Then I Met My Sister

by Christine Hurley Deriso

  I’m back to flipping pages, but Gibs sits on the other end of the couch and kicks off his sneakers like he’s settling in for details.

  “How did she die?”

  I squint to focus on the glossary. “Car accident.”

  Gibs’ eyebrows knit together. “What happened?”

  I look at him squarely. “Didn’t I just say? A car accident. An accident involving a car.”

  He shakes his head impatiently. “But what happened ?”

  I sigh, toss my book to the side and hug my jeans-clad knees against my chest. “She was driving to school. It was the first day of her senior year. A dog ran in front of her … or a cat, or a squirrel … something … and she swerved and hit a tree.”

  Gibs stares at his fingers. “Wow.” He blushes. “I’m really sorry.”

  I poke his arm playfully. “I didn’t know her, remember? Telling me you’re sorry she’s dead is like telling me you’re sorry Abraham Lincoln is dead. And speaking of history …” I nod toward my book.

  “It’s not like that at all,” Gibs counters, glancing at her portrait on the wall. “She was your sister. God, you two look like twins. She’s, like, a piece of you.”

  “Well, your great-great-grandfather was, like, a piece of you. But you can’t miss someone you never knew.”

  Gibs’ dark blue eyes flicker in my direction. “A sister’s not like some random ancestor. Great-great grandfathers are supposed to be dead. Sisters aren’t.”

  I consider his point, but mostly, I’m irritated we’re talking about the subject in the first place. “I know,” I say patiently. “It’s very sad she died. On the other hand, if she hadn’t died, I wouldn’t have been born, so I wouldn’t be here to talk about why you can’t miss somebody you never knew, so …”

  “How do you know that?” Gibs asks, his eyes now locked with mine.

  “Know what?”

  “That you wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t died?”

  I shrug. “My parents only had me because they were so bummed about losing her.”

  Gibs peers past me. “Which makes you wonder … I mean, life may be totally random … but if there’s some kind of grand plan, if you were meant to be here, it’s like Shannon had to die to make that happen.”

  I huff and sit up straighter. “History. We’re supposed to be studying history.”

  Gibs rests his chin on his fist. “But what’s the point, if everything’s random? Even weirder, what’s the point if everything’s predetermined? What good is learning about history if we don’t have the power to control our own fate? Maybe you’re destined to flunk history, and nothing we do can change that. Or maybe an asteroid will randomly hit the earth ten seconds from now, and none of this will matter anyway.”

  I grab a throw pillow and playfully bounce it over his head.

  “Or maybe my history teacher will morph into a Vulcan and whisk us away on the Starship Enterprise. But on the off chance that I actually have to pass my history exam, could you please help me study?”

  Gibs looks at me evenly. “So you never even think about her?”

  I toss my head backward and groan. “Why do we have to talk about this?”

  “You do think about her,” Gibs deduces. “You’ve got to. She’s your sister.”

  I stare at the ceiling fan and notice a strand of cobweb extending from the ceiling to one of the blades. Somehow, the strand stays intact even as the fan slowly oscillates. “I have no choice but to think about her,” I tell Gibs, still staring skyward. “Especially with friends like you.”

  It’s true. Shannon has been the backdrop of my life since the moment I was born … since the moment I was conceived, really. My earliest memory is of my grandma getting misty-eyed when I sat at the kitchen table threading macaroni noodles onto the tines of my fork. “Just like Shannon used to do,” Grandma said in a choked voice, at which point I stopped threading the noodles and started dicing them into slivers. I thought it would make Grandma laugh, but instead she turned stern. “Eat your lunch,” she scolded.

  “I’ll eat my lunch,” I remember thinking, “but I’ll do it my way.”

  Our house is like a Shannon museum, featuring the Wall of Fame with its framed photos of every school picture. As you walk down the hall leading to our den, you move from toothless first-grader to stunning blonde in the course of just a few steps. The effect is like a bubble that grows larger, larger, larger until it bursts.

  My school photos are on the opposite wall. Shannon never looks directly into the camera, always past it, but my eyes stare straight ahead … straight into Shannon, as if indicting her for being so much more fabulous. Shannon’s sparkly eyes, gazing past me, are oblivious.

  This year, the number of photos grew even. When Mom hung my eleventh-grade photo opposite Shannon’s, perfect symmetry was achieved. My senior photo will ruin the effect. And of course, I’ll have no one to bore my eyes into.

  The second-story hall displays our framed certificates and plaques. That wall will never be symmetrical. Shannon Elizabeth Stetson, First Place. Shannon Elizabeth Stetson, Grand Prize. Shannon Elizabeth Stetson, Perfection Personified. Shannon outpaced me by the time she was in second grade. I don’t know how there were enough hours in the day to accommodate her dancing, her cheering, her debating, her junior-achieving, her future-business-leading, her volleyball, her school honors, her vast greatness in general. You can tell at a glance that Mom had aesthetics in mind when she first started hanging Shannon’s frames. In the earlier ones, she gave careful attention to placement, ensuring an equal amount of space between each frame. But as Shannon’s honors accumulated, Mom’s eye for decorating took a back seat to practicality, with frames squeezing ever closer together and forming cluttered new layers that eventually covered the surface like wallpaper.

  The opposite wall—my wall of shame—is sad and sparse, a few honorable mentions for art or writing, a few photocopies of the same certificate every kid on the soccer team gets for showing up and having a pulse.

  Having a pulse. There’s that stab of guilt I get when I think too long or too hard about Shannon. I can be glib in short spurts. My conscience kicks in on longer intervals.

  “You do think about her,” Gibs’ voice reverberates in my head. “You’ve got to. She’s your sister.”

  But he’s wrong. I don’t think about her much, mostly because I don’t have much to think about. True, her greatness stares me in the face every second of my life, but it’s an abstract greatness, as generic and one-dimensional as the certificates on the wall. Our house may be a Shannon Museum, but my family never shares anything real about her. Did she ever adopt a stray cat? Throw a tantrum because she didn’t get a Christmas present she wanted? Damned if I know. Mom and Dad can’t go there.

  All I really know is how she threaded her macaroni through the tines of her fork, or other little tidbits my relatives might share in hushed, reverent voices, the way they talk about saints.

  But from Mom and Dad, I get nothing. The photos and certificates apparently say it all.

  I remember going to the zoo with my parents when I was about five. Mom was holding my hand as we walked past the elephants, and I asked if they’d ever taken Shannon there. Her grasp turned into a death grip. My knuckles blanched as Mom gave my arm a yank and pulled me along faster. Dad scurried to keep up.

  And I’d missed my chance to take a closer look at the elephants, my favorite animal.

  They never did answer my question, or any others about Shannon that might come to mind.

  And I stopped asking.

  “Prussians,” I remind Gibs, sounding testier than I intended.

  “Right,” Gibs agrees. “Prussians.”

  Four

  I’m dreaming that I’ve fallen down a manhole and mice are nibbling on my toes.

  I squeal out loud. Something really is nibbling on my toes.

  Oh, right. It’s my birthday.

  I open my eyes and squint against the bright sunshine that pierces through t
he slits in the shutters. Mom is at the foot of my bed, smiling at me.

  “Eight, nine, ten! All there.”

  I yank my foot away from her cool hand. This is no way to start the weekend.

  “Mom, it’s Saturday.”

  She walks around the bed and kisses my forehead. “You know I always have to start your birthday by counting your fingers and toes. It’s a tradition … the first thing I did when you were born.”

  I rub my eyes sleepily. “Can’t we just assume they’ll all be there from one year to the next? I mean, if I severed a finger or a toe, I’d probably mention it at the time, rather than waiting for you to find out during the next birthday count.”

  Mom brushes hair off my forehead and smiles. “My witty, silly Summer.” She gazes into my eyes. “I can’t believe you’re seventeen.”

  Her throat catches on the last word.

  “Japanese tonight?” I ask, eager to change the subject.

  “We have reservations at seven,” Mom says, her voice firm and strong again. “Grandma and Grandpa are coming, and Aunt Nicole and Uncle Matt, and … oh, did you want to invite your friend? The surgeon’s son?”

  “Gibs? I dunno. I guess so. He’s been helping me study for my history final, so I kinda owe him anyway. Is it okay?”

  “Of course it’s okay. We’d love to have him. So … are you two getting serious?”

  I prop up on my elbows. “About my history final? Yes, we’re very serious about it.”

  Mom raises an eyebrow. “You know what I mean.”

  Unfortunately, I do. It drives Mom crazy that I don’t date. Frankly, I’d rather date amphibians than most of the guys in my school. Gibs is different, of course—smart, sweet, funny—which is what makes him such a good friend, which is why we spent the junior/senior prom watching Monty Python movies in his basement.

  “We’re just friends, Mom,” I say.

  “Hmm.” Mom’s hmm means we’ll see about that.

  Then she just keeps sitting there. Like I’m on a ventilator or something.

  I flutter my eyelashes to signal that now that Mom has verified my fingers and toes are still intact, I might as well go back to sleep, considering it’s seven a.m. on a Saturday. But she isn’t budging.

  “Well,” she finally says. “Time for work.”

  I peer at her quizzically. “Do I have a job?”

  “Oh, quit being silly. I told you Aunt Nicole needed help at the flower shop.”

  My jaw drops. “Uh, not.”

  “Uh, yes. I distinctly remember discussing it with you.”

  I huff indignantly. “Was I in the room at the time? Or maybe we ‘discussed’ it when I was asleep? God, Mom.” She’s such a control freak.

  But she’s not listening to me. She’s set her plan in motion, and now all she has to do is move the little chess pieces to her specifications. I’m a lowly pawn. She flutters through my room, opening blinds, pulling clothes out of my closet, patting my leg—“Up, up! Chop, chop!”—and spraying asthma-inducing air freshener for good measure.

  “I’ll have breakfast waiting when you get downstairs,” she says briskly. “Hurry! You start at nine.”

  “Mother!” I finally manage to wail, but she’s floating out the door, all tip-toed lightness and swooping skirt. Control-freaking puts her in such a good mood.

  I groan, make my way to the shower, come back in my room, cough away the air freshener fumes, slip on some jeans and a T-shirt, then run a brush through my hair. Mom gives my hair a look of concern at least a couple of times a day, sometimes holding up a strand, studying it as if it were a lab specimen, then letting it fall limply back into place. My hair is “fine-textured,” she’s explained to me patiently, making it sound like a disease diagnosis, and requires “extra care” that I tragically can’t muster the motivation to give it. So I grow it long and swish it in her direction at every opportunity.

  I walk downstairs and join Mom and Dad in the kitchen. Mom glances at me, winces, then turns back to the eggs on the stove.

  “Happy birthday, honey,” Dad says without looking up from the newspaper. “Any special plans for the day?”

  “Other than slave labor?” I ask, joining him at the table.

  “Summer got a job in Aunt Nicole’s flower shop,” Mom says, bizarrely insinuating I had a hand in my fate.

  “Mmmmmm,” Dad says. He functions in this household on a strictly need-to-know basis.

  “Need some help with your hair?” Mom asks as she spoons eggs onto my plate. “A blow-dryer would give it some body.”

  “What am I supposed to do at the flower shop?” I ask, stabbing my eggs with a fork.

  “Whatever Aunt Nicole asks you to do,” Mom replies.

  “Yeah, what exactly might that … entail?” I’m envisioning some poor bride carrying a handful of dandelions and wild onion greens down the aisle after I’m tasked with making her bouquet.

  “I don’t know,” Mom murmurs, adding more eggs to my plate. “Maybe she’ll have you keep the books or something.”

  “Keep the books.”

  “Don’t be sarcastic, Summer.”

  I sigh. “All I did is repeat what you said.”

  “I’m sure Aunt Nicole will put you to work in whatever way you can be helpful. You’ll learn some new skills, earn a little spending money. It’ll be great.”

  Dad turns toward Mom. “Does she have to start on her birthday?”

  “Well, it’s not like she had any elaborate plans,” Mom sniffs.

  Touché. No statewide literary meets, drill team competitions, or dressy-casual birthday teas for me today.

  Dad winks at me. “Sometimes the best plans are no plans.”

  Mom clangs dishes noisily behind me. Dad never gets with the program. I love that about him.

  “Bless you.”

  “Thanks,” I tell Aunt Nic, wiping a watery eye.

  I’ve sneezed, like, eighty times since I walked into the flower shop. I’ve been here a million times before, but there’s something about being elbow-deep in amaranthus that wages war on my immune system. Where the hell are the “books” I was supposed to keep?

  I’ve been in the back of the shop all morning, lugging flowers from a refrigerator to a work table, wiping the dirt off my arms as I drop a load, so Aunt Nic can pin the flowers onto a wreath or stuff them into a vase.

  “We’ll have to keep you stocked up with allergy medicine,” Aunt Nic says, grabbing a bunch of peach-colored roses from my thorn-pricked arms.

  Darn. I was hoping she’d say, “We’ll have to keep you far, far away from this death trap.”

  The bell dings as a customer opens the door and calls, “Helloooo!”

  “Want me to go wait on her?” I ask.

  Aunt Nic surveys me hastily, then shakes her head. She’s much less uptight than Mom, but I guess my scratched-up arms, watery eyes, and dirt-smudged clothes don’t exactly scream customer service. She gives me a quick smile and walks out to greet the customer.

  They begin a sing-song conversation—everybody who walks into a flower shop is apparently in a pretty decent mood—and I grab my cell phone to call Gibs.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m being held hostage in—ah-choo—my aunt’s flower shop.”

  “Bummer. I’m painting my parents’ bedroom.”

  Damn. Gibs can always one-up me.

  “Mom is making me work here,” I say. “I got, like, fifteen minutes’ notice this morning that I was starting today. My birthday.”

  “Today’s your birthday?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Happy birthday.”

  “Thanks. Wanna eat Japanese tonight with my family?”

  “Um … yeah. You sure?”

  Ah-choo. “Yeah. Mom’s your biggest fan now that she’s found out you’re brilliant.”

  “She won’t be expecting me to recite poetry or explain algorithms or anything, will she?”

  “Maybe. Better come prepared. My house at six?”

  “Su
re, and …”

  Ah-choo.

  “… thanks.”

  Aunt Nic rejoins me in the back room as I stick my cell phone back in my pocket.

  “Hey, you’re on for Japanese tonight, aren’t you?” I ask her.

  “Sure. Your treat?”

  I wrinkle my nose. “I’m gonna have to spend all my paycheck on allergy medicine.”

  She pauses, weaves her eyebrows together, and nods her head toward a rumpled plaid loveseat. “Let’s sit down for a sec.”

  I squint at her quizzically, but she’s already headed for the sofa. I follow her and, as I sit down, I notice she’s carrying a brown paper bag. She sits beside me, holding the bag on her lap.

  “Um … ” Aunt Nic says haltingly, “Uncle Matt and I will give you your birthday present at the restaurant tonight. But there’s something else I thought you might like to have.”

  “What is it?” I strain to peek into the bag.

  Aunt Nic pauses. She looks like she’s tossing words around in her head, giving them a test run before saying them out loud. Finally, she hands me the bag. “Happy birthday, honey.” Her voice trembles.

  “What is up?” I ask her, but I’m already reaching inside the bag rather than waiting for an answer. I pull out a book. It’s bound in plump lavender fabric. It’s faded and, even with no writing on the cover, it looks dated.

  “Honey.” Aunt Nic grabs my hands, loosening the book from my grip as it lands on my lap with a dull thud.

  “Yes?”

  “You don’t have to read this if you don’t want to.”

  I glance down at the book, suddenly acutely curious. Every English teacher should preface a literature assignment this way: “You don’t have to read this if you don’t want to.” The assignment would become downright irresistible.

  “What is it?”

  Aunt Nic grows paler. She opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again. “Your sister kept a journal the last summer of her life.”

  The book feels heavier on my lap.

  I search Aunt Nic’s gray eyes. “Like … ‘I lost five pounds this week’? That sort of thing?”