I never thought I’d miss having to make a six A.M. flight to Dayton or the eleven P.M. red-eye from Denver. But the situation has become desperate, necessitating THE LAST BEST HOPE, and I’m on leave begrudgingly approved by my Born Again National Sales Manager under mandate of federal law. I’ve appeased him by promising to be back in time to work the show at the Chicago Merchandise Mart.
Ouch. Stupid of me to roll over on the goddamn hole in my hip.
My sister is hovering in the corner of the room.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Do you need anything?”
“No. Yes. Can you bring me a beer?”
She screws her face into a question mark.
“Are you allowed?”
“Of course I’m allowed. The treatment regimen is two Tylenol, as needed,” I say, exasperated.
I could have told the oncologist the preliminary blood work wasn’t necessary. There was only one possible donor, the results were inevitable, the conclusion foregone.
My mother and I are A Perfect Match.
My bone marrow is being transplanted in a sterile room in the hospital in Charlotte. I’ve got a hole in my hip where they drilled for oil. Now my mother and I are closer than ever, not simply a Match anymore, but One and the Same, the very cells of our blood generated from a single source.
“You ought to head back to the hospital,” I say as Regina hands me a can of beer. “I’ll be fine.”
“Do you need anything else before I go?” she asks.
“No.”
“Do you want me to bring anything back for you?”
“No.”
Once she’s gone I hobble around the kitchen looking for something to eat. I settle on another beer. It’s oppressively hot, even for Gastonia in early summer. I flop on the couch. It’s almost four o’clock, Oprah time. She’s my new best friend. My mother and I both love her. I don’t even begrudge her the ability to summon exercise gurus and gourmet chefs with the snap of her fingers. Those big cow eyes and her nonjudgmental attitude are irresistible. But I’m beyond tired or fatigued. I feel crushed, sinking, with pains in my joints and the sinews of my muscles. A team of sled dogs couldn’t drag me to my bed upstairs. So long, Oprah, I mutter, plunging into a coma, dead to the world…
…only to be rudely awakened hours later by a loud crack and the sound of a metal bowl spinning across the tile floor. I wander into the kitchen to investigate. My sister is standing on a kitchen stool, back toward me, head and hands deep inside a cabinet, muttering, swearing. I’m careful not to startle her since her balance is precarious. Dishes and glasses, canned goods and spices, boxes and jars clutter the counter.
“What are you doing?” I ask when her footing seems sturdy and she’s not likely to topple and break her neck.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Relining the cabinets.”
“Bingo. You were always the smart one.”
“It’s half past eleven.”
“So?”
She steps down from the stool, trying to hide the half-empty wine bottle on the counter.
“Have you had anything to eat?” I ask, trying to gauge the effect of two glasses of wine.
“Yeah, a piece of cheese.”
“You want me to call for take-out?”
“It’s too late,” she says.
“Want me to make something?”
“I just want to get this done. You can tell she’s been sick by the condition of these cabinets. I bet she hasn’t relined them in two years. She never used to let things get this bad.”
The crumpled, torn paper on the floor doesn’t look so bad to me. A few blemishes, a ring here and there, certainly not the grease-smeared, dust-coated mess you’d assume from my sister’s comments.
“Is that some type of criticism?” I ask.
She looks up, clearly perplexed.
“I mean, are you saying if I’d only paid a little more attention to the shelf paper I would have realized she was sick and could have gotten her to the doctor earlier, on time, before it was too late?”
“No. Of course not. No criticism intended. For God’s sake…” She reaches for the bottle and pours another glass of wine without offering any. “Why would you think that…What do you…Why do you hate me so much?”
What kind of question is that?
I don’t hate her. How could I hate my little sister? My buddy, my pal, the one person on earth who knows things about me that would still smart and sting if she were to fling them in my face. Which, remarkably, she hasn’t, despite numerous provocations, still protecting me, God knows why, never mocking me, knowing how deep a wound she would inflict just by reminding me…
…that I would creep down the hallway and crawl into her bed after another bloody nightmare roused me from a deep sleep.
…that I kept silent, allowing her to take the blame for the ruined lipstick, knowing the consequences would be far more severe if it were ever discovered it had been me that smeared it across my mouth.
…that I would talk Randall Jarvis into pulling down his pants and letting Gina and me touch his thing whenever we played General Hospital.
… that the real reason Billy Cunningham split my lip was because I tried to kiss him on the mouth.
How could I hate the woman who once was such a tough little kid, who spat when my mouth was dry from fear, punching and swinging when I was unable to make a fist, screaming and cursing when I choked on the words. Don’t cry, Andy, she would console me as she prepared for battle, grabbing a brick, a bat, a board, her arms flailing, threatening to draw blood from the Billy Cunninghams and Richard Tricketts, never backing down when they taunted her with names like Fatty, Blimpie, Whale Girl.
Fuck you, she shouted at our tormentors. Fuck you, assholes.
No one, she insisted as our mother pinched her mouth with her thumb and forefinger, threatening to insert a bar of Fels-Naptha laundry soap if she didn’t confess who taught her such terrible, terrible words. Brave little Gina, always standing up for the men in her life, her foul-mouthed daddy and me.
Of course I don’t hate you, baby sister. If I did, I’d free you to tell the world all my dirty little secrets.
She finally gets around to offering me a glass of wine, which I decline, getting a beer instead. I let her question drift away, refusing to answer. I go out on the porch for a smoke, leaving her to her cabinets. But she follows me, using the excuse she’d like a cigarette too. I remind her she quit (not to preserve her pulmonary functions but to halt the erosion of the fine skin around her face and eyes).
“Why do you have to be such a prick?” she asks. “What have I ever done to you?”
She thinks she deserves an explanation why I refuse to acknowledge the bond that existed between us before I erected a barrier more permanent than the Berlin Wall. Truth is, I’m straining to think of some way to respond, a bone to throw her, some reason that justifies my slow intractable retreat over the decades. I could tell her I resent her for outgrowing me.
Do you remember when no one was more fun or fascinating than me, your older brother, whose vivid imagination cast you as Robin to my Batman, Becky Thatcher to my Tom Sawyer, Joe to my Frank Hardy (and, yes, I’ll admit it to you but no one else, sometimes Ethel to my Lucy or Mary Ann to my Ginger)?
I could blame her for losing her baby fat and growing into a beauty, for making friends with the girls who’d taunted her when she was big and clumsy, not simply forgiving them, but sharing her secrets and confiding her dreams in them.