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

she got nervous and wanted to leave. She hurried back into the house and said, very politely, “Do you want to go now, please, Tami.” It wasn’t a question. There was nothing more to be done after that, really. Tami, Teri, and Ken had eaten, and Margaret had made it clear that she wanted to get moving. There was no reason to stay. This, after all, was a family visit.

My sister brightened immediately when Tami said it was time to go. She jumped up and started bidding me farewell before the others had even left the table. Margaret gave me a big, one-armed hug, pressing her cheek against mine. “G’bye, Eileen! Thanks for the visit! Thanks for the lunch, Eileen!” she said. I knew she must be hungry, since she hadn’t eaten lunch, and I also knew she would probably get a stomachache if she didn’t eat. So I offered her a granola bar for the ride and found myself grateful that she accepted it.

“Okay, Eileen! G’bye, Eileen! Thank you! Nice seeing you!” Margaret kept saying this and waving to me as we walked together toward the car. I hugged her again and said good-bye to the rest of them after giving Tami directions to the highway. “G’bye, Eileen!” Margaret was still saying as they pulled away from the curb. “Thank you very much for coming!” she yelled out the window. She looked so joyful, never so happy as when she was allowed to leave. But isn’t that how it is sometimes with family? The best part of the visit, when you feel both affection and relief, is when you get to drive away.

A few days after this visit, I got a card in the mail, clearly dictated by a staff member, because Margaret doesn’t usually write in complete sentences. In Margaret’s large, signature printing, the following message crawled across two pages: “Here is a pichter of you and me. I really liked visiting with you. I liked your house. Love Margaret Garvin.” And then another, “MARGARET GARVIN!!!” with stars around it. Along with this card was a photo that Tami had taken. Margaret is doing her fakey, I’m-in-front-of-the-camera smile, and I’m leaning over her looking worried.

I taped the picture to the refrigerator and put the card away in a box of letters, grateful that the kind staff had helped Margaret write to me and trying to bury my concern about their spelling skills. I started to write back, and then I thought, What’s the point? I wondered what it meant to her to get a piece of mail from me. Did she know where I was? Did she understand the concept of keeping in touch? These questions depressed me for days, even as I tried to be happy that we’d seen each other instead of dwelling on my mortification at being the Shut Up Sister.

IN THE WEEKS that passed, I found myself reading more about autism, continuing my quest for information about siblings of autistic adults. One book had a short section on relationships between siblings. In it, a parent commented, “When we explained to our daughter that autistic kids often have trouble responding to other people, I think it was a relief to her. Sometimes I wonder if she didn’t blame herself for their lack of a relationship.” Reading that sentence reminded me that there is a third party involved here, and its name is autism. So I put some of my guilt in the storage locker where I keep my self-pity and decided to just keep trying with Margaret and see what happened.

A few days later the unexpected happened. I got a voice mail message from my big sister. That was a first. I heard heavy breathing into the phone. Then I heard her high little monotone voice saying, “Hello . . . Hello . . . Yes.” And in the background I heard a young woman’s voice saying, “Tell your sister hello. Say, ‘Hi, Eileen!’” Margaret dutifully said, “Hi, Eileen!” and hung up.

I called back and talked to the young woman, Alicia, who was a new staff member at Margaret’s house. “She kept calling me Eileen, because our names kind of sound the same, and so I thought she might be missing you. I asked her if she wanted to call you and she said yes,” Alicia told me. Did Margaret really want to speak to me? If this was a gift horse, I wasn’t looking for bad teeth. We chatted for a few minutes, and Alicia filled me in on what Margaret had been doing. At the end of our conversation, she asked me if I wanted to talk to my sister. I hesitated. Margaret and I did not talk on the phone. My family didn’t have the best phone skills to begin with, but Margaret really hated the phone. I was pretty sure she would get agitated and hang up on me in about five seconds. But I thought, What the hell. I’m used to being hung up on. “Sure,” I said, and Alicia passed the phone to Margaret.

We said hello, and I asked her what she had been doing, knowing she’d had a computer class that morning. She paused. “You went hiking,” she said firmly. It took me a second to realize that she was talking about our hiking excursion to Mount Spokane.

“Yeah!” I said, pleased that she’d remembered. “We did go hiking last summer. But what did you do today? Did you have computer class?”

“Yes.”

“Was it fun?”

“Yes.”

“Who else was there?”

Silence.

“Who was in your class, Margs?”

“You had computer class.”

“Do you want to go hiking again soon?”

Silence.

“Maybe you can come see me at my house again.”

Silence.

“I’m really glad you came to see me with Tami and Teri and Ken.”

Silence.

“Margs, do you remember coming to my house? Do you know where I live?”

“Yes.”

This was a pretty typical conversation. Yes and no are standard answers for my sister. If you asked her if she wanted pancakes or eggs for breakfast, she’d probably say yes,