How to Be a Sister by Eileen Garvin (icecream ebook reader .TXT) 📗

and I decided for myself that her mood was good. I found myself wanting to believe that this new version of my sister—the quiet Margaret, the calm, happy Margaret—was the real Margaret. The staff members at her group home had remarked upon her mellowing in the last couple of years. And when we went to the Starbucks near her house recently, I’d been impressed by the sense of being on her turf. The barista said, “Hey, Margaret! How’s it going? Grande decaf vanilla latte, right?” And she didn’t say it in that “I’m-being-nice-to-the-handicapped-person-because-I-am-kind” voice. She just treated her like a regular, because that’s what Margaret was. Margaret answered her, too, and remembered the woman’s name. I didn’t feel compelled to answer for her or say, “Margaret, tell the nice lady what you want, and stop shredding your napkin,” as I might have done in the past. I always feel like such an ass when I do that, like I am betraying her by trying to get her to act “normal” for the sake of other people. But I was the odd one out this time, a stranger who had to spell out my drink order for Margaret’s barista pal.

Hiking was taking things to a whole new level. But then I reasoned that it was likely she would refuse to get in the car with me when I got to her house, so the odds were I didn’t have much to worry about. She might just say, “Nothankyou, Eileen,” and slam the door shut in my face. I was prepared for her to refuse and told myself that was just fine, that I would try again some other time. But she had already exceeded my expectations by coming with me, and I was feeling buoyed by that.

Despite my happiness, my fear stayed with me. After all, it was just the two of us. Though Margaret was once inextricable from my daily life, I was no longer accustomed to spending time alone with her. As we rode in silence, I remembered a time I had taken her with me on a study date during high school, which had seemed like such a good idea at first. We went to the Coyote Café, where I worked, and I even got them to let us sit in a part of the restaurant that was quieter. I thought she would like to listen to the music (classic rock) and eat chips and salsa and color in her coloring books while I studied for my AP exams. We were there for about five minutes before she started laughing—loudly and hysterically—and spitting great foaming mouthfuls of Coke at me and onto my books. She wouldn’t stop. Or at least I didn’t wait to see if she would. Call me a coward, but I couldn’t take it that other diners were staring, that my co-workers were taking turns coming out into the lobby to gawk at Eileen’s weird sister. We left.

That was years ago, but I was worried about what might happen and if I would be able to handle it. I was afraid and trying to pretend that I wasn’t and simultaneously wondering if I would be able to handle the thing I was pretending not to be worried about. But at least things had started out smoothly today. There we were, two adult sisters out for the day, listening to the radio and enjoying a long drive on a summer’s morning. We drove to the summit of Mount Spokane to take in the view.

Mount Spokane is the southernmost peak in the Selkirk Range, which stretches up into British Columbia and Alberta. At its peak it rises to a height of nearly fifty-nine hundred feet and stands high above the nearby collection of small lakes—Newman, Hauser, and Spirit. We had grown up just miles from here, but I had no recollection of coming up to the mountain. Isn’t that how it is? You need to be a tourist in your own backyard to figure out where you came from.

Margaret and I strolled a short trail near the summit and drank in the wild palette of silver-leafed yarrow, scarlet Indian paintbrush, and lacy spirea. With my little black dog, Dizzy, in tow, we listened to the wind in the towering Ponderosa pines. In the higher altitude it was sunny but chilly for July, something I always seemed to forget. The wind whipped through our hair as we climbed up to the stone lookout house. It was dark and cold inside. Empty, I thought. Margaret loved the echo in the long, low room, and she called out, “Well, hello, there!” to hear the sound of her own voice bounce off the chilly walls. “Hel-LOW, there!” She laughed. I laughed, too, because she sounded so normal and so cheerful, but she wasn’t talking to anyone. She was just loving the sound of her voice.

I noticed a father and his two little boys standing in the lookout. I smiled and said hello, but the dad just looked at us with suspicion and didn’t say anything. The kids stared; the youngest one said, “Hi.” “Hi!” I said back. The dad said, “Let’s go, boys,” pretending like he didn’t see us or hear me. Margaret didn’t care; she was saying, again, “Well, HELLO, there!” and laughing. But it bugged me that he ignored us. It always has bugged me, being the “normal” one and watching the adults who decide that the best way to deal with the strangeness in my sister is to pretend she doesn’t exist.

The wind and shade of the lookout cast a chill, so I gave Margaret a long-sleeved shirt, which she pulled on and zipped up against the cold. It was too small and stretched tight across her big boobs, but she didn’t seem to mind. We headed back to the footpath. Dizzy jogged along in front of us and circled back to check on us when we lagged too far behind. Dizzy sniffed Margaret’s hand