Madelief, Altijd Wachtend

Summary: Christmas, 2001. Adriaan has returned from England three years ago to his childhood neighbourhood. He hasn't seen his sister in over a decade, all he has are his memories and an old card.

Date: June 2026

Quote: "He should have protected one of the things he loved the most, just so he wouldn’t lose the other one — Madelief, once a baby sleepy in his arms. When she first learned to walk, she took a step towards him. "

Christmas, 2001

Adriaan sank into the lukewarm, soapy water of the bath and thought, for the hundredth time since the Christmas season began, about Madelief.

He hadn’t seen his sister in over a decade. Three days prior, it had been her nineteenth birthday, and perhaps she had already managed to move out from their parents’ home. If so, she most likely started school and began living in a flat overrun by other students in another city, just like he had done himself. Somehow, even though he lived in the same small neighbourhood he grew up in, which his parents probably still resided in, he had avoided running into them for the past years. Adriaan had no idea about how they chose to live their life after he moved out. In hindsight, he wished that he had thought a bit more about the future before he left, and more importantly before he returned to the neighbourhood. He should have considered how it would feel to live in such close proximity with strangers who shared his surname.

But really, the chances of his recognizing Madelief on the streets were low. He could have crossed paths with her many times without knowing. No pictures of her existed in his possession, all he could rely on were vague memories of her. Every once in a while, he would see girls around Madelief’s age with familiar features, and he would wonder if that was her, or if had been the other girl who he had seen weeks prior, looking at cereal in the supermarket. Adriaan could never be sure, which was the worst part. He himself liked to believe that he never changed much physically since he left, maybe Madelief would one day recognize him. On the other hand, she might have done so already. There was a chance that, even if she did see him, she wouldn’t want to speak to him. Truly, he would respect it if she never wanted to see him again. Some days he just wished that the other shoe would drop, that he could stop wondering and know that she was alright, that he hadn’t ruined her life by abandoning her all alone with their parents.

“Baby wants to join you,” Daan suddenly appeared in the open doorway, fully dressed for the day, their cat in tow.

“Liza,” Adriaan corrected. The cat had become an addition to their household shortly before Sinterklaas, and they were still in debate about her name.

They had found Liza after hearing her distressed calls coming from an alleyway near the supermarket. She had been dumped into a trash container, abandoned with a broken paw. She had barely been the height of Adriaan’s shoe, and Daan had quickly insisted that they take care of her after getting her checked up by a veterinarian. What began as We’ll wait for her to heal and find her a new owner quickly became She was an early present, Aad! We’re good people, why don’t we just keep her? I don’t want to risk accidentally giving her to bad people! And so the search for a new owner stopped. Adriaan hadn’t disagreed at first because he disliked Liza, and he always did his best to remind her of this by giving her pets and extra treats, but because he had never had a pet before. He’d never even seen a cat as small as Liza until she came into their lives.

“Come on,” sighed Daan. “That’s a human name!”

“What do we call little humans?” he countered. “Babies.”

“Baby animals exist,” the other scoffed while picking Liza up. “Smartass.”

“What was that?”

“I love you,” the man grinned. “Now, give her attention!”

Daan turned and picked Liza up, holding her like an inexperienced child might hold a cat, so that her head was pointed directly at Adriaan, her sides gently supported by hands. Aad grumbled something akin to hold her properly, before leaning back in the bath. His spine ached from sleeping in a strange position, because Liza had insisted on sleeping on their bed between them. It was too early in the morning to start the name debate, and it was exceptionally early to think about Madelief. He had no idea where she was, he repeated to himself, there was nothing he could do. It was in the past, and he needed to focus on the present, on going to the winter market and having Christmas dinner at home with Daan.

Adriaan closed his eyes when he heard the soft patter of Liza’s paws against the tiles immediately once she was let go. The wood floors outside the bathroom creaked under her small weight, and in mere seconds he could no longer hear her. She had probably retired to her cardboard box lined with soft blankets, which would have to be replaced by a big, proper cat bed. Would Madelief have a pet? She had always wanted a bunny, and a goldfish, but their father had never liked animals and their mother hadn’t wanted to make space for a fish tank anywhere.

As Daan took his seat on the edge of the tub — a dangerous move, with the nice, new pair of jeans he was wearing — Adriaan kept his eyes tightly closed. Christmas, once again. How many had they managed to share together, how many had they only been able to share as a couple because Adriaan left his family? This would be their third Christmas since getting back home from Cambridge, and probably their twentieth in general. He couldn’t quite remember if he met Daan before Christmas or after, that December when they were kids, all those years ago. He felt a burn at the edge of his waterline when he remembered he had last heard from his mother three years before as well, with the card she had sent to him, signed with her signature along with Madelief’s childish scrawl. It had probably been written way before he came back from England, perhaps during his first Christmas away from home. Did his sister think that her card had been sent right after their writing of it, had she expected a reply? Or had she seen it in the drawer, and assumed that it would never be sent? I got it, he thought, hoping that in some way she might hear it. There was so much he wanted Madelief to know, but he wasn’t sure if he would be able to tell her any of it, if they were to ever meet again.

He tried to keep the card hidden in their clutter drawer, to keep the memories away. But often he would read it anyway, knowing it would do nothing but hurt him. The card would not help him find his sister. Deep down, he wondered what would happen if he just tried. People had managed to find family members decades after they had been separated. His parents most likely still lived in his neighbourhood, and they might know where their daughter had gone — if she had moved out in the first place. If not, he would find his sister along with them. What was preventing him from reaching out, even if it didn’t end up anywhere? His mother must have decided to send the card for a reason, after years of keeping it from him.

“Do you think Madelief would want me back in her life?” he asked, opening his eyes. Daan gave him that look, the one reserved only for Adriaan, mainly given when he couldn’t help himself and drank or smoked more than usual, more than the two cigarettes and one glass or can of alcohol they agreed he could have in a day.

“She loved you,” the man replied.

“I can’t imagine her loving me now,” he admitted. “She adored me, and I left her all alone. Now that I think about it, I must have been a bit jealous, because Pa treated her better, and Ma too.”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“But really, I don’t think they loved her properly either. Pa and Ma treated me fine when I was a kid, things just got worse as I got older. Ma never played much with her in the first place, only wanted to braid her hair and make her look pretty. I was the only one who truly gave her love, and I left anyway.”

“Adriaan,” Daan sighed. “I think Madelief is one of the only people who can understand why you decided to go.”

“I should be ashamed, for being such a horrible brother.”

It wasn’t really a question, to him, whether or not he should be ashamed of himself. He was ashamed, and it was likely he would always find that feeling whenever he thought about the old Christmas card and his sister’s thin hair, which he learned to braid because of his mother, which he always tied off with Madelief’s favourite sparkly hair tie. It had been idiotic, to come out to his parents, and it had been horrible of him to leave when the expected pushback occurred. He should have kept it, kept Daan, a secret. He should have protected one of the things he loved the most, just so he wouldn’t lose the other one — Madelief, once a baby sleepy in his arms. When she first learned to walk, she took a step towards him.

Even though he should really begin to wash himself properly and make plans for what he wanted on the table for their Christmas breakfast, he allowed himself to think for a little bit longer. He pictured turning back time to right before he left, saw himself walking over the carpeted floor of the upstairs hallway, watched as he entered his childhood bedroom and exclaimed just kidding! Madelief was there, on the floor with her bare heels digging into the soft carpet. Adriaan had to hold on to that image of her, at seven, with her little braids, because he had no idea how she grew up to look. He’s not sure if he could ever face her again, with all of the shame flooding his senses.

His sister, who as a baby had looked closer to an animal than a human, with her rounded cheeks that turned a bright red whenever she cried, with her long, thin fingers. Even then, he had loved her without knowing her, before he had wrapped his mind around the fact that she was real, no longer the baby in his mama’s stomach. When she was born, he hadn’t yet understood that she would grow up to call him her brother, and that she would maybe look up to him. The only thing Madelief had ever wanted from him was love, and he had failed to give it. How was he supposed to face the fact that she was finally her own human, no longer the little girl he could barely remember properly?

Tears gathered in the corner of his eyes, and he kept imagining her in his bedroom, laying on the carpet, waiting for him to come back and reveal that it was all just a joke. Of course he would never leave her. Was she still waiting?