The Language of Sisters by Cathy Lamb Page B

taught my sisters and me to cook and sew. We loved to sit with them and sew small pillows using scraps of silk, cotton, even burlap. We lined them with rickrack, lace, or ruffled edges, or we embroidered flowers. We were taught to make our stitches precise, tight, and to use different stitches for different designs.
    Plus, I had my sisters who I could now and then hear in my head through my widow’s peak, the Sabonis gift coming down the generation to me. We had friends. We played outside, bundled in coats.
    We went to school in uniform, with strict teachers, and we were called Oktyabrenok—October children, in reference to the revolution in October 1917. We were to behave well and study hard and memorize the party lines and songs and when we were older, we could become Young Pioneers, and wear the red scarf of the Communist Party. We did what they told us to do.
    We tried to ignore that tingling, black, confusing shadow that swirled around us, the hushed voices, the unexplained tears from our mother, and our father’s tight face. We let it flow over our small shoulders.
    Then it all changed.
    * * *
    On Sunday I went over to my parents’ home for dinner. My mother was babysitting Ailani and Koa because Valerie had work to do for her upcoming trial and Kai had a late shift. She was outside playing with Koa, who was dressed as a white monster, while Ailani and I cut out sugar cookies on the train station table.
    Ailani is in fifth grade. She has long black hair and likes to talk to her mother about crime and court proceedings. She said that school was sometimes “boring” and that she got in trouble when she made a speech recently.
    â€œOh, uh.” I could hardly wait to hear the topic. “What kind of trouble?”
    Ailani’s forehead furrowed as she pressed the rolling pin down on the dough. “Not bad trouble. The teacher, Mrs. Phillips, said we all had to stand and talk for one minute. A lot of the kids were scared to be up in front of the class. Like they were afraid of getting bullied or something. I wasn’t scared, because I knew what I was going to talk about.”
    â€œWhich was?”
    â€œDefensive wounds.”
    Oh, my Lord. “A fascinating topic for a fifth grader.”
    â€œYes!” She grinned at me and picked up a flower cookie cutter. “You get it, Aunt Toni, I knew you would. You know what defensive wounds are, right?”
    I sure did.
    â€œI also told the whole class how to defend themselves against a kidnapper—poke out his eyes, bite his hand, smash his face up, stomp on his inner foot, scream your head off. I showed them how to put their weight on their left foot and bring their right foot up superhard into the man’s nuts, and all the kids practiced kicking a kidnapper in the privates and poking out his eyes and then I had crime photos that I ... uh ... I ... uh ... borrowed from Mom ...”
    â€œLike for props?”
    â€œYes!” Way to go, Aunt Toni! Ailani smiled. Then she frowned. “That’s when I got into trouble. The teacher said the photos weren’t appropriate. I hate that word: appropriate. But I said you don’t want to end up dead like this, and the teacher said no more photos. Some of the kids said they were scared, and a boy started to cry.”
    Whew. Well, that’s our Ailani. I picked up a cookie cutter. It was a four-leaf clover.
    â€œThen I wanted to talk to the kids about how to get out of the trunk of a car if they got kidnapped, but the teacher said I had run out of time. She looked kinda tired.” Ailani’s face was confounded. She frowned, then she smiled. “But I think I’m getting an A because it’s important to know about defensive wounds and how to escape from kidnappers, right?”
    I hardly knew what to say.
    My mother opened the door to the backyard, and Koa toddled in.
    â€œHey, Koa!” Ailani bent down and hugged Koa the monster, then said, “He