About My Sisters (15 page)

“I'm sorry, Deb,” she said. “I'll come back later.” She turned and left. I didn't see her again for several days.

It was that look of dismay I kept seeing over the twenty minutes it took us to drive to the mall after my fight with Lavander and I felt both my anger and embarrassment dissipate, giving way to a heavy disappointment. I didn't know how to reach my sister. I didn't even know if she wanted to be reached. Even if she did, I thought, I wouldn't be high on the list of people she'd want there.

A few days after our altercation, Lavander drove herself to my apartment to apologize. I made her a cup of tea and we sat in the only two chairs I owned. She started crying. Great big teardrops splashed down her cheeks and fell unchecked onto the table.

“I'm really sorry,” she said.

“It's okay,” I said. “I'm sorry too.” I put my arm around her and she buried her head in my shoulder, sobbing hard for a minute and wetting my shirt with her tears.

“I didn't mean it,” she said, pulling back at last. “You know I didn't mean what I said.”

“You weren't altogether wrong,” I told her. “I
do
spend a lot of time at home lately. I should try to get my life more together, figure out what I'm doing. It's just…the baby…Blaze…” I trailed off, unsure of what I wanted to say or how to present it. I didn't want to shut her out again by talking about my motherhood or my baby.

“I think you have a great life,” she said. “I
love
your life.”

“You do?”

“Yes, I do. I think you're
cool
, you know. I do. And you're a wonderful mother. You're doing this all on your own and everything. I know it's not easy. I totally look up to you. I always have.”

“It's not…” I started again. “I mean, I'm not perfect. I'm just trying to work it out like everyone else.” I stopped for a second and looked at her. She was waiting for some sort of explanation, some sort of insight. I wanted so badly to give it to her.

“There's just one thing,” I told her. “I don't take money from anyone. I never have. I've always supported myself. It's really important to me that you know that. It's the one thing, you know, that I've always done. I've always taken care of myself that way.”

“I know,” she said quickly.

“No, you didn't,” I said. “But you do now.”

“I don't know why I said those things,” Lavander said. “It was just a bad day, you know? Sometimes it's hard….”

“What's hard?” I asked her, but she shook her head no. “It's just hard sometimes,” she said. “That's all. It's not you.”

There was a small silence between us. Lavander sighed and wiped her eyes. I noticed, for the first time, that there was a bandage around her hand.

“I'm really, really sorry,” she repeated.

“What happened to your hand?”

“Nothing. I kind of hurt it the other night. I was at a party…I fell on a glass and cut it. It feels okay but I think there might still be some glass in it.”

“Let me look at it.”

Lavander unwrapped the gauze and I took her hand. Jagged red lines bisected her palm. I searched for glass fragments in the wound.

“How did you do this?” I asked. “You fell on a glass? How is that possible?”

“It's okay,” she said, and gave me a look that begged me to stop questioning. Her hand was trembling a little and she smelled faintly of cigarettes. It occurred to me then that I wouldn't know how to begin to ask her what she was getting into. The problem
wasn't that she couldn't relate to my experiences, I realized, but that I couldn't relate to hers.

I had a flash of the two of us when
I
was sixteen and she was seven. I was always the first one up in the mornings and so it was my job to make sure that Maya and Lavander got out of bed and ready for school. Every morning, Lavander sat spaced out in front of her cereal, staring into nowhere. “Eat, Lavander, eat, eat,” I would tell her. Sometimes she would lift the spoon and sometimes not. Either way, she never broke that long-distance stare. I'd hustle her off to the bathroom after that to brush her long, fine hair and put it up in barrettes. Then I'd tell her to go finish her breakfast. When I left for school with Maya (our bus arrived before Lavander's), she'd be back at the table, still zombielike, but resigned and ready to go. I could still see that gaze of hers. Somewhere in there, she was watching.

At sixteen, I went to school and came home. I read one book after another. Much of my social life existed within my own head. I didn't have dates and I never went to a single party, let alone threw one of my own. I was ridiculously naive about most things. I thought the kids who listened to Led Zeppelin were dangerous and that the best way to start a conversation with a boy was to ask him about rack-and-pinion steering (as if I had a clue what that was). I didn't start many of these conversations anyway, though, because I was so terrified of rejection. I preferred to stay inside my own brain where I knew I'd be secure. I wouldn't have had the moxie to go storming through sixteen as Lavander was. I wouldn't have had the courage to confront someone like me about the choices I had made. I didn't even think I had it now. In a way, Lavander was the sixteen-year-old I'd always wanted to be. She drove. She went out. She took chances. She wasn't afraid to bust me or anyone else.

I thought she was brave. And I thought that when I was her age, I had chosen to play it safe.

“I don't see any glass,” I told her and rewound the bandage.

“Yeah, it's okay,” she said. “I'm okay. But I am sorry for those things I said.”

“You weren't altogether wrong,” I said again, and I gave her back her hand.

 

Lavander and I didn't get deeper into that discussion that evening and we didn't broach it again afterward. Nor did we ever come close to having another fistfight. Lavander remained the more combustible of the two of us, but I learned to steer clear of her when it looked as if she were headed for an explosion, especially if the blast was going to end up revealing my flaws. How much of this was self-protection and how much was lazy avoidance, I still don't know. I do know that I didn't venture further into an exploration of Lavander's inner life at that point. Nor did she come looking for me. I was in my midtwenties then and it was easy to believe that time was an unlimited quantity in which everything would naturally work itself out without too much effort on my part.

But here we are, almost fifteen years later, and I'm sitting in my living room, wondering, like an idiot, why Lavander doesn't come to me with her problems. I could laugh at my own blindness if it weren't so foolish.

Around eleven o'clock, Maya calls to tell me that she and Déja are going to spend the night at Lavander's place. Lavander has stopped speaking altogether and so Maya and Déja have cued up
The Matrix
on DVD and are planning to just sit next to her on the couch until she becomes more communicative. Or not. I don't ask her if anything's been worked out with Bad Boyfriend, or what, besides making microwave popcorn, anyone
is doing to help Lavander get through this rough patch. I don't even ask whether or not it's the breakup that's the problem or if there's more to it than that. I'm assuming I'll get the information later in several different forms from several different people.

“I'll be home in the morning,” Maya says.

“Whatever,” I say. I know this is a childish response, but I don't care. I'm still irritated that she hung up on me and I'm holding on to my singed feelings. I put the phone in its cradle and get ready for bed. I turn off the lights, including the one Maya's left burning in her bedroom, and go into Blaze's bedroom to make sure he's sleeping soundly and give him a kiss on the cheek. I look to see if the front door is locked and that no appliances have been left running in the kitchen. But the very last thing I do before I get into my own bed is to take Lavander's bracelet off my wrist and put it back in the little bag it came in. I don't know when I'll be giving it to her now and I don't want to risk breaking it before I have the chance.

 

It's been three weeks since that night and I still haven't seen Lavander. I've spoken to her on the phone, but only after that conversation was negotiated by various other family members; meaning that my father, my mother, and Déja alternately told Lavander that I wanted to speak to her and then told me that she didn't actually
object
to talking to me. Maya's out of it now because the morning after she stayed over, Lavander told her that she was all right, everything was okay, and that Maya could just leave, please, and nothing needed to be discussed again. Maya was hurt, is still hurt, and doesn't want to leave herself open again.

“You try talking to her,” Maya said. “Good luck.”

So I called her.

“I'm not mad at you,” was the first thing Lavander said to me
after she returned the message I'd left on her cell phone. She was in her car and I could hear the usual sounds of traffic and rushing air that punctuated every one of her conversations.

“Are you sure?” I asked her.

“Yes, I'm sure,” Lavander said. “You know, this has nothing to do with
you
. This is about me and what I'm going through.”

“That's my point,” I told her. “You can talk to me about what you're going through. I mean, why can't you? Unless you're angry at me for some reason.”

“I can't be judged, Debra. I don't want to be judged and that's the problem. I mean, Maya…I feel so bad because Maya's always there for me. I mean, she always shows up, right? She's always there. But she
judges
. I always feel like I'm letting her down. I can't do that, I just can't do it.”

“I can't speak for Maya,” I said. “I'm not going to say anything about what she thinks or how she feels or whether or not she's judging you. But I am not Maya, okay? We are not the same person. We have different opinions. We have different things to offer.”

“I know,” she said, but she sounded unconvinced.

“Well, then, you should call me,” I said, sounding terribly lame. “I'm here. Use me.”

“I'm fine, I'm fine,” she said. “I've got to go. I
will
call you. I don't feel like talking about it now, anyway. But I promise I'll call you.”

That was two weeks ago and I haven't heard from her since. Of course, I haven't called
her
, either. But today, I'm having some romantic problems of my own. The man I've been seeing for almost a year has told me that he's still not sure whether or not he can really commit emotionally to our relationship. He'd like to, he says, he's just not sure if he
can
. The fact that we live in different cities has made committing on any other level
unnecessary, so it's this one that's come up now. He says that it's clear that I want more of an allegiance than he does at this point. He can't predict how he will feel next month or next year, he says. He just can't tell. And that's where we've left it for the moment.

The rational part of me understands that this is an almost textbook relationship issue that will have to be discussed and worked through. But the rational part of me is very, very small at the moment and a raging tide of emotional response threatens to drown it altogether. Like Lavander, I'm not particularly stoic when it comes to the affairs of my own heart.

Generally, I'm able to do a pretty effective triage for most parts of my life. I can run work, motherhood, and family simultaneously even if there are aspects of each that are off track, stressful, or temporarily demanding most of my attention. It's rare that everything runs smoothly all the time, but I can manage. I can get things done. But when I'm in some kind of romantic twist, I come to a complete standstill, unable to switch gears or focus. I'm aware that this is a major failing. It's also the reason that this relationship is the first one I've had for several years.

I'm lying on my couch, staring out the window at the contrast of greens in my tiny backyard. This is my usual pose for these occasions. Ficus, bougainvillea, and palm. My eyes go over every leaf, overlaying the same circular thoughts on each one. Ficus: why can't he commit? Bougainvillea: why wouldn't he want to? Palm: will he ever? I visualize a full night of this paralysis and realize that I'm going to need some kind of help.

I call Lavander.

“What's up?” she wants to know.

“Do you want to go out tonight?” I ask her.

“Like, where?” she asks.

“I don't know, dinner?”

“You want to go out for dinner?”

“Or whatever,” I say. “Just somewhere. Out. The two of us.”

“Why?” she asks.

“Because I could use it,” I tell her.

She doesn't hesitate. “Okay,” she says. “I'll pick you up at six.”

When she arrives, Lavander seems both hurried and somewhat perplexed by my sudden invitation. We get into her car and drive without a destination in mind. I'm not very hungry but she wants to eat something and, really, what else is there to do? I start feeling stupid for initiating this get-together in the first place. Now that we're together, I don't know what to say and am thinking that I'd have been better off silently sulking into the leaves. I glance around the inside of her car, which holds as much information about her daily life as a diary would. She's got water bottles, empty and full, scattered around the interior. She has two cell phones with battery chargers for each one. She has gift baskets and football tickets in the backseat for potential clients. She has assorted shirts and shoes, both casual and dressy, next to the baskets in case she has to go to dinner, a club, or an office. She has affirmations—positive mantras that she needs to repeat every day—tucked into the passenger-side visor. I eye these with interest.