Christine Deriso - Then I Met My Sister

Which is ironic, because as far as I can tell, all Shannon ever did was think about her future. And she ended up not having one.

Whatever look I’m giving Mom is frustrating the hell out of her. She leaps out of her seat with a burst of adrenaline. “And if you don’t ,” she says, pointing a manicured finger at me like a dagger, “don’t think you’re going to sit around here all summer doing nothing. If you can’t find anything constructive to do, I’ll find something for you.”

She strides out of the room, leaving a Shalimar-scented whoosh in her wake. I sit there for a second, chilled by the breeze she leaves behind, then turn back to the computer.

I see real potential in sitting around here all summer doing nothing.

Three

“You have a sister?”

Gibs and I have been friends since he moved to town a few months ago; he noticed me reading Nietzsche during lunch one day at school and wondered why somebody who read Nietzsche for fun wasn’t in his honors classes. He’s pretty shy, but we bonded over stolen smirks during a particularly painful poetry reading at a school assembly (don’t get me started on Priscilla Pratt’s breathless insights regarding sunsets or Leah Rollins’ groundbreaking take on the Importance of Honesty), and Gibs started inviting me to his house occasionally for guitar sessions or indie videos.

But this is his first trip to my house; Mom’s tendency to make my friends feel like they’re under FBI surveillance minimizes my invites. But she’s at work now, and I really need help with my history final, so here’s Gibs.

It occurs to me that it must strike him as pretty odd that I’ve never mentioned my sister. We’ve just walked past the Shannon Wall of Fame, on into the den where Shannon’s life-sized watercolor portrait smiles down on us from the most prominent wall in the room

“ Had ,” I say in response to his question. “I had a sister. She’s dead.”

“Oh,” Gibs says. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I never knew her. She died before I was born. Actually, she’s the reason I was born.”

Gibs narrows his eyes, waiting to hear more, but that’s really all I have to say about that. I let my backpack slide off my arms onto the carpet, unzip it, and pry out my history book. I plop on the floral overstuffed couch and start flipping pages.

“I’m really rusty on the Prussians,” I say, after settling on a page.

“What do you mean, she’s the reason you were born?” Gibs persists.

I shrug. “My parents were bummed when she died, so they had me. I’m their sloppy second.”

Gibs pushes a stray lock of hair behind his ear and sits on the other end of the couch. “Their what?”

“Their sloppy second. Shannon was perfect, their lives were perfect, everything was perfect-perfect-perfect, then she died. And my mom thought if she got pregnant again, she’d have another perfect baby. But she had me.”

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.