awarded him his requested ten-point score, and informed Lowe's that she was doing so specifically because the driver had instructed her to give him a ten.

I fucking love Amelia. I'm still in love with her. Deeply so. She's still one of my closest friends, and her particular brand of intelligence and humor never fails to remind me why I fell in love with her in the first place.

Amelia, Makayla, Maddie, and Nora are the most incredible friends I have ever known. My friends mean absolutely everything to me. I don't need people to buy me expensive things, make grand declarations, or perform elaborate demonstrations of affection.

All I have ever needed in life was the knowledge that I have friends who love me.

Just tell me you love me. I need this so badly!

This evening, I sat down to write in my diary and listened to Nicole Alexis' cover of Nutshell by Alice in Chains. I keep thinking about the line about chasing misprinted lies.

Straight from the straight line on this short run.