A Gift for My Sister: A Novel

by Ann Pearlman

  Aaron rented us a small two-bedroom apartment down the street from his mom, Sissy. The one we’re still in. I called my mom to tell her.

  “Where are you?” She was surprised I was calling.

  “You got your wish. I moved to Detroit.”

  “Not my wish.” Her tone was forced.

  “You won’t have to worry about me.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course I’ll worry about you.”

  I imagined the list she was making in her mind. A list of my failures: Not yet graduated. Pregnant. Black lover. My grades, which were A+’s in Music, English, and Art but C’s in Math and Science. Inconsistent. Underachiever. Now, Mom isn’t racist, but she wanted me safe and middle class, and the fact that Aaron is black and from the ’hood made that unlikely, especially since he had been incarcerated and wanted to be a hip-hop star. You can imagine our conversations. They went like this:

  “Don’t you want to go to college?”

  “No. I want to be a musician.”

  “You can study that in college. You just have to get there.”

  “I’m going to learn by doing.”

  “Others can teach you shortcuts. Why do you have to do everything the hardest way possible?”

  Standing on that corner in early June, I said, “I was waiting to tell you about the baby. I’m all excited that Aaron and I created this new life along with all our songs.”

  She said, “Don’t you recognize the peril you, and your baby, could be in? You refuse to accept that your actions affect other people.”

  I knew she was pacing. She and Sky pace when they’re on the phone and I saw her, her white hair held back by a barrette, wearing her diamond studs, walking through her living room.

  “This isn’t about you. I don’t play my music because of you. I didn’t fall in love with Aaron because of you. I didn’t decide to have this baby because of you.”

  “No. You want to do things your way regardless. So tell me, what did I do wrong?” she said.

  I twisted the cord around my finger. “Give birth to a child who loves music more than herself, more than you, more than anything?” I coiled the cord around my wrist. “Marry my father?”

  She was silent.

  “Maybe I’m selfish like him. Maybe I just don’t want all that society B.S. There’re other ways to live. Maybe I just want to be me, do me.” I released the cord and slapped at the bug on my leg, smearing my own blood over my calf. “These mosquitoes are killing me.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m calling from a pay phone because I didn’t want you to worry and my cell was out of minutes.” You’d think she’d see all the love and consideration in that.

  Her voice shifted, lost its barbs. “Well, I guess I did everything wrong with you.”

  “It’s not you. It’s me. I’m totally different than you and Sky.”

  She held her breath, hunting for the right thing to say. “I thought you were a terrific kid. Such talent. So smart. A little too precocious. I always felt you rejected me and didn’t want to be like me.”

  Whenever we talked, I flitted on the surface, or avoided her with relentless music practice or school or seeing Aaron or friends. Hiding what was really going on in my life. “What bullshit. Whatever, Mom.” I was about to hang up the phone. I heard the rush of traffic sounding like waves on the beach. More gently, I whispered, “No. You may be right. That may be just what happened.” I was angry with her because she couldn’t keep my father. Angry at my father who didn’t bother with me. When I didn’t have that intact, normal family, I just threw it all away. Decided I’d be for me. Alone. “But I couldn’t be like you without losing me.”

  “This is the first time we’ve had a meaningful conversation in years.” There was silence, and then she added, “Since you dyed your hair black.”

  “See how much better this is going to be? I move out and we have the first decent conversation in years. Here I am standing in the middle of the street, being eaten alive by mosquitoes, talking to you. Doesn’t that tell you something, Mom?”

  “That you care.”

  “Shit, yeah.”

  “You’ll start living your life, you and Aaron. You’ll see if that dream can come true.”

  She was trying to give me something, but she didn’t get it. It didn’t matter if we ever hit it big, it just mattered that I create. “I got to hang up. The mosquitoes are eating me alive.”

  “I love you. Come and get the rest of your stuff, let me give you some furniture, and make that apartment a home for the three of you.”

  “I love you, too, Mom.”

  And next time I saw her, she seemed happier about the baby and asked what she could do for Smidgen. She handed me the silk flowers, quilts that my grandmother made, and a set of dishes and flatware that she had bought. As though she was proving her faith in me, she said, “You know, you’ll always be my baby,” and held me very close, and I wrapped my arms around her and got the hug from her that I’d always wanted.

  Maybe for her, the worst had happened. What moms fear: a pregnant teenage daughter in what seems like a precarious, insane relationship. And the worst wasn’t so bad.

  I hear the crew working on the lyrics. I get the eerie feeling sometimes that I can predict the future. Not exactly, but too often the songs we write come true. They happen. And occasionally later, in the middle of a performance, Aaron and I look at each other and realize our words have come true . . . and the music, my music, sometimes drives Special’s words. Like it did today.

  We’re a pair. And for a few seconds, I feel safe. Not alone anymore.

  Unintentional universal connections. Amazing.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Before I Was Alive, Where Was I?

  Sky

  TROY ATTEMPTS A smile when he sees me and lifts his hand. He seems smaller, as if he’s shrinking into the bed and being swallowed by the sheets. I kiss his forehead.

  “Rachel?”

  “Mom’s with her. Allie’s coming tomorrow.”

  “Good,” he whispers. He motions for the water glass and I twist the straw so he can drink easily. After a few sips, he sinks into the pillows, exhausted. His breakfast sits on the tray over his lap. Plastic lids cover the plates. The flatware remains wrapped in a paper napkin.

  “You should eat. Want me to feed you?” I push the tray over his bed and lift one of the covers. Scrambled eggs, toast, juice, and a fruit cup.

  He picks up some egg on his fork, holds it there and then, shakily, brings it to his mouth. I fluff pillows behind his back. “There, is that better?”

  Troy nods and continues slowly moving the food from his plate to his mouth. After a few more bites, he says, “Enough.” The rash has spread all over his body; his arm and hand are dark purple.

  “I love you,” I say.

  “I know. And you know I love you, right?” He wheezes between the sentences.

  “Of course.” We stare into each other’s eyes and say this to each other very slowly, as if we’ve never said it before although we’ve told each other I love you a thousand times. This time we add I know as though we need to always remember.

  I try to make my voice casual, as if this is just as ordinary as the other thousands of times we’ve told each other I love you. Even when we were just friends. Every time we separated. Every night before we went to sleep.

  “Sky. Listen. You’re the one that always wants to be prepared.” He motions for the orange juice and I hand him the glass, but he makes a face after he sips it. “I know you and Rachel should be okay financially, especially with your job and skills.”

  “Shhhh.” I pull my chair closer to the bed.

  “And everything is set up in terms of insurance for you both. If the worst happens, I want you to go on and love someone else.”

  “Troy. We’re going to be sitting on a porch somewhere watching Rachel’s children. You’re going to get better. The antibiotics will kick in, your own strength will kick in.” I don’t wa
nt him to express any negative possibilities. I don’t want him even to think them.

  He lifts my chin up so I meet his eyes and says, “Be free. Be open.”

  Tears run hot down my cheeks.

  He closes his eyes and wets his lips with his tongue. I touch his burning forehead. I tuck the blanket around him and sit and watch him breathe. He seems spent.

  And then he opens his eyes and says, “When’s Tara coming?”

  “Tomorrow, I think. The concert is the day after.”

  A smile tugs at his lips.

  He seems to fall asleep. I pick at his fruit cup. I’d subsisted on granola bars until Mom arrived. The specialized antibiotic doesn’t seem to be making a difference.

  At least Rachel is safe. She has no infections.

  I watch him inhale, wait for him to exhale.

  He has longer periods in which he sleeps, almost unconscious. Like when Rachel was a baby, I check to make sure he still breathes.

  And then he wakes as though he wasn’t even asleep.

  I sit and watch him.

  Sometimes I crawl next to him and sleep with him.

  Only then can I sleep. Our vacant bed panics me. Even the sound of the sea doesn’t lull me. I tried sleeping on his side of the bed, but that didn’t work. I moved back to my side and placed pillows where his body would be. If I’m exhausted enough, I can sleep a few hours like that. I thought of bringing Rachel in bed with me, but didn’t want to disturb her. Since Mom arrived, she’s been sleeping on his side, but I’m so restless I wake her. So, I move to the couch.

  Last night, after Rachel was in bed, Mom and I sat around the table, drinking wine. Remnants of a take-out dinner were still in containers. I couldn’t eat much of it. Mom’s eyes were pale, the mascara worn off, her lipstick gone. She shook her head and started a story: “When you were little, maybe a few years older than Rachel is now, while your dad was still alive, we were making breakfast.

  “You were stirring herbs into the eggs. It had rained the night before and the birds swooped wildly in a dish of water. You stopped and asked where I was when I was a little girl. I told you with my mom and dad, Grandma and Grandpa. You said, ‘I don’t remember. Did I know you then?’

  “I shook my head. ‘You just know me now, as your mom.’ I resumed slicing bread, thinking that I’d answered your question. But that answer made you sad. Your mouth turned down, your little chin trembled. ‘It’s unfair. Unfair. You know me when I was a little girl. A baby even,’ you said.

  “I told you, ‘I had to be a big grown-up woman to give birth to you. So you didn’t know me as a girl because you weren’t alive yet.’

  “You became upset. ‘Not alive? Where was I?’

  “I put my knife down and slid the bread in the toaster oven. ‘It was before you were born. Before you were even started.’ I told you as gently as I could, but tears rolled down your cheeks in big single raindrops.” Mom closed her eyes and said, “As a kid, you cried the biggest tears. Tears as big as my pinkie nail.”

  Mom has a remarkable memory of my childhood. Or at least everything that happened before Dad died, as though each moment is frozen.

  “I told you, you must have been waiting to be born. ‘Just think,’ I said, ‘even when I was a little girl a part of you was inside me.’ I tried to comfort you.” Mom shrugged.

  “Then you asked, ‘I was always with you? Inside?’

  “‘Yes. The start of you. And when you were ready, my body pushed you out into the world. Remember the pictures of you being born?’” Mom gazed at the wall behind me as though she saw the scene replaying there.

  She chuckled. “You grinned and said, ‘Oh thank you, Mommy. Thank you for my body.’

  “But then you had another thought. ‘You pushed me out? Out of your body? Oh, why did you have to do it?’” Mom spoke in a little-girl voice, my voice of long ago, “‘Now I’ll never get to be a little baby again. I’ll never be inside you again,’ you said.

  “Once you were born you could only grow, become an adult, age, and die. Kids teach you to review the world. I told you, ‘You won’t be a little baby again, but when you’re grown up, a little baby can grow inside of you and you can push her out and be a mommy.’

  “‘You’ll come and see my baby?’

  “‘Of course. I’ll want to see your baby just as soon as it’s born.’

  “That seemed to satisfy you.”

  Mom grew quiet then, and I wondered why she told me that story at just that moment. Sometimes Mom’s stories are inspired because she has a sweet memory she wants to share. Sometimes her stories are a message or warning. Why hadn’t she told me this after Rachel was born? And then she added, “You always wanted everything fair and even.” She shrugged and took a sip of wine.

  Maybe she was reminding me that once you’re born, you’re bound to die. And we don’t all get the same allotted time. The ultimate, and inevitable, unfairness.

  Troy wakes up and asks again, “When’s Tara getting here?”

  “Tomorrow, I think.” Why does he keep asking about her? “Why?”

  “I want to see her. I talked to her. I think it was last night.”

  I lie next to him and don’t say a word.

  “She’s like my little sister.”

  “No. She had a crush on you.” I laugh. “Before I did.”

  “She was just a lonely kid and got more and more into her music,” he says.

  “I see it as the other way around. She cared about her music more than any of the people in her life.”

  “It was inextricable from her.”

  “Like your diving?”

  “No. I liked to dive. I didn’t have to dive. I didn’t have to dive to live. And besides, I had you. Our planned life together.”

  “Tara has Aaron.”

  “Not really. She doesn’t let herself.” And then he falls back asleep.

  And so do I. At last I sleep. And then I bolt awake, scared something had happened. I lean up and place my hand on Troy’s chest. His breath is shallow. But he still breathes.

  In the afternoon, I roll the back of the bed up, turn on the laptop I brought, and call Mom.

  “How’s he doing?” she asks.

  I don’t answer.

  “Oh. No better.” Her voice falls flat.

  “I thought he could talk with Rachel on the computer.”

  “Okay. Let me get everything ready.” A few minutes later, there she is on the computer with Rachel on her lap. “Hi, Mommy.”

  “Daddy’s here. He wants to talk with you.”

  I put the laptop on Troy’s tray and then scoot next to him. “Can you see us?”

  “Hi, Daddy.” Rachel grins, and then almost immediately the smile is gone and her brows are together. “You still in the hospital.” Her mouth turns down. Maybe it’s because she’s a kid and all kids are like this, but her expressions seem to reveal the soul of the emotion. Her woebegone face is enough to make anyone cry.

  “Yep.”

  Rachel scans the room, and her eyes rest on the IV with the tube snaking into Troy’s hand. “Daddddyyyy.” The word trails off, lost in the distance and despair.

  Mom whispers something to her.

  “You feeling better, Daddy? When you going to come home?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie. How’s your potty training going?”

  “I pee-pee in it all the time. I’m a big girl now.”

  “Good! You know I love you, right?”

  Rachel nods; I see her nod.

  “I’ll always love you.”

  “You going to come home?”

  “Say it. Say ‘Daddy always watches over me.’”

  “You always watch over me.” Tears course down Mom’s face. Rachel is focused on us, her parents in the computer monitor.

  “Mommy?”

  “I’m right here,” I say.

  “When’s Daddy coming home?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie. As soon as he can.” I smooth my face.

  “But
I’m here with you now. I’m always with you. I am inside you.” He points to his head and his heart. “And I will always be there loving you.” Troy’s voice is soft.

  “Okay, Daddy.” Rachel darts a smile that fades immediately.

  Troy turns his head so she won’t see his tears. And then says, “Well, Daddy has to get his rest now.” He stares right at her. “I love you, Rachel.”

  She reaches her hand to the monitor and touches his cheek. Very gently. We see her palm, the faint creases as she reaches for her father; we see the stroke Troy can’t experience. “I felt that. I felt your fingers on my cheek.”

  He kisses his palm and places it flat against the screen.

  “Did you get my kiss?”

  She nods solemnly.

  “Bye-bye, sweetie.”

  Her fingertips remain on his image.

  Troy closes his eyes and turns his face to the side. Tears squeeze from under his lids.

  I move in front of the screen. “I’ll be home soon, darling. You having fun with Grandma?”

  She nods her head. “We’re going to the playground on the beach.” And once again her joy vanishes and she says, “I miss Daddy.” She swerves from her child’s joy at life’s newness to growing apprehension.

  “He wants more than anything to be home with us. For us all to be home together. To go to Aunt Tara’s concert.”

  Rachel grins. “See Levy!”

  “Yes, in a few days, you’ll see Levy.”

  The infection spreads into Troy’s other lung. His arm is swollen and cracked. They consider putting him on a respirator. He refuses. He wants to be able to talk to Rachel and me. To his parents when they get here.

  “When are they coming?” he asks.

  “They’re on their way. You talked to them, didn’t you?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “You want to call them?” I reach for the phone.

  “Not right now.”

  I plead, “Let’s try the respirator. Just until the medicine kicks in. Give it that chance.”

  “No. There’s already oxygen going up my nose.” His words are wispy. “The doctor didn’t think the respirator would make a difference.”

  “We’ve got to keep fighting.”