sister.
It starts with this: we used to be the happy family everyone wants to be. We were one sweet year-round Christmas card picture, all five of us beaming into the camera. Dad coached baseball at Savage High, Mom stayed home with the kids, Carrie got straight As and had artistic talent, Travis got awards for being an excellent student-athlete at James Thurber High, and I made honor roll at Putnam Middle School four semesters in a row.
Until that August day last year, just about the only bad thingever to happen to us was two years ago: Carrie got into a car accident. Justin, her boyfriend, was driving, and they went to play mini-golf, and got broadsided by an old man who went through a stop sign, and Carrie got cuts on her face and head, as well as internal injuries. She had to have her spleen removed. Thurber High School had a candlelight vigil for her. She could have died. Justin walked away with a few scratches.
Carrie started taking lots of photographs after that. She began by taking pictures of the nurses. Then her hospital roommate, a girl who'd been hit by a car. The girl had lost her leg but dreamed she still had it. That got to Carrie, her roommate's phantom leg. I won't even go into the fact that now I feel as if I have a phantom sister.
Anyway, when Carrie got home, she started taking pictures of me, self-portraits of herself, shots of Mom. Girl power.
Soon after Carrie's accident they started fighting. Mom and Dad. They'd do it behind closed doors, like we weren't supposed to know or hear the arguments. But parents don't realize, and if you're a parent, take my word, any time kids hear a stressed-out whisper, their stomachs clench and they know it can't be good.
Carrie used to write to Aunt Katharine, who is definitely the black sheep in our family. Just because my mother and she had a “falling-out” didn't mean Carrie couldn't be in touch. She's an artist and an ironworker, Aunt Katharine, and my father seemed worried that Carrie wanted to be an artist herself. A photographer. My father said she'd never make any money doing that, never be “secure.” He was a loving, supportive father, but he believed in doing things a certain way.
“There's a right way and a wrong way to do everything,” he used to say. He taught us the right ways. To hammer a nail, to rake leaves, to swing a tennis racket, to throw a football. He liked life to be a straight road: right through the center of town, because everything you needed was right there.
Mom likes side roads, the scenic way. She meanders. If life was a Saturday, Dad would spend it fixing up the house. Mom would go antiquing, getting lost in dusty shops and finding strange, wonderful things. Think about it: could there be a better couple? They complemented each other.
Our mother's classes were all at night, so Dad would sometimes drive her to the university and wait for her to be done. Sometimes I'd go with them. I heard them argue about Aunt Katharine. After the car accident, Mom sent some of Carrie's pictures to my aunt, and she wrote inviting Carrie to visit for a week. Carrie was begging to go. I've already told you that Aunt Katharine was an artist renegade type. Also, there'd been the big breach in the family, a tear in the relationship between her and Mom before I was born.
That bothered me—more than you can imagine, because even though they were in touch sometimes, like distant relatives, my mother and her sister didn't really speak. What could possibly have been so bad to cause that? I'd look at Carrie and try, in my wildest wonderings, to imagine what could make me spend my life without her two seconds away. I tried hating Aunt Katharine. Because I could only dream that it was her fault. But I couldn't despise my aunt. I could only feel sad for her, as I did for my mother. Carrie did too. Now I wonder if Carrie didn't learn from the best—how not to speak to her family. Estrangements R Us.
Anyway, in the car that day, Dad blew up: “It all
It starts with this: we used to be the happy family everyone wants to be. We were one sweet year-round Christmas card picture, all five of us beaming into the camera. Dad coached baseball at Savage High, Mom stayed home with the kids, Carrie got straight As and had artistic talent, Travis got awards for being an excellent student-athlete at James Thurber High, and I made honor roll at Putnam Middle School four semesters in a row.
Until that August day last year, just about the only bad thingever to happen to us was two years ago: Carrie got into a car accident. Justin, her boyfriend, was driving, and they went to play mini-golf, and got broadsided by an old man who went through a stop sign, and Carrie got cuts on her face and head, as well as internal injuries. She had to have her spleen removed. Thurber High School had a candlelight vigil for her. She could have died. Justin walked away with a few scratches.
Carrie started taking lots of photographs after that. She began by taking pictures of the nurses. Then her hospital roommate, a girl who'd been hit by a car. The girl had lost her leg but dreamed she still had it. That got to Carrie, her roommate's phantom leg. I won't even go into the fact that now I feel as if I have a phantom sister.
Anyway, when Carrie got home, she started taking pictures of me, self-portraits of herself, shots of Mom. Girl power.
Soon after Carrie's accident they started fighting. Mom and Dad. They'd do it behind closed doors, like we weren't supposed to know or hear the arguments. But parents don't realize, and if you're a parent, take my word, any time kids hear a stressed-out whisper, their stomachs clench and they know it can't be good.
Carrie used to write to Aunt Katharine, who is definitely the black sheep in our family. Just because my mother and she had a “falling-out” didn't mean Carrie couldn't be in touch. She's an artist and an ironworker, Aunt Katharine, and my father seemed worried that Carrie wanted to be an artist herself. A photographer. My father said she'd never make any money doing that, never be “secure.” He was a loving, supportive father, but he believed in doing things a certain way.
“There's a right way and a wrong way to do everything,” he used to say. He taught us the right ways. To hammer a nail, to rake leaves, to swing a tennis racket, to throw a football. He liked life to be a straight road: right through the center of town, because everything you needed was right there.
Mom likes side roads, the scenic way. She meanders. If life was a Saturday, Dad would spend it fixing up the house. Mom would go antiquing, getting lost in dusty shops and finding strange, wonderful things. Think about it: could there be a better couple? They complemented each other.
Our mother's classes were all at night, so Dad would sometimes drive her to the university and wait for her to be done. Sometimes I'd go with them. I heard them argue about Aunt Katharine. After the car accident, Mom sent some of Carrie's pictures to my aunt, and she wrote inviting Carrie to visit for a week. Carrie was begging to go. I've already told you that Aunt Katharine was an artist renegade type. Also, there'd been the big breach in the family, a tear in the relationship between her and Mom before I was born.
That bothered me—more than you can imagine, because even though they were in touch sometimes, like distant relatives, my mother and her sister didn't really speak. What could possibly have been so bad to cause that? I'd look at Carrie and try, in my wildest wonderings, to imagine what could make me spend my life without her two seconds away. I tried hating Aunt Katharine. Because I could only dream that it was her fault. But I couldn't despise my aunt. I could only feel sad for her, as I did for my mother. Carrie did too. Now I wonder if Carrie didn't learn from the best—how not to speak to her family. Estrangements R Us.
Anyway, in the car that day, Dad blew up: “It all
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