What My Sister Remembered

by Marilyn Sachs

  “They’re very nice,” my mother said proudly. “Jeff, you really wrote some cute ones back then. Nice, catchy songs! Why can’t you do the same kind now?”

  “Oh, Mom!” Jeff said, but he began strumming, and soon some of the others joined in too. Aunt Helene was clapping, and Alex, who hardly ever sang, started to hum. Other voices blended in. Somebody laughed. I kept my eyes on Beth. She was laughing and singing. Her eyes were shining, and she didn’t look mean at all. She looked the way she had looked upstairs in Mrs. Palagonia’s apartment. There was no reason for it, but I began feeling scared again.

  The smell of the lasagna began to fill the living room, and my dad put up his head, sniffed the air, and smiled at my mom. “I hope you made a lot,” he said.

  “Oh, that’s right. I’d better get things moving,” she said, turning around slowly and moving back to the kitchen.

  “Wait, Mom!” I cried. I had to move. I had to be doing something to make that sick, scared feeling go away. “I’ll help.”

  I followed her into the kitchen. She was standing there, smiling. You could hear Jeff and Beth singing the loudest, and the other voices backing them up. “I guess it’s all working out for the best,” she said, “and isn’t it wonderful how Jeff can behave when he isn’t showing off?”

  “Mom,” I said, “he’s not a kid anymore. He’s twenty-four.”

  Ginger came into the room. “Can I help, Mrs. DeMateo?”

  “No, no!” My mother smiled at her. “You just go back and enjoy yourself with the others.”

  “I’d rather help you,” she said. “Can’t I do something? Make garlic bread or a salad?”

  “Well, that’s very nice of you, but I don’t want you to bother.”

  “I’d really like to. I work in a salad bar, I mean, during the day. Please let me help.”

  “I’ll help Ginger,” I offered. “We can both work on the salad.”

  “Well ...”

  My mother had always taught us the rule of three. According to my mother, if a person offers three times to do something, then that person is generally sincere. It also works if you’re at a friend’s house and her mother invites you to dinner. You should turn down the offer twice, but you can accept after the third time. Ginger had offered to help three times, which meant that she was sincere.

  “If you two make a salad,” said my mother, accepting Ginger’s offer, “then I can cut the bread and finish setting the table.”

  It was fun working with Ginger, and my scared feeling faded. I washed the vegetables, and Ginger dried them and cut them up into interesting shapes. She also answered my mother’s questions. Yes, she had grown up in Queens.... No, she hadn’t known Jeff very long ... only a month or so ... Yes, her parents were both alive, and she saw them a couple of times a week, at least. Yes, she had two other sisters but no brothers.... She used to think she wanted to be a cook, but now lots of people thought she should try singing.... No, her parents didn’t like the idea, but Jeff had encouraged her, and that meant a lot to her.

  I could see that my mother approved of Ginger. The salad grew as Ginger and I added cucumbers, onion rings, radishes, carrot swirls, celery, and lettuce. From the living room, the sounds grew louder and louder. Suddenly my mother stopped washing off the serving pieces to listen.

  “It’s Walter,” she said, giggling. “I haven’t heard him sing since ... since ...”

  Buffalo Gal, won’t you come out tonight

  and dance by the light of the moon?

  my dad sang.

  “Will you just listen to that man!” My mother’s face was flushed.

  “He’s got a nice voice, Mrs. DeMateo,” Ginger said.

  “Well, yes, he does,” my mother agreed, wiping her hands on the towel and hurrying out of the room. “That’s where Jeff gets it from.”

  Ginger put both hands into the big salad bowl and tossed all the vegetables. “She’s nice, your mom,” she said. “I was afraid she wouldn’t like me.”

  “Oh, she likes you, all right,” I told her. “You can always tell when she doesn’t like somebody.”

  “Your dad’s nice too,” she went on, “and so are the rest of you. You’ve got a real nice family.”

  “Well,” I told her, “Beth and her mom—they’re not really our family. I mean, Beth is my sister, but her mother really isn’t my aunt.”

  Ginger stopped tossing and looked at me in confusion. “How can Beth be your sister and her mother not be your aunt? As a matter of fact, if Beth is your sister, shouldn’t her mother be your mother?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “It’s too complicated. Anyway, what kind of salad dressing do you think we should use? We have French, Italian, and, I think, a low-cal one.” I opened the refrigerator and held up a few bottles of salad dressing.

  “I can make a dressing,” Ginger said. “If you have oil and lemon and garlic. But getting back to Beth and her mother ...”

  “I’ll explain it all to you later. Anyway, we’ve got lots of lemons. We have nutmeg too, if you need it.”

  “No,” she said and then smiled. “But if you have ginger, I could make a really good salad dressing.”

  The sounds from the living room grew louder. “That must be Lisa singing,” I said, making a face. “I never heard her sing before.”

  “Jeff can really get a whole group going,” Ginger said. “He’s such a great person.”

  "I guess you like him a lot.” I handed her a bottle of olive oil and a lemon. I’ll go see if I can find any ginger.”

  “Everybody likes Jeff.” Ginger’s cheeks grew pink again.

  My mother came back into the kitchen, her cheeks as pink as Ginger’s. She was smiling and shaking her head. “Your father!” she said to me. “Sometimes he forgets his age.”

  Jeff was strumming very loud on the guitar now, and my father was bellowing away some old song about not stepping on his blue suede shoes.

  “Anyway, I think it’s time to take the lasagna out of the oven before it gets too dry.”

  “It smells wonderful, Mrs. DeMateo,” Ginger said, pouring the oil into a bowl. “I’m starving. I didn’t eat any breakfast.”

  My mother opened the oven, picked up some pot holders, and pulled out two pans of lasagna. She set them both down on the stove, and Ginger and I moved over to look at them.

  “Oh! Oh! They’re beautiful!” Ginger said.

  “I don’t know.” My mother was trying not to sound too proud. “I probably could have used some more basil, and I’m not sure the sauce isn’t too thin.”

  Suddenly, as if the message had gone out that the lasagna was finished, the music from the living room stopped, and our small kitchen filled with starving people.

  “Oh, my!” Aunt Helena was standing behind me. “Will you just look at those lasagnas.”

  “Nobody,” said my father, “nobody makes lasagna like my Karen.” He put an arm on her shoulder.

  “I’m dying of hunger,” Jeff moaned.

  “All right!” My mother was now the boss. “Everybody go into the dining room and sit down. Anywhere you like. I’ll bring in the lasagna, and we’ll cut it at the table. Ginger, toss the salad. Molly, here, take in the bread. Walter, see if there are enough chairs around the table.”

  “Is there any more lemonade?” Lisa asked.

  “Yes, there is,” I heard Beth say, “Should I bring in the lemonade, Aunt Karen?”

  “Yes, darling, yes,” my mother said, her face bright with happiness. “You bring in the lemonade.”

  Chapter 11

  At first the only sounds were the clatter of dishes passing back and forth, and the voices blending: “Is there more sauce? ... Lisa, do you have enough? ... Please pass the salad ... not enough forks ... butter ... another piece of bread ...”

  And then there was the eating and the sounds of forks on plates and satisfied voices sighing over my mother’s lasagna. How it happened that her lasagna was so perfect, and everything else she cooked so ordinary, I’m not sure. She said
she learned it from her mother-in-law, my father’s mother, who was my grandmother but not Beth’s grandmother. Anyway, my dad said that his mother never even made lasagna, and that my mom must have learned it from somebody else.

  It was hot in the dining room in spite of the two fans blowing at each other. I noticed Aunt Helene’s face glistening with perspiration. She dabbed at it with her napkin, but it didn’t stop her or any of the rest of us from eating our lasagna. She ate hers slowly and neatly, while I gobbled mine down and was the first to finish. I knew I had to wait for somebody else to finish also before I could ask for seconds. I’m not a big eater generally, but I can never get enough of my mom’s lasagna. Sometimes I just keep on eating and then, suddenly, I’m sick.

  So I sat there, waiting and watching the others eating. Aunt Helene was the slowest. She took tiny pieces on her fork and chewed them the longest. My dad, for such a big man, also took small pieces and chewed slowly, never taking his eyes off the plate. Lisa talked more than the others, saying how she had pretty much lost her appetite and describing some of the symptoms of her heartburn in between gobbling her food.

  My mother ate the least. She was busy passing things back and forth, urging this one to have some grated cheese, asking that one if he or she wanted bread. She nodded at me, as I sat over my empty plate. It pleased her to see that I hadn’t forgotten my manners and wasn’t asking for seconds until some of the others had finished their firsts. My mother looked happy. I saw her eyes settle on Beth as she ate her lasagna and drank her lemonade.

  Ginger was sitting across the table from me and next to Beth. There was still a little lasagna on her plate, but she caught my eye, leaned forward, and said, “I think I finally figured it out.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “I finally figured out how Beth can be your sister and her mother not be related to you.”

  She was speaking in a low voice, but Beth heard her and turned to listen. She was putting the last piece of lasagna from her plate into her mouth.

  “It must be that you’re really half-sisters. You have different mothers, but the same father,” She looked up the table to where my father sat.

  “No,” I said, “it’s more complicated than that.”

  “It’s not complicated at all.” Beth finished chewing her lasagna and laid her fork down on her plate. “Our birth parents were killed in an accident, and Molly was adopted by our aunt and uncle. Aunt Karen is my birth mother’s older sister. She decided to adopt Molly, and I was adopted by my mother and father. So that’s why my mother isn’t actually Molly’s aunt, although her mother is my aunt and her aunt too.”

  “But I like to think of myself as Molly’s aunt,” said Aunt Helene. There still was some lasagna on her plate, and she picked up another dainty piece on her fork.

  “Oh!” said Ginger.

  “Do you want some more lasagna, Molly?” my mother inquired. Lisa had finished and was sending her plate down for seconds.

  I didn’t feel as if Beth had explained our history accurately. I particularly didn’t like the way she said my mother “decided” to adopt me. So I added, “Beth decided to go with her parents. She didn’t want to stay with us.” Then I passed my plate down, and my mother lifted a piece of lasagna from the pan and held it poised over my plate.

  “That’s not true,” Beth said in a loud voice.

  “What’s not true?” My mother slid the piece of lasagna onto my plate. “And do you want some more lasagna, Beth?”

  “No!” Beth pushed her plate away. “I don’t want any more lasagna. And it’s not true that I wanted to go with my mom and dad then. It’s not true. She only wanted Molly. That’s what’s true.”

  My plate with the second helping of lasagna remained in front of my mother.

  “That’s a lot of baloney,” I cried, leaning toward her. “You picked Aunt Helene and Uncle John. You didn’t want to stay with us.”

  “Molly!” I heard my father’s voice.

  “Beth, dear,” said her mother, “we’re all having such a nice time. Why don’t we just—"

  “I want to get it straight, once and for all.” Beth stood up and looked straight at my mother. “Isn’t it true, Aunt Karen, you didn’t want me? You sent me away. Isn’t that the truth?”

  “I’m sorry.” Ginger put a hand on Beth’s arm. “I didn’t mean to make any trouble.”

  I jumped up too. “Go ahead, Mom,” I yelled. “Tell her the truth. Tell her how bad you felt when she picked the Lattimores.”

  My mother stood over the second pan of lasagna, holding a spatula. She shook her head. “No,” she said. “No, it isn’t true.”

  “What isn’t true?” Beth demanded.

  My father said gently, “It isn’t true that we didn’t want you, Beth. Of course we wanted you, just as we wanted Molly. But as Karen always says, I’m sure it all worked out for the best. And now, maybe it’s time for seconds all around.”

  “No!” Beth’s voice was shrill. “She didn’t want me. She sent me away. I came home from the hospital with both my arms in casts and hurting all over, but I remember, I was happy. I mean, I wasn’t happy because I was hurt or my parents were killed, but I was happy because I was coming back home. That’s what I thought. I thought this place would be home.”

  “Well, it could have been home for you—" I began.

  But she interrupted me. “Shut up, Molly! Shut up! You don’t remember. You don’t remember anything.”

  Her voice had grown shriller, and her mother stood up and moved over toward her.

  “I came home, and nobody else was here except her. She brought me home, and she took me into the kitchen, and she gave me some lemonade. I sat there drinking it at the kitchen table, and I was happy to be home. I was looking at the curtains— I loved those curtains—when she said ... she said ...” Beth broke into loud sobs, and her mother put an arm around her shoulder but didn’t try to stop her from talking.

  Beth gulped the air and then continued. “She said I was going to stay with a wonderful woman who would take care of me until I was better. I said I wanted to stay here with her and Molly and the boys, but she said she had to work and couldn’t take care of me. She said this wonderful woman had a wonderful family, and she would take good care of me until I was better. She said this woman was used to taking care of sick children, and she and Molly would come lots of times to see me until I was better. She said ...” Beth was shaking now, and her tears and sweat ran together, making her face wet and shiny.

  “She said I would have fun there. I looked at the curtains, and I drank my lemonade, and I believed her. She always made lemonade then. My ... my birth mother used to make it too, and I always loved it. But I didn’t have fun, and the woman wasn’t wonderful. I hated her—her name was Mrs. Morgan, and she kept me in a room by myself, and if I cried she ... she ...” Beth’s voice blurred, but I could hear what she said. “She shut the door.”

  “No! No!” My dad said, very clearly. “I remember you were in kind of a convalescent home. Wasn’t that what it was, Karen?”

  “It was a foster home,” Beth shouted. “And whenever she came—and she brought Molly only once. But I guess you don’t remember that, do you?”

  She turned her wet, shiny face toward me, and I looked away and said, “No, I don’t remember.”

  “No, of course you don’t remember. You don’t remember anything.” Now her voice was lower and meaner. “But she came a few more times after that. And she kept telling me it would all work out for the best. Even then she told me that. And I cried, and she didn’t listen. I begged her to take me home, and after a while, she stopped coming. Then Mrs. Morgan told me I was going to stay there. She said I should just make up my mind and stop bellyaching. That’s what she said. I remember what she said. And then, one day—it was a miracle—my mother—only she wasn’t my mother then—she came to see me. And I told her. And she could see how they were treating me. She could see I was abused and neglected.”

  “Well,” Aun
t Helene said, her arm tightly around Beth’s shoulder, “you weren’t really abused, darling. Mrs. Morgan had two other children, and she was very busy. I’m sure she meant well, but—”

  “She put me in a room and shut the door.”

  "I know, darling, I know.” Her mother smoothed her hair and kissed her cheek. “You weren’t happy there, and we—Daddy and I—we wanted you so much.” She looked at Ginger. “We couldn’t have any children, and we were hoping to adopt one. So when Beth was brought to the hospital—I had her in my ward for several weeks—I guess I just loved her from the start. We weren’t even sure she was going to make it, and she was such a wonderful, enchanting child, I used to tell my husband about her, and he started coming in to read to her.”

  “Such silly books.” Beth was suddenly laughing and crying at the same time. “He tried to read me Moby Dick and A Tale of Two Cities.”

  Her mother was laughing too. “Well, he didn’t know anything about children, but he learned, didn’t he, darling? Anyway, we didn’t know at first that Beth—that we could adopt Beth, but I just had to see her again after she left the hospital. And I found out where she was and visited her, and—"

  “And you saw that she didn’t want me.”

  “Karen!” Uncle Walter stood up. “I think you need to make it very plain to Beth and to everybody else that she is under some kind of misunderstanding. She was in a convalescent home, as I remember, and once she recovered we were ready and eager to have her come home. Weren’t we?”

  My mother shook her head and sat down.

  “Karen!” my father insisted. “Beth has made a very unpleasant accusation against us, and—"

  “Not you, Uncle Walter,” Beth said. “I don’t remember anything bad about you. Only her. She was the one.”

  “I’m sure you’re mistaken. I know how I always felt, and I’m sure we—”

  “We,” repeated my mother, looking at him. “We.”

  “Of course,” said my father. “We would have taken Beth, just as we did Molly.”