In April, some sadist invents a new holiday called Sibling Day. Friends on Facebook post photographs of their brothers and sisters lined up in rows, Polaroids and black and whites, the old days, affection and attention.
My sisters remain silent, and I don’t possess any pictures to post. I know there is one, somewhere, of the three of us—Natalie, Suze and I lined up with Mom and Dad—but I don’t have a copy. Besides, I am painfully aware that there wasn’t much sibling love in that photo, or in our lives. My sisters were close in age but I was an alien, born several years after they were. My father thought it was funny to suggest that I was adopted, as though he doubted my paternity. Then he’d say that when I was born I looked like an ancient old relative by the name Effy Smellie. That was her actual name.
My sisters didn’t warm up to me though I revered them and tried to tag along. Suze was often downright cruel and unless she needed me for something Natalie ignored me. Until I was older and noticed other people’s families, sibling closeness was something I didn’t know existed. There was no cheery closeness among us. No loving strokes or tender murmurs. No hugs. No sisterly cuddles. No love. Our parents didn’t model love—I never once saw them kiss—so my sisters and I didn’t learn to love, at least not by showing affection.
One time, possibly the same year the missing photo was taken—I was swimming in the lake with my cousin, Hannah. My sister Natalie was playing lifeguard—standing on the end of the dock in her flip-flops and skirted two-piece bathing suit, with a whistle hanging around her neck. Hannah and I were up to our armpits in water, our bare feet sliding around on the slimy stones on the bottom of the lake. We would have preferred to swim farther out at the sandbar but Natalie insisted we play lifeguard or swimming lessons or some bossy game of her choosing.
Natalie had a hard, round, life-saving ring tied to the end of a long yellow rope. She was swinging it back and forth, preparing to launch it toward us and then haul us back to the dock through the water.
It was a breezy summer day. The wind was blowing sideways and the lake was choppy. A seagull flew over caw-cawing. Maybe I was looking at the seagull. Or maybe I was looking through the water, scanning the bottom of the lake for those horrible green leeches that sometimes adhered to the stones. But whatever I was doing I didn’t see the heavy, round, life-saving ring sailing through the air toward me.
Thwump.
My cousin Hannah must have saved me. She must have pulled me up and out of the water and towed me to the dock.
I don’t remember that part. All I remember is waking up on my towel on the lawn with a box of pink Elephant Popcorn beside me. I remember wondering if I’d fallen asleep in the sun, and where the popcorn had come from. I remember wondering why Natalie was being so nice to me.
Scrolling through Facebook on Sibling Day is like looking at exhibits in the zoo—intriguing, amusing, but foreign and somewhat preposterous.
And then I start to cry and I cannot stop.
###
From An Empty Nest: A Summer of Stories.
