“Truth or Dare, Shannon!” Rebecca shouted, holding her glass high above her head. She turned down the music. “Best night ever when you were a teen!”
The oddness of the statement made my insides flinch. I saw Marco, a much younger version of him, anyway, bending on his knee, presenting me with one of the flowers he’d plucked from the bouquet he’d laid at Em’s coffin. His eyes were red and his cheeks were streaked with shiny rivulets of tears. He couldn’t talk, but I saw in his eyes the tremendous loss my sister caused him. How I wanted to ease that pain. He’d always been so kind to me, even defending me to Em sometimes. He was the bright spot in my Mother’s Day whenever he showed up.
I was the invisible preteen.
“Remember her this way, kid,” he’d said as he handed me the scented flower.
I would have preferred a hug or an itty bitty teeny-weeny innocent peck on the cheek. He probably thought I was dumbstruck, my grief overwhelming me, which of course it did. But my small fingers shook as I took the flower, just to be in proximity to the man who had brought my big sister so much joy. I knew it would be the last time I’d see him, the last time our fingers would touch. I wanted to make it better by telling him how wonderful he made her feel, but I froze up. My knees locked. My insides shredded like an old curtain flapping in a glassless window frame.
“Yessss!” Rebecca hissed. “That one. What was that one about?”
I really had no idea why it would have been the best day of my life. It was certainly the most impactful. As the years went by, I saw that tiny flower not as a plant or once-living thing, but a torch given from one sister to another. Like the movie when the actress tells him to come back for her in time. Was he saying he’d see me later?
Of course not, and I was nearing the edge of sanity to think so. My head spun. I blamed it on the alcohol, which was also partially true.
“I think the Scotch has gotten to me. All that dancing. I’m dizzy. I need to sit down.”
She was all over me like a mother, just like Em was, darn it. I couldn’t get the thought of how similar and yet so dissimilar they were. I really wanted her to scrape her hands and arms from my body, but she clung to me because she was drunk too. She sat me down, carefully, on the couch, sat right next to me and pushed my hair from my forehead.
“You’re burning up, Shan.”
Oh God! Not the name Em used to call me too!
I groaned and leaned into the couch back, which distanced my body somewhat from hers. She was on her feet, and, nearly slipping and upturning the coffee table, she made her way to the fully stocked Penthouse kitchen, picked up a tea towel, turned on the fawcett so hard it splashed all over the counter, tile back and her face and front. She screamed, then threw her head back and laughed. I recognized the reaction.
I resigned myself not to be surprised anymore. She acted so much like Em. Somewhere in my alcohol-sloshed brain I understood that perhaps that’s how he’d picked her. But the comparisons were driving me into a moroseness I didn’t desire.
“I’m so sorry, pumpkin,” she cooed, patting my face and forehead with the wet towel.
At last a name Em hadn’t used!
“Thank you,” I mumbled into the towel, helpless to do anything else and wishing I could get that day out of my head. But with Rebecca, I wouldn’t be so lucky.
“I’m sorry I brought up something painful, Shannon. What was it? You can tell me.”
“I-I really don’t want to talk about it.”
She lowered her chin, stuck out her lower lip and gave me the puppy dog look I hated which won me over all the time with Judie. “Please?”
Danger! Danger! Pitfall ahead!
Something inside me was trying to warn me off some course of action I’d regret forever. She laced her fingers through my hair, placing it neatly behind my shoulders. She took my hand in hers and squeezed.
“Talking about it might make it better.”
“Believe me—” I started to say.
Her hand was up, taking no prisoners, shaking her head. Did she know she was really being cruel?
I pulled my paw from her grip and righted myself, cleared my throat and asked for a glass of ice water.
“Gas or no gas?”
“What?”
“Sparkling or no?”
“Sparkling if you have it.”
“Lime, lemon or orange flavored?”
All the choices right now I really didn’t want to make.
“Lime.”
“Good choice. My favorite too,” she said breathlessly as she popped two bottle tops and returned with two tumblers full of ice to pour the sparkling water into. It was the needed delay I was seeking, but I knew I wouldn’t escape.
Why had I thought of that moment when she asked about my best day ever as a teen? Again, I blamed it on the Scotch.
“Now. Spill the beans, Shannon. I promise nurse Rebecca will make it all better.”
If she only knew.
“What you don’t know is that I had an older sister. I’m not sure why but I was reminded of the day of her funeral.”
Rebecca clearly wasn’t understanding my words. Her nose scrunched up, her cheeks puckered to cover half of her eyes.
“I’m so sorry, pumpkin.”
That name again…I was starting to hate it.
“But why? I mean, how come you thought about that day?”
I searched for something desperately to say. At last I came out with words I immediately regretted.
“You kind of remind me of her.”
Rebecca moved away a couple of inches on the couch as if I was made of molten lava. Still watching me, she considered something. Then her shoulders dropped and she sighed.
“I’m so sorry, Shannon. She sounds like a wonderful person.”
That comment sobered me
