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

full of regulars, the air steamy with the scent of grilling meat. Nobody was talking much, as they were too focused on eating what was in front of them and trying to decide if they should give up their barstool or order another greasy delight. A few tourists wandered in and started wondering aloud if it was worth the wait and why they didn’t serve French fries here. Everybody at the counter, except for Margaret, rolled their eyes and kept chewing.

Later, we stood on the sidewalk outside the diner. “What’s next, Margaret?” We consulted our list.

“Shop!” she read.

“Okay, shop it is.”

I didn’t know why I had put shopping on the list, except that it seemed like a normal activity, something to extend our visit together. We walked down Sherman Avenue, a street that had become busier every year. Herds of tourist families waddled past, sucking on waffle ice cream cones, or stood in the middle of the crosswalk arguing about where to go next, oblivious to the idling traffic waiting for them to proceed. It seemed like every block had a couple of new restaurants, rock ’n’ roll blaring out onto the patio, young people drinking beer and shrieking with laughter. Margaret and I were both unnerved. We both have trouble with noise, although Margaret, having autism, is usually the more intolerant one. After all, I am supposed to be the normal one.

We took a left and moved down a quieter street. Some parts of the town looked exactly the same as they had when we first started coming here in 1973. Like us, some things had remained the same as others changed. Change isn’t always good or bad, I thought. It’s finding the balance that matters, and remembering to appreciate where you are when you’re there.

Margaret hadn’t looked at me since we’d left the burger joint. “Shop!” I heard her say under her breath. “You’re going shopping! Shopping!” As if she were saying, “Ah, shit!” Who was I kidding? I’d always hated shopping almost as much as she did.

“What do you think, Margaret? Do you want to go home?”

And suddenly her face was awash in sunshine. “Yes, please, Eileen!”

Back at the van, we climbed in and headed west into a light rain. Neither of us said a word all the way home. We were full. We were tired. It was enough. As I dropped Margaret off at her house, I felt happy that I’d made the trip. It didn’t matter that we hadn’t finished the hike. It didn’t matter that we hadn’t gone shopping, like normal sisters. I was no longer mad that on the way to lunch Margaret had reached over and shoved me, as I knew she would, just as I headed into a curve on the highway going about eighty miles an hour. That she immediately threw her arms around my neck in apology didn’t help much, being nearly as dangerous as the shove, but I’d managed to keep the van on the road.

What did matter was that we’d both done our best to spend the afternoon together. That made me feel happy, and I was pretty sure it made Margaret happy, too. She grinned and waved energetically at me as I stood on her porch saying good-bye. “Okay! Thanks for the lunch! Thank you very much for coming, Eileen! G’bye, Dizzy!” And still waving and grinning madly, she slammed the door in my face.

MONTHSPASSED. The summer had flown by and I hadn’t gone to visit again. I’d spoken to Margaret, briefly, over the phone. I’d made plans with one of her staff members to bring her down to my house for a visit. This would take some doing. Logistically, it called for a two-and-a-half-hour drive on my part to meet Margaret and Clifford, who had volunteered to drive her halfway in his own car. Then we would head to my house for the afternoon, evening, and the next day and night. The day after that, we would head back to the same meeting place after lunch, where I would drop her off. In my head this all sounded great. I had activities planned that I hoped would please us both. But I was also back to the not knowing, the uncertainty of the future. This was an experiment, and I had no way of knowing what would really happen once she got here or how either of us would feel until we were living through it together.

I WAS OUT in the yard again at the beginning of fall. The sun and water of a gorgeous summer had turned the backyard into a jungle. High over my head, the fennel waved its fragrant plumes in the air. The yarrow had spread itself the length of the beds. Lemon balm rose, leggy and dry, up past my waist. Sunflowers loomed well over seven feet, their heavy heads nodding in the afternoon wind. I knew what I needed to do without anyone telling me, and yet it seemed impossible—impossible, that is, until I began. For hours I cut and cleared, removing any leaf or stalk that seemed to have spent itself. My piles turned into mounds and filled the back of the pickup truck.

When it was over, I knew I had done the right thing. The plants that were still standing seemed to be stretching themselves out, taking in the sun and the air. The pruning made the yard seem more open, sparer. There was a beauty in the spaces between things. But there were a few spots, here and there, that simply looked empty. Beds, for example, where I dug out hundreds of iris rhizomes because they took too much water, created too much mess, sapped my energy. Those spots seemed like holes, gaping and wanting. I didn’t yet know what would go there, what would happen next. Something good, I was sure, would happen in those spaces. Some beautiful plants would eventually take the place of that emptiness and would teach