Two Sisters
by
Jeffrey Anderson
Copyright 2015 by Jeffrey Anderson
This story is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
An Ending
“No, no, no, Leah,” Brooke said in rebuke. Then her expression softened. “Let me show you.”
Leah wondered how many times she’d received exactly those words with exactly that combination of looks—reprimand immediately followed by cajoling—from her sister over the years. For some reason, today’s rendition recalled a long ago exchange in their brother’s treehouse in the backyard, preparing an afternoon tea for some imagined guests.
Matt had one day without word or warning abandoned that formerly zealously guarded treehouse in favor of long stints in his bedroom with the door closed and the blinds drawn in what Leah at the time had assumed to be some mystical communion with the gods of his adolescent reverie but now understood to have been masturbatory rhapsody, perhaps even that early with images of the boys from his gym class mixing with the air-brushed pictures of women in the well-thumbed pages of the Penthouse magazine he’d got from Joey Hanson down the street. It was Brooke, of course, who had set her straight on this point years later when in one of their rare discussions (as opposed to exasperated complaints) about their brother she had said, “It’s a wonder he didn’t yank that little thing off in all those hours alone in his room” and Leah had been naïve enough to tilt her head in puzzlement, prompting one more rolling of the eyes from her older (only two years on the calendar) and infinitely wiser sister.
At the treehouse tea preparations Brooke handed Leah the plastic plates and silverware from the canvas tote she’d dragged up the rope ladder; and Leah set them out on the square of plywood balanced atop the milk crate and covered with a floral cloth. They’d cut the tablecloth along with matching napkins from some curtains Momma had tossed in the trash. Brooke had taped the hems, using a whole roll of masking tape, and Leah ironed each piece with her play iron—the batteries actually warmed the aluminum face—on her play ironing board set off in the utility room end of the treehouse.
“No, no, no, Leah” Brooke had said as Leah carefully set the knife and spoon on the right side of the each plate, the fork on the left, in the manner she’d learned from Momma and duplicated countless times in her designated duty of setting the table for Sunday dinner each week after church. “Let me show you,” Brooke said then picked up the fork and set it on the right side of the plate, moving the knife and spoon to the opposite side.
Leah stared at this new arrangement with wide eyes—big and brown to her sister’s somewhat smaller and more closely set gray—and her mouth open. She’d not challenge her sister with the obvious and reliable But that’s not how Momma does it that she would’ve used on anyone else if they’d tried something so outrageous. She just stared and waited for the explanation that was always forthcoming and would always be right.
“What hand do you use to hold your fork?” Brooke asked in her big sisterly gaze of authority that Leah never saw anywhere else and that Brooke offered to no one else.
Leah held up her right hand.
“And what piece of silverware do you use to eat with?”
Leah pointed to the fork.
“Then what is the most logical place for the fork?”
Leah pointed to the right-hand side of the plastic plate with her right hand, where Brooke had already set the plastic fork.
“Doesn’t that make so much more sense, Leah?” Brooke said as she proceeded to reverse the silverware placement at the other three settings.
Leah didn’t respond, at least not audibly. But within herself she issued a silent affirmation. Yes, it did make sense coming from Brooke. It always made sense. She couldn’t resist.
“Now let me show you, Leah,” the grown up Brooke spoke into the lounge’s mirror as she slid the white satin waist sash from her wedding gown’s thin loops and raised it so that it crossed higher on her torso, up under her breasts encased in the lace bodice, freeing the lower part of the gown to hang loosely over her belly. Brooke handed the loose sash to Leah standing behind her. “Now tie it in a pretty bow so that the ends are the same."
Leah did as directed, adjusting the bow so that the trailing sash ends were exactly equal and fell naturally into the dress’s lower pleats.
“See!” Brooke said, gazing with satisfaction at the modification in the full-length mirror, the beautiful bride she’d long hoped to be now staring back at her in the mirror.
And Leah did see, not only her sister the bride reflected in the mirror but also all the way back to the start of their lives inextricably twined together, tighter even than that sash’s knot.
Floating and Sinking
The morning unfolded with a soundless grace and beauty, like a flower greeting the day, like one of the vibrant daylilies in Momma’s garden that was closed tight at dawn but slowly, resolutely, and silently unfurled the arms of its petals to welcome the sun, embrace it, be embraced in return. By ten it was already hot.
Brooke was in charge. She filled her Barbie thermos with lemonade, made two peanut butter sandwiches and cut off the crust, feeding those scraps to Roscoe their Boston terrier who was already way too fat, and wrapped the sandwiches in wax paper and set them in the lunch box. Then she loaded the wood-sided wagon—another hand-me-down from the aged-out Matt, off somewhere playing Army with the other neighborhood ruffians—with their lunch and two beach towels and a tube for Leah and a raft for her, both deflated and stored in tight rolls and tied with a piece of twine by their father. Then she rolled the wagon out of the garage and into that blazing sun.
Leah watched from the garage’s shadows in her shorts and T-shirt covering her bathing suit.
“Come on, Lee!” Brooke yelled soundlessly from the glare of the day outside. She had on her Barbie sunglasses—pink rims with dark green plastic lenses looking like big black holes where her eyes used to be.
Leah held on in the garage’s cool shade.
Brooke shook her head, her brown hair swaying back and forth in a slow motion wave that clearly brought her pleasure even as she tried to register annoyance, then dragged the wagon back into the garage. “The sun won’t hurt you, Leah,” Brooke said deliberately.
It wasn’t the sun Leah feared.
Brooke sighed then took a minute to rearrange the supplies in the wagon. She slid the lunchbox and inflatables to the front and used the towels to pad the wagon’s sides and back. She then pointed at the space she’d opened in the wagon’s bottom.
Though Leah was too old to be dragged around in a wagon, the spot looked good and safe to her. She sat down with inordinate grace and care, crossed her legs and leaned back against the towel-padded rail. She smiled up at Brooke.
Brooke couldn’t help but smile back. Then she held up a finger, ran into the house, and came back with Momma’s broad-brimmed straw hat, the one with the pink ribbon as a sash. She set the bonnet on Leah’s head. It was too big and fell low on her forehead. Brooke squatted beside the wagon. She could still see her sister’s eyes beneath the hat’s rim, and those eyes glowed big and round in their joyful best offering to her or the world. She nodded and tied the ribbon beneath Leah’s chin to secure the hat. She stood and looked down and laughed at the sight her sister made, her head hidden beneath the big round hat. Then she grabbed the handle and rolled the wagon’s now heavier cargo out into the sun and down the drive to the sidewalk winding off through the shade of the maple trees lining the street.
Leah loved the feeling of the wagon’s wheels rolling over the pavement and vibrating up through the wooden frame and into her body. This combined with
the hat’s broad brim low over her eyes defined a safe and manageable domain, with sunlight far off twinkling down through the leaves and the purr of the wheels going straight into her bones and her hands holding tight to the wooden sides swaying gently to and fro and rattling in their own way, into her fingers, her hands. She eased into the rhythms of the outing, her eyes finally settling on her sister’s head and back as she towed the wagon along the sidewalk. When she was older, she’d wonder what it was like to stride with that determination and confidence into the future. But at that moment in the wagon, it was enough to know that her sister was in charge, watching over her. She felt supremely safe in her big sister’s care.
At the pool the gate attendant—Sally Milton, a high-schooler from the neighborhood—blocked Brooke’s entry with the wagon and pointed to the bike rack. Brooke said something Leah couldn’t see, but she did see her sister’s shoulders and neck tense the way they did when she was really mad.
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