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 standing side by each, my arm over her shoulder. She is wearing my hand-me-down dress. Father is telling us to stand closer, stand straighter, stop squinting, and smile goddammit, film's expensive.
"Smile, girls," my mother coaches from the sidelines.
We do our best to compose our faces along pleasant lines, but in truth, neither of us ever smiles in the company of the other.
Friends assure me that, if my sister dies before me, I will miss her terribly. "She's flesh and blood, after all," they say. I wonder. I doubt it, actually.
I think her passing will feel like removing a garment that doesn't fit. I will breathe freely and stretch, and a thin red welt will heal where a seam has rubbed on me for 40 years.


Comments

  1. Gita SmithJune 24, 2019 at 2:04 PM

    Fiction. I have no sister.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ron.June 25, 2019 at 4:14 AM

    Wonderful invention, GS. Great stuff. This would be fiction for me, too; not because of my lack of siblings but because we're largely just strangers at this point in our lives. When I think about it honestly, it's (sadly) always been that way with my brothers, though my only sister and I have always enjoyed a closer bond. I saved her life once. You can read about it here, if you'd like: https://fiftywordstories.com/2018/11/06/ron-lavalette-14-year-old-pediatrician/

    ReplyDelete

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