Christine Deriso - Then I Met My Sister

My jaw drops. I was savvier at age twelve than Shannon apparently was at age seventeen. Could she really have been as naïve as she sounded? I keep reading. The upshot is that my tears are dried, Chris is alive and well, and my heart is happy.

God. She really was that naïve. So I’m ready for a rockin’ weekend. Oh, and one more thing—I’ve decided I’m going to talk to Mr. Kibbits about Dad.

Dad? My dad? What about our dad? I swallow hard. Nobody in my family ever talks about anything that matters, and if I don’t talk to somebody, my internal organs are going to explode. Thank heaven for Mr. Kibbits.

I lie there for a good five minutes, the journal frozen in my hands. I’m staring at Shannon’s words, but my eyes aren’t moving. I don’t know what to make of the sister I’ve just officially met. My ceiling fan whirs lazily and casts angular shadows on my bedroom walls.

I toss the journal aside, grab my cell phone, and text Gibs:R U awake? Call me.

My phone rings a few seconds later.

“What’s up?” Gibs asks.

I press a fingernail against my mouth. “I’m reading Shannon’s journal.”

“How far have you gotten?”

“Just a few pages … a couple of entries. The first two—June third and fourth.”

“What do they say?” Gibs asks, trying to suppress a yawn.

I make a split-second decision not to tell him about the suicide threat. I just can’t go there now.

“Um …” I sigh. “I don’t think I can keep reading.”

“Why not?”

I pull the covers closer to my chin. “This isn’t stuff she intended anybody to read. I feel like a peeping Tom or something.”

“But it’s not like she’s around to be ticked off about it,” Gibs replies.

“That almost makes it worse … to be reading her private thoughts when she’s not even here to defend herself.”

Gibs pauses. “So she needs to be defended?”

My eyebrows knit together. “I don’t know … kinda. She’s all … snarky. And sneaky. She was mad at Mom when she wrote it, and she sounds like some kind of spoiled princess. Nothing like the way people talk about her.”

“But you just read a couple of entries,” Gibs reminds me. “Maybe you just caught her in a bad mood.”

“Shannon didn’t have moods ,” I say testily.

Gibs laughs. “O- kay .”

“I mean …” I sigh, then let words tumble from my mouth. “I don’t know what I mean. This journal is making her seem like a real person. And not a particularly likable one, at least so far. I’m not sure I can handle that.”

“What kind of person did you think she was?” Gibs asks cautiously.

“The kind who won awards.”

“On, like, a full-time basis?”

I smile wanly. “I guess I never thought it through. In my head, Shannon was always bringing awards home and making Mom and Dad convulse in ecstasy over her fabulousness.”

“Snarky sounds more interesting than that,” Gibs observes reasonably.

“Yeah … but she’s telling secrets, too. She says in the entry that she’s going to talk to Mr. Kibbits about Dad. What about Dad? It’s all just too weird.”

Pause. “Whoa,” Gibs finally says. “It’s getting interesting.”

“Interesting unless it happens to be your dad.”

“Mr. Kibbits,” Gibs says to himself. “The AP English teacher?”

“Oh. Right.” I knew that name sounded familiar. AP teachers and I don’t exactly travel in the same circles.

“I’ll be in his Honors English Comp class next year,” Gibs says. “He’s in this writers’ club …”

“ Club ,” I interrupt him. “That’s another thing. Shannon talks about my mom being in clubs, like a book club, and belonging to all kinds of groups, like the church choir and the PTA, and …”

“And?” Gibs prods.

“And since when was she such a joiner? She’s totally neurotic about my schoolwork and always sucks up to my teachers, but she doesn’t do clubs .”

“But apparently she did at one time.”

“Whatever.” I don’t know why I’m snapping.

“Anyway, Mr. Kibbits’ club,” Gibs continues. “They meet at the library on Sunday afternoons. I’ve been a few times. They talk about books and sometimes read stuff they’re writing to the rest of the group.”

“And?”

“And tomorrow’s Sunday. We should go. We can stay afterward and ask him what your sister told him about your dad.”

My stomach tightens. “How is he supposed to remember a conversation from eighteen years ago?” I ask.

“Depends on how juicy it was.”

Another pause.

“Sorry,” Gibs says softly.

“It’s okay.” I can tell Gibs anything, right? I do tell him anything. So why do I suddenly feel so exposed? That settles it—I’m definitely not mentioning the suicide threat.

“Tell ya what,” Gibs says. “We’ll go to the writers’ club tomorrow. I’ll introduce you to Mr. Kibbits, then make myself scarce so you can talk to him alone.”

I open my mouth to speak, but realize my throat has tightened. Tears sting my eyes.

“Summer? Are you there?”

I nod and try to speak, but the words are still stuck in my throat.

“Summer?”

“This is all just a little … weird.”

He pauses. “Are you crying ?”

I shake my head quickly. “I’m fine.”

Gibs pauses again, then says, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe you should just forget the journal.”

But the instant he says it, I know there’s no turning back. It’s like I’ve been strapped into the roller coaster, the ride has started, and the car is inching up the incline. I’m terrified of getting to the top and hurtling down the hill, but there’s no going back.

“I’ll be okay,” I say, chopping the last syllable short to calm the quake in my voice.

“Just pace yourself,” Gibs says. “Maybe just read a little at a time. Then it won’t be a big deal. It’ll just be a few minutes out of your day.”

“Okay.” I smile at his earnestness. “Thanks, Gibs.”

“So we’re on for tomorrow? I’ll pick you up around three?”

Stupidly, I nod, afraid my voice will break again.

Somehow, Gibs gets that. “Around three, then,” he says gently.

I nod again, and he says goodnight in the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard. Never in my whole life have I felt as grateful to have a friend like him.

And God knows I’ve never needed one more.

Nine

“Morning, honey.”

Dad’s face is buried behind the paper again. He’s sitting at the kitchen table in a white T-shirt and flannel pajama pants, eating leftovers from the Japanese restaurant.

“Stir fry for breakfast?”

“Mmmmm,” Dad says, still not looking up.

I don’t know if his mmmm means the stir fry is good or if he’s totally ignoring me. Actually, I do know. I join him at the table and playfully thump the paper. He puts it down and smiles, his glasses still balanced against the tip of his nose.

“Did you have a good birthday?” he asks, taking another bite of leftovers.

“Mmmmmm.”

He nods. As a chemical engineer at a paper plant, Dad is brilliant with a protractor and a calculator, but irony flies right over his head.

Shannon’s words are still swimming in my head. Was she as snarky to Dad as she was to Mom, particularly considering whatever secret about him she was hiding? And what could that secret be? Dad is as predictable, and about as exciting, as the numbers he crunches on his calculator. So what could Shannon have possibly known? That he threw caution to the wind one day and read the sports section before the news?

I shudder a little. I mean, what the hell do I know? From the couple of journal entries I’ve read, Shannon is already starting to sound more like a Sylvia Plath character than a pep squad leader. What do I really know about anything, especially considering that my family is about as open and accessible as Fort Knox? Do I know them at all? Do I want to?