Shred Sisters

by Betsy Lerner

For a long time, I was convinced that she was responsible for everything that went wrong. No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister.

We all suspected the bracelet was stolen; that evening marked the beginning of our collective denial.

Ollie’s absence was more suffocating than her presence.

At five p.m. she allowed herself a single scotch on the rocks. It eased the transition from late afternoon to evening, now the saddest part of the day. She had always said late afternoons were the happiest time, as she watched the light drain from the sky, peeling potatoes or carrots at the kitchen sink, gazing at the trees in winter, burnished by the copper sun. She called it the “almost time.” Homework almost done, dinner almost ready, Daddy almost home.

In the months and years after she died, I often saw the world through her eyes, as if I had inherited her mantle of judgment, her scoreboard in the sky. Those were the times I missed her most.

My sister swims beyond the ocean crest, part-dolphin, part-girl. Gulls circle and fill the air. A cloud asks, what do you know? No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister.