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

and taking over his twin bed so that I would get enough sleep to communicate with my relatives long enough to find out where the nearest coffee shop was. Then a powerful thought came to me and superseded the caffeine problem. I’m never going to have one of these, I thought. I’ll never have a little boy of my own. Suddenly I felt completely calm and aware. I don’t have any children, and it’s unlikely that I ever will. I often ponder the advantages of this decision, but at that moment, as Tony pitched onto his side and threw me an elbow, all I could think of was the loss it brought. The realization pierced me sharply just then, and the little feet didn’t bother me anymore, and after a while I fell asleep.

The reason I was in the Big Nana Pat Bed in the first place was that I was on an auntly errand, one I probably wouldn’t have been able to perform if I’d had kids of my own, in fact. Ann, whose husband was out of the country, had asked me to stay with her three children—Bobby, Julia, and Tony—while she attended a class in another town. My mission was simple: pick the little kids up from school, be home when Bobby got home from carpool, feed them dinner, make sure they did their homework, and keep them alive until they left for school the next morning. Then I was off the hook. I had accepted, but with a pang of fear in my heart. As a childless freelance writer, I lead a rather simple life. My day is centered on the coffeepot and a hot shower. I wander around in my bathrobe for the better part of the morning, and if you took away my computer and replaced it with a television, people watching what I do all day would say “loser” instead of “writer.” It’s all relative. Despite the simplicity of my solitary routine, I can make a part-time job out of letting the cats in and out on a given day. Being responsible for humans was another matter entirely. But I wanted to do it, so I had said yes and tried to feel brave.

For an hour or so after I arrived at their house, I just stood in the middle of the kitchen, wide-eyed. Living with children must make you feel like your house is haunted, I thought. Around every corner of Ann’s house was the sound of a person, or a pile of that person’s stuff, a recently vacated chair sliding across the floor, an electronic device just turned on, the shadow of a child disappearing around a corner, the flash of a shirttail, a sock heel. It seemed like they were in constant motion, so I stood still, clutched my glass of wine, and tried to pay attention to the directions my sister was giving while she made dinner. She’d get about halfway through some complex explanation about their education, health care, or spiritual well-being, and then she’d look up at me and say, “Oh, you know what I’m talking about.” I was too overwhelmed to say, “Do I? Are you sure?”

As we sat together enjoying the meal she’d prepared, my confusion intensified. It seemed like they all talked at the same time, but that could have been the wine. My sister mediated the conversation by asking each of them to tell the rest of us three things they’d done that day. Bobby was taking his turn when I heard Tony making a funny noise, and when I looked at him I realized he was choking. Before I could even think of what to do, he opened his mouth to breathe. A warm mist of milk sprayed across the table and showered my hair, shoulders, and chest. I sat there, milky beads cascading down the wales of my corduroy shirt, not reacting. There was a moment of silence, and then they all dissolved with laughter, my sister laughing the loudest. The four of them pounded on the table and gasped for air, unable to speak. I reached up with my napkin and dabbed at the milk pooling in my collarbone, calmly patted my hair, and waited for them to be quiet. After a minute or two it occurred to me that it really was hilarious to have milk in my hair, and I started to chuckle, which made them laugh harder. Then I really got going and snorted so loud that Tony nearly spewed milk all over me again. Eventually we pulled ourselves together and finished dinner. Thank God there was a parent there to lead us through.

IT’S TIMES LIKE this when I feel like my emotional comprehension runs about two minutes behind everyone else’s. And when you think about the nuances of humor, grief, or anger, that’s a lot of time. This lag time was kind of trained into me as a kid, when I had spent years trying not to respond to some antic of my sister’s. For instance, Margaret always got a huge kick out of spitting her juice in our faces at the dinner table. Some of her jokes would come and go after a few days or weeks, like chin pinching or hair pulling, but this one stuck around for years. As we five kids sat crowded around our sticky dining room table, one of us would feel the weight of her eyes upon us and, unwillingly, turn to look at her. She’d blow like a spouting whale, just inches away. Then she’d laugh and laugh, and our mother would tell us not to react, because it would only encourage her to do it more. So we’d just sit there with water or juice running down our cheeks and take another bite of canned corn or beans while she loaded up and did it all over again. Sometimes I’d get angry and yell at her, which usually made her laugh harder,