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Sister

By: Leeanne Nagle (Vassar College)

By chance, extremely random chance, I discovered that my sister has also been a member of the Something Fishy Website. ALthough, perhaps due to age, I have admittedly been a member far longer than my sister has, it was extremely comforting to find out that my sister, too, has finally sought out her own sources of help (the key here is: her own sources). SO in light of this recent discovery I thought it appropriate that I share a personal essay I had written for a composition class at Vassar College with my sister -- After sharing the work with my sister I thought inspired to share it with the site. I hope it offers help to anyone who may need it.

- - - - -

The music stops blaring for a moment and I hear the click of the lock. From upstairs in her bedroom, my sister's voice rings out with agitation What? What? What? My mother knows by now that to expect a coherent, responsive answer from my sister is futile. My mother asks her if she wants raviolis for dinner (or maybe she asks her if she needs help on her math assignment or if she needs a ride home from school tomorrow) but only the music responds, answering my mother with ambivalence.

- - - - -

"You should talk to your sister," my mother says to me.

"I will," I say and smile. There is no communication in our house.

- - - - -

My sister dances in front of her mirrors aware of her reflection. Her blonde hair hangs loose against her shoulders, emphasizing the bony, almost too bony structure of her body. Her eyes are brown but in certain light they transform to green, turning her into an alluring cat-like creature. Her arms evaporate into air with precise rhythmic motions. And she watches herself dance (and dance and dance) until streams of salty water run down her cheeks and arms and legs.

Upstairs the music stops blaring for a moment, again, and I hear the door unlock. Shut UP! Shuuuut uP! I ask her to turn the music off (or I tell her she does not know how to dance or that she is fat and rather ugly). She stands in the stairway looking down at me. Her stomach shows below her light blue tank top. Shadows darken her body where her bones indent. Pale shades of pink contour the region below her cheekbone. Her skin is almost transparent. The corners of her eyes crinkle when I look at her.

"Don't bother your sister," my mother calls from the kitchen.

My sister is sixteen. She is a tall silhouette that walks, talks, and on occasion eats. At the kitchen table she sits poking at her food. Blonde strands of hair hide her eyes. No sauce. I SAID I didn't want sauce on them! My mother serves dinner and we eat together. My mother talks about her day at work (or about my grandfather's health or my father's new girlfriend) and I watch my sister. She concentrates on removing the ricotta from the ravioli shells.

"She's Japanese," my mother says.

"I know," I say.

"I think she's nice," my sister says not looking up from her plate. A green napkin balled on her plate conceals the discarded ricotta.

- - - - -

At college I receive a call from my mother. She tells me that my sister is gaining weight (or that my sister is losing weight or that she is seeing a counselor now). I lay on my bed, allowing the phone to rest on a pillow next to my head. My mother should know that I don't receive calls before noon. In a frame on the desk next to my bed is a picture of my sister, the only picture of her I have with me. She wears the blue tank top, the same one she dances in, and form-fitting pants: white with blue flowers. She faces away from the camera, unaware of me. In the mirror her lips pucker. Her arms, bent at the elbows, rest on her hips. Get out of here NOW! What are you doing?

"Maybe you should call her," my mother says. She is in her forties but her voice sounds young.

"Maybe. I will try, Mom. She won't listen to me, though," I tell my mother over the phone. I sit up and place the phone against my ear. My room is cold and I grimace. It's only October.

I talk to my mother for some time. I express my desires, hopes, and fears. She doesn't understand my witty remarks and I feel my intelligence draining the phone waves. Static. I remember that I have not paid my cell phone bill. I have nine dollars in my checking account.

"I will talk to her," I say. "Do you think you could send me some money. I'm broke."

"Subject: Leeanne: YOU HAVE 18 CHANCES TO WIN! $189,810.00 ALREADY WON BY FreeLotto Players!" I delete emails as my mother reprimands my irresponsibility.

"No mom, I am not doing drugs. Really mom," I mumble and she stops talking. I am twenty. She has no control.

A moment later we hang up. I toss the phone on my bed. My sister is in high school. She plays field hockey and takes standardized testing. She is learning to drive. She is popular and has many friends, or at least it appears this way. Her best friend, Scott, is not her boyfriend or so I have been told. He's just my friend, Leeanne. Ugh! We are only friends. We don't talk about sex.

The October air is crisp and a blanket of brown, red, and gold leaves temporarily warms the ground. The smell is pungent and reminiscent of something I can not procure from memory. I place a cigarette between my lips and light it. I remember. Germany, early summer mornings, cold air against my face as I ride to class through town on a ten speed bike.

The summer before last I studied in Germany. My sister spent the summer at home in Massachusetts with my mother. In late July, when I returned, my sister tramped around the backyard in her two piece. Do I look fat? Mom, Leeanne says I'm fat. I could no longer fit into her clothes.

Academically my sister does well in school, but like me she has a hard time listening. Attention deficit disorder runs on my mother's side of the family but neither my sister nor I have been diagnosed. My sister gets headaches; my mother has migraines. I can't focus in school. I didn't do my homework. I don't feel well today. Can I stay home? The teacher is speaking and I am taking notes and making eye contact with her, but what is she saying? Something philosophical perhaps. She acquaints us with Wittgenstein: "One is unable to notice something - because it is always before one's eyes." Or maybe he talks of Milton, of poetry and unrequited love. Chicken scratch in black ink. I doodle in my notebooks, so does my sister.

My name is inscribed in gold somewhere in my high school. Leeanne Nagle: Class of 1998 Most All-Around Outstanding Graduate. A duplicated plaque hangs in my living room. Former teachers remind my sister to send their hellos to me (or perhaps they ask how I like Vassar or what my future plans are). My sister clenches her teeth, opens her lips slowly and speaks: Hello from X, hello from Y, hello from Z. She does not want to go to a liberal arts college.

"You should talk to your sister," my mom says whenever I am home.

"I will mom," I say.

- - - - -

Upstairs in her bedroom my sister is dancing in front of her mirrors. Why do you always look at yourself? Mom, Leeanne is always looking at herself in the mirrors. No, you do not look fat. Her shoulder blades protrude. I can count the bones in her back. Her arms are pale and hang by her side, one skinnier than the other. I can wrap my fingers around them. Look at my muscles. She has no muscle.

- - - - -

Talk to her. Talk to her? If you talk to nothing, will it listen? Can it hear you? I'm looking at dark circles under eyes, bones and disproportionate limbs, delicate hair turned limp and falling out. Turn the music off and she can not dance. She stares me down and slams the door loudly; turns the lock. The music resumes and she dances. I walk downstairs. Ambivalence. Upstairs the music is blaring. She likes pop music. I've read her diary. Upper left hand sock drawer, shoved in the back. Lined pages bound by pink stained leather. Words, sentences, confessions scrawled in ink and held in place by one golden thread. She has a crush, her father is mean, her mother overbearing, she is fat and I am annoying. This isn't my diary I remind myself and I cover it with socks and close the drawer. This is my sister.

"Have you had sex?" I ask her.

"Leeanne! I'm telling Mom," she says. Her cheeks are pink.

"You can tell me," I say. "I've had sex."

"Stop!" She doesn't want to talk anymore.

She doesn't want to talk about sex or drinking or drugs. She is too immature for my friends. They find her a bothersome teen molded by pop culture. I ask her to visit me at school and she refuses. I want to drink with my sister and talk about sex. Another drink? Come on. Really, he said it was eight inches? I want to bond, establish a friendship, but we are too much alike. I reach my hand out to her but I grab my own hand by mistake.

No one listens. Everyone doodles, etching side notes in the margins. Things to do, who to call, a poem. Another breezy day and outside the trees are rustling and I am not listening to the teacher (or to my mother or to myself). Brown eyes turning green; vacant eyes staring at me, drowning me in an emptiness so comforting and familiar. Listen. Listen? I can not even listen to myself.

- - - - -

Whaaaat? What? What? A thin stomach, naked flesh calls out from up stairs. Listless arms beg from upstairs. A voice talks to me.

- - - - -

A memory. The rays of the noon sun tickle the corners of my eyes as I sit convulsing on the bathroom floor. The white linoleum tiles rub cold against my knees as I grasp my porcelain goddess, thanking her for this opportunity. The whiteness of the toilet seat reflects my face. I see a girl with sad, vacant eyes; eyes void of passion. Brown eyes that look black. My hair, brown and straggly, droops forward and sticks to the corners of my mouth. I am overwhelmed with myself. The sun's rays seep through the bathroom window, elucidating the pink that surrounds me: pink flowers, pink shower curtain, pink carpet. I grasp the sides of the toilet seat and lunge forward. With three fingers down my throat, I vomit up the remnants of my lunch. As the toilet flushes the remains of tomato soup and orange juice blend into a perfect shade of pink. When I stand up the fluorescent light flickers. I look in the mirror and watch the drool run slowly down my face before I wipe it away.

- - - - -

"Yes Mom. I will talk to her."

"Stephanie, we should talk." This time (or maybe next time) I will talk to her.


©2001 Leeanne Nagle. Reprinted with Permission.

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