Chicken Soup for the Soul Celebrates Sisters (5 page)

My father explains that during Christmas we'll travel to our ancestral village, where I will be formally presented to the extended family and clan elders. I do not mention that for me Christmas has always been white.

After my mother moved from Seattle to my grandparents' farm, I grew up hearing Finnish spoken, with a wreath of candles in my curls on St. Lucia Day. Mummi, my Finnish grandmother, and I spent all December at the kitchen table cutting out
nissu,
cookies in the shape of pigs and six-point stars from the almond-scented dough. Before baking, we painted them with tiny brushes, like the ones Mummi used for tinting family photographs. Sheet after sheet of cookies emerged from the oven transformed, the egg paint set in a deep satiny glaze.

Each night Old Pappa, my Swedish grandfather, and I built snow lanterns in the yard for the
tonttu,
farm sprites, and I imagined that we were conductors on the Underground Railroad, lighting the way for runaway slaves.

I spent my childhood at the window waiting for Anansi the Spider and Loki the Half-Giant, tricksters from my African folktales and Norse legends, to come scuttling over the purple mountains that ringed the farm. They would say, “Welcome, sister!” in a special language that only we understood. But no one ever came. No one has ever looked like me. Until now.

In true African fashion, my new parents and I move slowly, circuitously, as if conversation were a tribal praise song with instrumental flourishes and digressive harmonies. Eventually my father calls, “Emeka, Okechukwu, Adanna! Come and greet your sister!”

Even before the words leave his mouth, the three are quivering in the center of the parlor. Grins split their faces. The eldest boy, Emeka, is already languid with teenage charisma. Behind him stoops a lanky boy with yellow skin and glittering, feverish eyes: Okechukwu. Pressed close to his side is twelve-year-old Adanna. She is me, fourteen years ago.

“Okay,” our father says, the Igbo chieftain making clan policy, “this is your older sister from America. She's come to visit. You love her.” With one sentence, I go from being the sole daughter, niece, grandchild to being the eldest of four, the one with the responsibility for love.

Adanna reaches me first. She is exquisite—luminous skin the color of Dutch cocoa; heart-shaped face with high, rounded cheekbones, slimmer than mine; a mouth that flowers above a delicate pointed chin. We come face-to-face, and the rest of the family gasps, steps back, and makes way for us. I can see myself for the first time—we are exquisite.

“I've missed you,” I tell her. She gleams.

Later, during the brief calm before the arrival of relatives, she will lie with her head in my lap and stare at me: Elder sister. One who spoils. Exotic American. Passport to what lies ahead, whom she will become. And I will stare back at her: Younger sister. One who adores. Exotic African. Passport back home, to what I have always been.

Faith Adiele

BENEATH THE STARS

Under our tent of blankets and clothes—pinned to the line,

my sister and I believed we were miles away from home

though we were only in the backyard.

Holding hands we watched the tree shadows

create wild images and marveled that we were

sleeping outside instead of in our crowded bed.

The dogs peeked their heads inside our tent

while the neighbors played their accordions and guitars,

serenading us to sleep beneath the silent stars.

Diane Payne

ET, TU, MY PERFECT SISTER

I
've got one of
those
sisters—you know the type—she's “perfect.” A perfect size 8 who always had her bed perfectly made, her hair perfectly coifed, and always got perfect test scores in grade school. As a child, I could spot that look in my teachers' eyes when they came across my name on the attendance sheet and realized I was the younger sister of their former, beloved,“perfect” student, Michele. I also knew how quickly that gleam of contentment would fade to one of squinting disappointment once my educational achievements (or lack thereof) would come to light.

“You know Jodi, your sister, Michele, always got 100 percent on her spelling tests,” the teacher would start,“and her penmanship— why it was simply. . .” here it comes, “. . . perfect!” I'd mouth in unison. Ugh! Michele, Michele, Michele! I love my sister, but having to follow her in school—man, I could definitely relate to Jan Brady!

But eventually we grew up and I stepped out of my perfect sister's shadow. And now I feel it's time to set the record straight. Picture it—Pennsylvania, 1985. I was still in college and living at home at the time, and Michele, now married (to, yes, the “perfect” man), had returned home for a visit. As all of our reunions ultimately turn out, hours of reminiscing over old stories, one spilling into the next, left us literally rolling on the floor in hysterics and crying tears of laughter. On this particular day, our high jinks led us into the only forbidden room in our mother's home—the living room. From the sofa that was never sat on for more than a few seconds to take family photos, to its countless statues and figurines, this room resembled a museum more than a living room, and it was an unwritten rule that it was “off limits, except for company.” I'm not sure what started this particular chain of events, but the next thing I knew, Michele was juggling couch pillows, one came careening at my head, I ducked, and then there was a thud followed by a crash. Our laughter and horseplay immediately ground to a halt as we turned around silently. There, lying on the floor, was our mother's cherished, black, ceramic bust of Julius Caesar—decapitated!

“Ohhh! You're in trouble now!” I couldn't help squealing.

“Oh for Pete's sake, I'm an adult, what's she going to do, ground me?” Michele retorted.

“Well, there was that time she grounded you for a month— two weeks before you got married,” I reminded her which instantly set us both of into hysterics again.

“Okay, okay! Quick, help me glue his head on,” the perfect sister begged between sobs of laughter.

Working together, we used an entire bottle of Elmer's glue and finally repositioned Caesar's head back in place. And after we inked in the cracks with a black magic marker, it didn't look half bad in our desperate minds.

“There, Mom will never know,” Michele said as she carefully placed the statue back onto the marble stand where he had sat untouched (except for his weekly dusting) for the past seven years since mom had gotten the hideous figure—I mean, work of art—for Christmas.

The next few hours were spent patting ourselves on the back and winking and smirking about the day's events all through dinner. Yes, we were home free—but that was until Caesar's head fell off two hours later during a family photo session and rolled across the floor, landing at our mother's feet.

I'm sure no real punishment was doled out over “the incident” as we now refer to it in our family, but just to set the record straight, it was the perfect sister who delivered the “deadly” blow to poor Caesar—I was merely a party to the crime.

Jodi Severson

THE BOLOGNA WARS

M
y younger sister and I were dyed-in-the-wool tomboys. When our family moved from the small fenced yards of big city living to the freedom of the country, we thought we had landed on our own little patch of heaven. We spent hours playing in the barn, walking the fields and riding our bikes down the gravel road that eventually reached a tiny town if you went the whole five miles. Near our house the road crossed a little stream that pooled on one side where a school of fish had made their home. The largest was probably only about six inches long, but to our childish eyes they all looked like twelve-pound salmon.

On occasion we would venture into the small town library and check out books. We would lie in the grass and read and then integrate the stories into our own adventures. Once we checked out a book about “The Pioneers.” That one really snagged our imaginations. The rolling Missouri farmland surrounding us was the ideal setting to hack out a life for ourselves with our bare hands. So with the exception of television and bathrooms, which we were sure the pioneers would have gladly used had they had them, we determined to renounce the trappings of modern society and live off the land.

We rounded up all the fallen branches we could find and fashioned ourselves a log cabin. It was the perfect house in which to live a pioneering life, at one with nature, despite the trivial inconvenience that it had no roof. Next we addressed the food situation. Our mother kept a garden, so vegetables were no problem, but what about meat? My sister and I stared at each other, as the same thought dawned on us—
the fish!
It didn't matter that we gagged and whined every time our mother made us eat it. Our fish would taste great because they would be fresh! Fishing could become our contribution to the family welfare. We'd bring some home every night and save our parents gobs of money on groceries.

We scrounged around until we found an old badminton net pole and tied some string onto it. Then we filched one of our baby sister's diaper pins to use as a hook. Now, bait. It seemed mean and really icky to skewer a worm on that sharp pin. Instead, we bummed half a slice of bologna from the fridge. Since it was a hot afternoon, we knew the fish would be dying for a nice cool piece of meat. With our fishing pole, bait and confidence in hand, we proudly made a beeline to the pond.

Since I was the eldest, I solemnly informed my sister that I would hold the pole. Fishing was tricky business and since our family's fortunes apparently hinged upon our ability to master it, it should be handled by someone who knew what she was doing. Wide eyed, she acquiesced. So we baited the hook, dropped it into the water and hunched on the shoulder of the road, me holding the pole and my sister sitting quietly.

As we stared at the spot where our string disappeared into the pool, we saw a little shudder. In the heat of the moment, my sister grabbed the metal rod with both hands as the string gave a tremendous tug. We had a bite! Excitedly, we jerked the pole up with our combined strength and whipped the string hard enough that the diaper pin sailed over our heads and landed on the road behind us. We spun around to admire our whopper to find not only no fish, but no bologna as well. Perplexed, we looked at the hook, at the water, and at the hook again. Then we gathered up our stuff and dejectedly walked home.

By the time we got there, we figured out that we must have pulled the line up way too hard. I pointed out that that's why it was best to have just one designated pole holder. My sister saw the wisdom in this and promised to work on her self-control. We had fried chicken for dinner that night. We told our parents to enjoy that chicken because by the next day, it'd be fresh fish every night.

The next afternoon, with our bologna, we marched back to the pool. We sat on the hot road, dangling our feet over the water and waited for dinner to bite. Then my sister saw something move on the bank and we pulled our feet up, mindful of the snakes that roamed the countryside. It wasn't a snake though; it was a frog. And he must have been one of those nuclear-radiation-mutant kinds because he was about as big and round as a saucer. While we watched, he slipped into the water, swam over to our line and dove out of sight. Suddenly, the string started dancing and I yanked it out of the water. The pin swung in little circles, naked as a jaybird. We looked at each other indignantly. That big, stupid frog had stolen our bait! We'd see about that.