Sister Sadie
This is how it always starts with Sadie: an embrace at the front door, a sit-down in the den with two glasses and a wine bottle, a remark that's taken the wrong way, and then, 24 hours of pulling off old scabs. I saw a movie one time in which one sister says to the other, 'If I just saw you on the street, if we were strangers, I wouldn't even want to know you." Sadie crawls up inside me and I her, inflicting the maximum damage possible in the space of a weekend visit. Were we always like this? Sadie's daughter asks. I say, "I believe I have photographic evidence." I send her to the den to take down some old albums from a high shelf. She doesn't understand this specific kind of hatred because her two older brothers adore her. She is more like a mascot to them than a real human being. She has never felt the power of resentment that leads to magical thinking: I wish that person had never existed . In a photo from the 60s, Sadie and I are standi