She dies in their eyes and that’s how they’ll always see her. When I have to tell them my sister’s dead, they look scared, as if they’re afraid I might cry then apologize, as though it were their fault. Do you have any brothers or sisters? they ask. They erase her like that, again and again: Helen who? They act as if she’d never existed, as if I’d imagined my eighteen-year-old sister.
If I had a sister and she died, I couldn’t stand it.ĭid anybody ask me if I could stand it? Did anyone give me a choice?Ī lot of our friends have quit talking about Helen. When my cousin died, I cried my eyes out and I didn’t even like him. Geez, Jess, you’re acting so weird, she said. My best friend by default, Bambi Sue Bordtz, said I wasn’t crying enough. Then, for a long time, I didn’t feel anything. I felt my heart break, and the pain almost killed me. The room was luminous with moonlight spilling onto Helen’s bed, the blankets flat, the pillow empty. One week after Helen died, I woke up in the night. Jessie, you must pick up the pieces.… Sometimes things break so badly, they shatter, and the pieces are too small to gather up again. Shubert says I have to get on with my life. Folks, do you ever get that sinking feeling? But seriously, doesn’t the band sound terrific?ĭr. It’s like being a comedian on the Titanic. They think you’re doing swell if you tell jokes. When people ask how you are, they want you to say fine. People say I’m doing well, handling the situation beautifully as if they’d thought, when she died five months ago, that I was going to die, too. No matter how long I wait, I’ll never see her again. Helen doesn’t exist anymore, except in the past and in my mind. Mom and Dad wanted Lucas and me to go with them, but as usual, Lucas disappeared. Helen’s ashes were scattered three months ago, in the grove at Foothill Park where we loved to go, just beyond that beautiful field. Shubert says, You understand what this dream means, don’t you, Jessie. I run in wild circles, crying, Helen, where are you? realizing, my heart cracking open, that the earth has swallowed her. I’m falling, falling.… Then everything changes the field is smoothly seamed again, the sun is warm, the birds are singing-but Helen has disappeared. I say, Helen, what’s happening? and she smiles and says, Don’t worry it’s only an earthquake.Įarthquake! The ground beneath me buckles, roaring and ripping apart. She’s more like my twin than my big sister.īut something’s wrong. I can’t hear the words but I know her thoughts.
The birds are making a joyous racket and it’s autumn.
We are in the country, Helen and I, in a beautiful, boundless field.
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