She will speed
into your driveway while you are drawing with chalk. She will run past you
without looking at you, even
though you haven’t seen each other in years.
After she emerges teary eyed from
your parents room, she will stop to visit, but not before she goes to her truck
and comes out with gifts. A calendar and a teddy bear for you and toe rings for
your other sisters. The conversation will be meaningless and awkward. When she
leaves you will tell her you love her she will laugh and say goodbye. You used
the calendar but felt bad because you knew it was meant to buy your love or
forgiveness. Are they really all that different? And you were giving them for
free. You’re in debt now.
Months later,
just after Christmas, the phone rings and you answer. It’s her. You tell her
what you got because she asks. After an awkward silence you ask about her
Christmas. “Oh it was great!” She says a little too loudly. And you wonder if
she is going to cry. She describes all her gifts in detail. And you think of a Lie to Me episode where they said
criminals will be over-descriptive in an effort to convince someone of a lie.
But you hope she had a good Christmas anyway. After you hang up, you tell your
mother to mail her pictures of all of us.
The school year
has ended. The phone rings and you check the caller ID then continue to pour
your cereal for dinner.
You’re downtown
with friends headed to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Before entering you
realize you are close to where your sister lives. You think about how your
friends aren’t even aware that you share blood with someone who lives within a
two mile radius of here. You think about how some of them might not even know
who have a sister. You remember the
ignored call from months before and feel guilty. “I’ll be in in a minute.”
You’re friends go on ahead. You wander
around the block not sure really what you are looking for but get scared by a
homeless person and quickly return to the restaurant. Your friends have already
ordered. You sit and watch them eat.
When you get home that night you
ask your parents if they have heard from her lately.
“She lives in Nevada now with
Some Man.” They said “Some Man” as though that was his name.
“Oh.” Nevada? Some Man?
When summer rolls
around again after your junior year your family takes an RV trip across the
states. Welcome to Nevada. You wonder who would willingly
live here. There is nothing to look at but
wind. You are playing cards on the table with your brother
which is extremely difficult because the draw pile keeps moving around. You
notice the air becomes tighter. It is as though everyone’s thoughts and emotions became
tinier. And you remember; your sister lives here with that man named Some. But
no one says
anything. You wonder if she can feel her family passing by, whether sharing blood holds more power than you realize.
You remember a book you read where a Mother received a letter informing
her that her son had
died in war overseas. Despite her
family’s acceptance of his death, she continued to believe he was alive until
one day, months later, she felt what she described as a tiny burst in her heart
as though the shadow of her heart leapt, and she knew then that he was dead.
Journal entries and hidden writings in a POW camp confirmed that he had died
the day the Mother was gardening. What is there to say? How do you talk to your
sister?
*This is an imitation of How To Talk To A Hunter by Pam Houston
Also, sorry about the funky format; I couldn't change it.
