Christine Deriso - Then I Met My Sister

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 the 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.