Rise up, Madeleine (2025)

When they were children, by the edge of a river full of promises, Kevin asks his sister Maddie to stay “gold.” Years pass, and life steals Madeleine's childhood lightness, leaving behind only the shadow of an uncomprehended promise. Trapped by expectations and suffocated by her own existence, she longs to rescue herself from the fog of the past.

(Inspired by the song Madeleine, from the Backstreet Boys)

“What are you doing, Maddie?” Kevin asked, sitting beside his younger sister, who was watching the ships sail away on the river that surrounded the house where they lived.

“I'm trying to draw those ships, but I can barely see them!”

Kevin laughed and lifted his sister onto his shoulders.

“Better now?”

“Much better, thank you!”

A few minutes passed, and Kevin felt that Maddie was no longer drawing. Even so, he decided to leave her where she was.

“Kevin, where do you think those ships are going?”

“I don't know, little one. They go to different places, it's hard to tell.”

“Do you think they'll find treasure? Or maybe… maybe, a lost land! What do you think would be there, Kevin? I bet there would be mermaids!”

“Oh, for sure, Maddie. What else do you think they would find?” he asked, now putting his sister down and sitting on a bench while she stood in front of him. The little girl put a hand to her chin as if she were thinking about something very serious.

“Hmm… pirates! Pirates, with swords and a plank, and lots of stolen treasure! They wouldn't want to share anything with other people.”

“Certainly.”

Kevin always smiled at his sister's fertile imagination and optimism, and it was something he wished life would never take away from her, as it had taken from him once, many years ago.

“Do you think one of those ships is commanded by a captain? I wanted to be a captain of a ship, Kevin, I would tell so many stories!”

“I'm sure they would be exciting stories! Captain Maddie, braving the seven seas!”

“And you could be my first mate!”

Kevin raised an eyebrow.

“Where did you learn that word?”

“In a book! But hey, Kevin, would you be my first mate? Please, please!”

“Is that even a question? Of course, I would!”

Kevin tickled his sister and then placed her on the bench beside him. They watched the sunset together, Maddie leaning on her brother as she felt sleep coming.

“I'm going to miss you…”

Kevin looked at her and sighed.

“I'm going to miss you too, little one. But college doesn't last long, I'll be back soon. Until then, I want you to promise me one thing.”

Maddie looked up, her huge eyes waiting to hear what he would say.

“Stay gold.”

Maddie frowned.

“What does that mean?”

Kevin smiled slightly and held his sister's small hand.

“You'll understand in a few years.”

The two continued to sit there, watching the sun disappear until darkness arrived, and the ships sailed away.

***

Ten years had passed, and Madeleine never understood what it meant to stay gold, and Kevin never explained it to her. But then again, what opportunity would he have to do that now that it was her turn to leave?

She didn't want to go. Her heart pounded with anxiety, fear, and anger. Strangely, the day before she had been looking forward to it, but her emotions were unstable and constantly created friction between her and her family members.

High school had been a nightmare, and now the pressure to go to college suffocated her. She felt that ever since her brother left home, her childhood had been stolen. Her parents were very demanding about her grades, which for many years had been her only form of validation. While her friends played outside, she stayed home, doing homework and preparing for tests, to maintain her position as the best student in the class.

In adolescence, while her high school friends ventured out and became independent, Madeleine isolated herself more with each passing day. Her academic failure was the cause of many arguments and a severe diagnosis of depression. The repressed emotions manifested in tears that appeared at midnight, for no apparent reason.

Maddie no longer knew what she wanted for her life. She felt like a person without identity, without ambitions, without freedom. Only dreams… suffocated dreams of recovering everything she had lost at some point, but which she was unable to remember when.

“Madeleine, Kevin is arriving with your father, let's wait downstairs.”

Her mother barely spoke at her door and had already left again. Maddie sighed and went downstairs. She sat reading a fantasy book she had started a few weeks ago while her mother looked at something on her cell phone.

“Did you read the file I sent you about college?”

“I read it,” she replied with a sigh.

“It would be good if you started studying the basic content now, so you'll be ahead. This is important for networking…”

“Okay, Mom.”

“You always say that, but you just keep reading those things. Time is passing, Madeleine, you need to grow up.”

Maddie closed the book abruptly and placed it on the sofa. She wasn't going to have that conversation again.

Before they started arguing again, the front door opened, revealing Madeleine's father and…

“Kevin!”

The girl ran towards her older brother, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug. Since he left home, she had only seen him through video calls.

“Maddie! How you've grown!”

The warm greeting between the siblings was very different from the cold politeness he had with his parents. Kevin spent the car ride with his father trying to find out about family matters, but his father only wanted to talk about work and opportunities, important people he wanted Kevin to meet… it hadn't started well.

The family stayed in the living room, and Madeleine stayed by her brother's side the whole time, but as soon as she felt that the conversation would reflect on her and the expectations placed on her, she decided to leave the house with the excuse that she was going to “watch the sunset.”

She sat outside and watched the river, as she used to do in her childhood. There were fewer ships than before, but they were still there. Closing her eyes, she tried to empty her mind and relax, but the tears simply fell. Maddie felt nothing at that moment, but the tears fell anyway, automatically. She took a deep breath and tried to hold them back.

A few minutes later, she felt her brother's presence approaching. Kevin sat beside her and remained silent for a while before speaking.

“Remember when we used to sit here to watch the ships? I would put you on my shoulders so you could see better, and you would wonder where they were going.”

“I don't really like remembering that,” she confessed.

“Why not?”

“I don't know. Thinking about childhood makes me…”

“Sad?”

“No. Angry. I… I don't know how to feel sadness anymore, Kevin. It feels like everything is too much for me, I always express myself with anger. Our parents say I'm out of control and always want me to shut up and listen, or to stop being so reactive… and I can't. I try too hard, and I can't. And now, at the same time that I need freedom, I'm afraid of it. I'm already an adult, no one understands why I just don't make my own decisions, but it's not easy when you're raised this way.”

Kevin listened to her attentively, without interrupting her at any point. He nodded and felt tears forming in his eyes.

“I understand that better than anyone, little sister,” he took a deep breath before continuing. “Do you know what I meant when I asked you to stay gold?”

“No. I never understood.”

“I saw it in a high school book. Maddie, staying gold is not changing, not losing your essence. Staying true to who you are, even in the midst of difficulty. But the poem itself said that nothing gold can stay. Something stole your tears and your smile in these last few years, didn't it?”

Maddie nodded her head. Her eyes were red from the tears she was trying to hold back.

“I couldn't keep the promise. Not only did I not stay true to myself, but I completely lost myself, Kevin. I don't know how to live anymore.”

“I went through the same thing. That day we sat here, before I left, I was feeling the same way you're feeling now. Fear, anger, frustration, insecurity, and the feeling that I had lost myself along the way. But I went anyway. Because I knew that if I didn't go, I would be trapped in this same cycle forever.”

“And are you happy?”

“I am. The sun has risen again for me, Maddie. And it will rise again for you too.”

Madeleine smiled and rested her head on her older brother's shoulder.

“What if it doesn't work out?”

“What if it does? I know you see a dark forest before you, but you don't know that perhaps, in the midst of the darkness, you can find other fields… fields…”

“Of gold,” she completed. “My freedom and identity back,” she said with hope in her voice. “That would be perfect.”

“And it will be. You'll see.”

Kevin stood up and held out his hand to his sister.

“Rise up, Madeleine. The sun is coming.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“The sun is setting, Kevin.”

“That depends on what part of the world you're in.”

He winked and walked back towards the house. Madeleine smiled to herself.

Then she stood up, thinking only of the golden fields that awaited her in the coming weeks.