Then I Met My Sister

by Christine Hurley Deriso

  My eyes are narrowed to slits, which usually has a chilling effect on conversations, but Gibs isn’t finished yet.

  “Maybe I don’t want to be in one of your goddamn boxes,” he says.

  He gives me a second to respond, but I’m too busy glaring to speak.

  So he walks out.

  Tears sting my eyes, but I squeeze them tightly to staunch the flow. The only thing more pathetic than sitting alone in a Taco Primo booth is sitting alone in a Taco Primo booth crying.

  I grab a tortilla chip from the basket and chomp on it angrily.

  What just happened? I’ve been counting the days to seeing Gibs, but when we’re finally together, he bites my head off.

  Okay, maybe it isn’t quite that simple. For one thing, I’m only just acknowledging to myself how much I dig him, so there’s no reason for him to guess my little secret. But that whole five-year plan I have? The one about us reconnecting down the road when we’re ready for a relationship? Screw that. I want Gibs to care about me now.

  And speaking of caring—does he have to rub it in my face that I’m apparently the least caring, least competent, least worthy individual on earth? Particularly when compared to my life-saving sister and my house-building best friend?

  I choke down my tortilla chip, then pick up another. But I throw it back into the basket in disgust and stomp out of the restaurant.

  Twenty-Two

  “Uh … Summer?”

  I lay a pile of asters on the work table and wipe my hands on the seat of my jeans. “Yep,” I call, then walk to the front of the store to see what Aunt Nic needs.

  I freeze in my tracks as I approach the cash register. Aunt Nic’s standing there, looking confused, and Gibs is on the other side of the counter with a fistful of daisies.

  “O-kay,” I say as I join them.

  “He brought flowers,” Aunt Nic clarifies. “That’s got to be a first—somebody bringing flowers to a flower shop.”

  I hesitate, then swallow hard and join them. Gibs hands me the daisies shyly, making a peace sign with his free hand.

  “Aunt Nic, you remember my friend Gibs. He ate Japanese with us on my birthday.”

  She smiles warmly. “Yeah, sure. Hi, Gibs. Um … didn’t you two just have lunch together?”

  Gibs nods and shifts his weight nervously. “We did, actually. I just thought I’d drop these by. I was in the neighborhood. Nice to see you again, Mrs. …”

  He extends his hand and Aunt Nic shakes it. “Nic,” she tells him. “Just call me Nic.”

  He nods, but he can’t spit it out, so he keeps quiet.

  “Well,” Aunt Nic says, wiping her hands together briskly. “I’ve got some flower-arranging to do.” She flutters her fingertips at us, then walks toward the work room.

  “Flowers,” I say to Gibs.

  He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his shorts and stares at his sneakers. “Yeah. A peace offering. I wasn’t even thinking about this being a flower shop. But I guess that would’ve been kinda weird … buying flowers from you, then handing them back to you.”

  I bite my lower lip.

  “I’m sorry I walked out,” he says, his eyes searching mine.

  I lay the daisies on the counter and steal a glance at him. “I thought calling you ‘perfect’ was a compliment,” I say.

  He sputters with laughter, then I laugh, too. Finally, our eyes are locked.

  “I’m the one who’s sorry,” I say. “I know I can be a total asshole. And you’re right: I am a little obsessed with Shannon.”

  Gibs shakes his head. “I totally get it.”

  I finger a lock of my hair. “I like being able to talk to you about it, you know? I mean, I can talk to Aunt Nic, but she’s a part of it. You … I don’t have to worry about hurting you.”

  A silent moment passes.

  “Thanks for the flowers,” I say. “It was really sweet.”

  He smiles as he scans the shop, flowers springing from practically every square inch of the room. “Chocolates next time,” he says.

  “Good plan.”

  He bounces on the balls of his feet and raises his eyebrows. “Hey, speaking of fun …”

  I put a hand on my hip. “We were speaking of fun?”

  “Yeah. That whole ‘Sure, read Shannon’s journal, but have some fun this summer, too’—that whole thread—”

  I giggle at him.

  “Um, I was just wondering,” Gibs continues, rubbing a lightly stubbled chin, “and I totally understand if it doesn’t work out, I mean what with your job and all, and whatever else you have going on, but if you were able to get away for a few days, and, you know, that whole idea of squeezing in some fun, um …”

  “What?” I prod.

  “Well … my folks have a place at the beach. Nothing fancy, just a … you know, a place.”

  I nod. “A place.”

  “Yeah. A place. At the beach. Anyway, we’re going there for a week … kind of a Fourth of July getaway … well, not really a getaway, just a … just a little trip. And anyway, I was thinking, ‘Hey, I was just telling Summer she could use a little fun,’ and I called my mom, and she said sure, invite her, so if you don’t have anything else to do, you know, if you could take a few days off work, and if you wanted to, no pressure or anything, but if a few days at the beach might be fun, then I was wondering …”

  I know I should throw him a lifeline by saying something, anything, but he’s so cute when he’s nervous.

  “You’re inviting me to the beach,” I say after he sputters to a halt.

  He considers what I’ve just said, then nods.

  Still holding his gaze, I call, “Hey, Aunt Nic, can I have a few days off around the Fourth for a trip to the beach?”

  “Sure,” she calls.

  “Okay,” I tell Gibs. “Thanks.”

  He considers my words again, then nods sharply. “Okay, then. Good. Great, really. I mean, I’m glad you can come.”

  “I have to check with my mom, of course, but …”

  “Of course,” Gibs says, making me giggle by sounding like a high school principal. “And your mom can call my mom. Whatever she needs to do. And if it works out, well …” He claps his hands together. “Well, great.”

  I study him evenly. “I’ll certainly do everything in my power to expedite the arrangements,” I say, and he blushes when he realizes I’m making fun of him.

  He rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, well … I’d better let you get back to work.”

  “Right,” I say. “Work.”

  He smiles and waves.

  “Hey, Gibs,” I call as he walks toward the door.

  He turns around. “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for the flowers. And the beach trip. It sounds great.”

  He gives a little salute that makes me giggle some more, then walks out the door.

  It’s ridiculous how my stomach is doing somersaults. Is it possible Gibs is into me? That he’s ready to fast-forward my five-year plan? I mean, a beach trip, even if it is with his parents … that has real relationship potential, right?

  “Hmmmmm,” Aunt Nic says.

  I jump, not realizing she’s rejoined me at the counter.

  “Flowers?” Aunt Nic muses. “And a trip to the beach? He’s got it bad.”

  I roll my eyes. “He’s a friend. Just a friend.”

  She shakes her head. “Flowers aren’t a friend thing.”

  I shrug, then blush when I realize I have a ridiculous smile on my face.

  “Think Mom will mind if I go to the beach with him?”

  Aunt Nic shrugs. “If the private investigator’s report comes up clean and Gibs’ DNA doesn’t match up with the FBI database, I’m sure she’ll be cool with it.”

  “Funny.”

  “Oh, I was teasing?” She tousles my hair. “I better get you a vase for those daisies.”

  Twenty-Three

  Wednesday, June 30, 1993

  I think I have a sister.

  I gasp and blink hard.
I think I have a sister.

  It’s been four days since I last picked up Shannon’s journal, and I still haven’t called Eve. I guess Gibs’ words made an impression on me. But with a whole leisurely Sunday stretching out ahead of me when I woke up this morning, I reached for the journal without giving it a thought.

  And when I read the first sentence of the entry, I bolted upright in bed.

  My eyes refocus on her words.

  I know it sounds crazy, but God, I feel it so strongly. I’ve felt it all my life. I remember asking Mom when I was still in preschool whether she’d ever had another baby … a miscarriage, a stillbirth, whatever. I didn’t use those words, of course; I was just rooting around for an explanation. I FELT a sister, like you feel someone’s breath on the back of your neck.

  A chill ripples up my spine and I lightly run my finger along the paper.

  When Mom said no, that I was her only child, my imagination went into overdrive. I was adopted. That was the only possible explanation. I’d spend hours adding details: my real mom lived at the beach raising my sister, trying to put on a brave front but pacing the beach night after night, staring into the moon and pining away for me.

  Why had she given me away? My versions varied. She was a teenager, a musical prodigy who would lose her scholarship to Julliard if she kept me. Or she was a soap opera actress in New York City whose career would be doomed by a baby. Or she had cruel parents who had ripped me from her arms the night I was born and laid me on the steps of Mom’s church.

  Any of the versions suited me. She was impossibly beautiful and she’d never wanted to give me away, but fate had played its hand. So now she dreamed of me, wept for me, obsessed about me, devoted her life to finding me and bringing me home. Home to her and my sister. (A twin? An identical twin? The one her cruel parents had allowed her to keep?)

  My “real” father never factored into my fantasy. Isn’t that funny?

  As I got older, the fantasy fell apart. I look an awful lot like my mother, and everybody’s stories are pretty consistent about Mom’s thirty-six-hour labor, and the tongs the doctor used to pull me out of the birth canal, and how I’d come out smiling anyway, and how I’d spit up all over the pearl-white gown my grandma had smocked for my trip home from the hospital.

  Besides, half the girls in my elementary school insisted they’d been given up at birth by their real moms (theirs were beautiful, too) and they were resigned to making do with the schlumpy women who slapped together the PB&Js for their lunchboxes every morning.

  I loved my fantasy and hated realizing it was a dime a dozen. I wanted to snap off the heads of my friends who prattled on about their stupid adoption fantasies. “So let me get this straight: Your real mom is Madonna, but you somehow look uncannily like Elmer Fudd?”

  MY fantasy, even after it fell apart, was different. I’ve never stopped feeling my sister’s breath on the back of my neck.

  Now that I know about Dad’s affair, I can’t help wondering if THAT’S the explanation. He says it was his only affair, but was it really? Does he have another daughter out there somewhere?

  This explanation is more complicated, all messy and tacky. It’s the explanation that has me doing double-takes on sidewalks and in the mall, trying to detect a glimmer of my genes in girls trying on perfume at Victoria’s Secret.

  I guess it’s possible, but it doesn’t feel right. My sister isn’t some clueless twit with vacant eyes chomping gum with her mouth wide open in aisle seven at Kroger.

  She’s … spectacular. I know it. I feel it.

  Who are you, sister? Are you really out there?

  Do you feel me, too?

  The journal drops on my lap and the lump in my throat finally dislodges. I remind myself to breathe. My cell phone rings and I jump.

  “Hello?” I say cautiously.

  “What’s wrong?” Gibs asks.

  Tears sting my eyes. “Can I meet you at the park?”

  “She knew about me,” I say quietly, sitting in the grass with my knees pushed into my chest. “She says in her journal that she knew she had a sister.”

  Pause. “I don’t get it,” Gibs replies.

  I pick up the journal. I’ve never read him any entries before—just paraphrased. Somehow I haven’t wanted to share her actual words with anybody, including Gibs. But now I’m tempted to read what she wrote. I skim the pages and turn to the beginning of the entry and open my mouth.

  I can’t do it. I can talk about Shannon to him, but I’m not ready to share her words … particularly considering what they might ultimately be leading to.

  “I don’t think she was psychic or anything,” I finally say. “She just says she felt like she had a sister. All her life she’d felt that way. When she was little, she wondered if she was adopted. Then she wondered if Dad had, like, a love child out there somewhere. Because she knew she had a sister, Gibs.”

  “But she didn’t have a sister,” Gibs says sensibly. “You weren’t born until after she died. So whatever sister she was fantasizing about couldn’t have been you.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think our connection has anything to do with time or space. It’s deeper than that.”

  I pluck a dandelion from the ground and watch its tendrils disperse in a light breeze. “It’s like she knew I would read her journal one day,” I say, still gazing at the dandelion.

  “Okay,” Gibs says.

  “Do you believe in God?” I ask him abruptly, facing him head on.

  He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  I press my lips together. “I don’t either. But the connection I feel to Shannon … the connection she felt to me … I can’t explain it.”

  I let the bald dandelion fall from my fingers and pluck another one from the ground.

  “I wish she was still alive. It would change everything.”

  Gibs waves a dandelion tendril from his face. “What would be different?”

  I shrug. “You know me. I’m kind of a dud in the friend department. I mean, I had girlfriends when I was younger—Leah Rollins, Priscilla Pratt, whoever—but even when we hung around together as little kids, I always felt like an outsider. Then, when they started obsessing over makeup and highlights … we had nothing in common at that point.” I lean back onto the palms of my hands, the cool, moist grass seeping through my fingertips. “Shannon could have been my best friend.”

  Gibs cocks his head slightly. “You might not have been friends at all. You might have driven each other crazy. Lots of sisters do.”

  I squint into his eyes, the white sun hitting my face like a spotlight. “No. We would have understood each other. We would have been the only ones who could understand each other.”

  “Maybe,” Gibs says. “But who cares if you don’t have girlfriends? You have me.”

  My heart leaps a little.

  “What difference does it make whether your best friend is a girl or a guy?” he continues. “A friend is a friend.”

  I dig my fingers deeper into the squishy grass. Quit being my friend, Gibs. Friendship isn’t enough for me anymore.

  “Hey, have you thought about where you’re going to college?” I ask him impulsively. “I’m guessing Harvard …”

  He nods. Oh. I thought I was kidding.

  “That’s my first choice,” he says. “But it’s tough to get in.” He hesitates, then says, “How about you?”

  I toss a hand in the air. “Yeah, I’m thinking Harvard is my first choice, too.”

  He laughs, which is what I was going for, but for some reason makes me really sad. Why have I been such a screw-up in school all these years? Was being the anti-Shannon really such a great idea?

  “I did pretty well on the SAT,” I tell him, then feel embarrassed by how lame that sounds.

  His expression turns earnest. “I’m sure you did. I know how smart you are.”

  I sit up straighter and rest my chin on my hand. “I’ve been stupid for blowing off school all these years, haven’t I?”

 
Gibs’ eyes look gentle. “You’ll make up for lost time when you figure out what you want to do.”

  I pinch my lips together. “Yeah, but I’ll be figuring it out at Morton Community College while you’re in pre-med at Harvard.”

  He leans closer to me. “We’ll stay friends, no matter where we go to college.”

  Friends. Beach trip or no beach trip, I don’t think Gibs is ready to step things up a notch.

  I squint into the sunlight. “Did I tell you Shannon saved a life when she was a lifeguard? Some kid’s hair got stuck in the kiddie pool drain. She cut her loose, then did CPR.”

  “Wow,” Gibs says.

  I nod. “Pretty cool, huh? I mean, in some ways she seems really naïve and immature to me, then bang, she’s saving a kid’s life.”

  He nods thoughtfully.

  A breeze blows through my hair. “You know when I called you perfect, and it made you so mad?” I say. “I didn’t mean to sound snotty. It’s just that I’m really … disappointed in myself, you know?”

  I try to look away, but he’s holding my gaze.

  “I think you’re amazing,” he says firmly.

  Birds chirp and toddlers chatter in the background.

  I think I love you, I tell him telepathically.

  He gets that, right?

  Maybe not. Maybe one day I’ll start saying what I’m thinking.

  Twenty-Four

  Mom is weeding her flower bed when I pull into the driveway.

  She waves as I get out of the car. I walk over and sit on the grass, careful to avoid her impatiens. She glances up at me and looks startled.

  “Hi!” she says, then peers anxiously at my white shorts. “You sure you want to be sitting in the grass? You’ll stain your clothes.”

  I shrug. “I just got back from sitting in the grass at the park. Guess I’m stain-proof now.”

  “Who were you at the park with?”

  “Gibs.”

  “Mmmmmm. Oh, incidentally, I talked to his mother about the beach trip. She seems like a lovely person.”

  “Yeah, his folks are great.”

  Mom looks at me closer. “And Gibs? Do you think Gibs is great, too?”