The Good Sister by Jamie Kain Page B

of fairies and princesses and magical castles, but this time, I told her she had to think of her story. She started to cry, and but after a couple of minutes, once she saw that I was serious, she quieted down.
    â€œOnce upon a time…,” she said slowly, her voice still wobbly with tears, “there were two sisters who lived in the woods. They had no parents, so the big sister, named … Sarafina, had to be responsible for both of them.”
    Rachel nestled up against me, her small knees poking into my lower back, her hand tangled in my hair, stroking and twisting it like she always did when she shared my bed. I sometimes woke up in the morning after Rachel had slept with me to find random, crooked, little braids all over my head because she’d put herself back to sleep braiding my hair in the dark.
    â€œSarafina’s sister was named … Raya, and one day when Raya was walking through the woods alone, something began to chase her.”
    I had always kept my stories free of scary elements, not wanting to upset Rachel more than her bad dream already had, so I remember being surprised that Rachel’s story included a chase.
    â€œShe could hear heavy breathing and footsteps behind her, and she ran as fast as she could all the way back to their cottage. When she got there, she slammed the door and locked it, and Sarafina was inside cooking their lunch.
    â€œâ€˜What’s the matter?’ she asked.
    â€œâ€˜Something’s been chasing me,’ Raya said.
    â€œThe girls went and looked out the window, but they couldn’t see anything. Then Raya started to feel a little silly, like maybe she imagined the whole thing.
    â€œâ€˜Did you see it?’ Sarafina asked.
    â€œâ€˜No, but I heard it.’
    â€œJust then, they heard a loud thump on the door, and the whole house shook. Raya began to cry, but Sarafina was calm. She went to the closet and got out her bow and arrows. She slung them over her shoulder and climbed up the chimney, out onto the roof of the house. From there, she could see the evil troll that was trying to get in their door, so she took out one of her arrows and shot him dead right then and there. And the two sisters buried the evil troll in the forest and lived happily ever after.”
    I remember this story so vividly in part because it became one we told over and over, making it more elaborate and detailed with each telling. I remember it also because it gave me the unshakable belief that I was responsible for protecting Rachel from anything that might harm her. I knew she saw me that way, and I wanted to be that kind of big sister.
    But then I got sick, and well, and sick again, and well again. Hindsight, I know now, is the cruelest view of all. I can see now exactly how this twist of fate that was my leukemia diagnosis worked its way through my whole family, a disease that would destroy them rather than me. Rachel, most of all, suffered the damage of it. I’d never be the kind of sister who’d sling a bow across her shoulder and climb onto the roof to defeat evil trolls. I was a different kind of sister entirely—and not what Rachel was hoping for.
    I was the sort of sister, ultimately, who was out for revenge.

Nineteen
    Asha
    I mark time now as what has passed since Sarah’s death. There is my life before it happened, and here is my life after. The two parts are so different as to render me into two separate people. Once I was Sarah’s sister Asha. Now I am only Asha, a person I never intended to be.
    More than a month has passed since Sarah’s death now, so the new me, the star-tattooed me, is over a month old, an infant in my grief.
    It’s Saturday night, and tomorrow is the big ash-scattering event that I am trying my best not to think about. I am sitting on the couch at a party I’m not sure why I’ve agreed to attend, watching the two people across from me groping and kissing and tangling limbs together.