The Language of Sisters (6 page)

After three hours, my insides felt twisty and disoriented from the sound of my sister’s cries. As usual, she slowly petered out, resting her head on my mother’s belly as they swayed together in the living room. My mother’s exhaustion was written across her face in tear streaks and dark shadows. “Help me get her to bed, Nicole,” she whispered, and the two of us walked Jenny through
the kitchen and down the hall to her bedroom, where finally, mercifully, she quieted and fell asleep.

•  •  •

Images of this night tumbled through my mind as I packed up my sister’s belongings at Wellman. I considered whether I was insane for wanting to take her to my mother’s house, to be utterly responsible for her needs over the next four months. And her needs were immense. Dr. Leland had fought me tooth and nail to keep Jenny at the institute, citing my sister’s medication schedule and extensive physical therapy needs. “Do you really think you can handle this?” he asked me as we stood on opposite sides of Jenny’s bed. “Do you think you’re qualified?”

“I’m her sister,” I snapped. “I helped take care of her for fifteen years before she came here. I think that qualifies me.” I didn’t want to think about this. I only knew I had to do it. I looked over to Jenny, who sat quietly in her wheelchair by the door, watching me pack her things. I tried to send out only positive thoughts so she wouldn’t sense any of the hesitation I felt, any of the fear that I was making an enormous mistake.

“Have you ever given her an enema, Nicole?” Dr. Leland inquired pointedly. I stopped packing for a moment and looked startled. He continued. “She needs one almost every day—did you know that? And what about the baby? Other than here, where are you going to find a doctor willing to take on a severely disabled mother?”

“I’ll find one.” I hardened my gaze along with my determination. “If I were you, I wouldn’t be worrying about my sister’s enemas. I’d be worrying about what this institution’s lawyers are going to do when the media gets wind of what happened here.”

“Miss Hunter, there’s no need—”

“No need for what? To let the public know what really goes
on in these places every day? What gets brushed under the rug because the victims don’t have voices?” My words shook with emotion. “Well, Dr. Leland, Jenny has a voice. She has my voice, and I intend to use it.”

I sounded more confident than I felt. I didn’t actually have a plan to approach the media; I wanted to talk to Shane and get an idea of how stable our legal position was before I did anything.

For the moment, all I knew for sure was that I was going to care for Jenny the way I should have when I was eighteen. How unfathomable it had been to me then—fresh out of high school, thrilled to escape the suffocating confines of my family—to drop the potential of my life and take care of my sister so my parents wouldn’t place her at Wellman. How much I tormented myself over leaving her there when I could have stood up to my father’s ultimatum: “Either commit her or I will leave you, Joyce.” How deeply I hated my mother for choosing a man over her own daughter, a man who ended up leaving her anyway. The life I’d created in San Francisco didn’t seem worth it now, after all the time I’d lost with Jenny, after what had ended up happening to her. Her pregnancy gave me the chance to finally redeem myself, to be the sister I wished I had been.

When Dr. Leland realized I would not be swayed, he grudgingly handed over the names of a couple of obstetricians who had had some experience with special-needs patients. He also gave me a list and schedule of Jenny’s medications and informed me that any that might be harmful during pregnancy had already been discontinued.

“Could the damage have already been done?” I asked.

Dr. Leland gave a short nod. “Possibly. She wasn’t taking anything considered especially harmful to a fetus, but you’ll just have to wait and see.”

I looked the list over. Zantac, for severe acid reflux, twice
a day. Milk of magnesia, for constipation, as needed. Klonopin, for muscle spasms, once daily, with food. Dantrium, a muscle relaxant, as needed, with food. Instructions for giving an enema. I leaned over the back of Jenny’s wheelchair to kiss her cheek. “Quite the pharmacy, Sis. Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out.”

I thanked Dr. Leland and wheeled my sister down the hall to the elevator and then to the car. My mother was waiting for us at the house, her disapproval of Jenny’s homecoming clear. As I loaded her few things into the trunk, Jenny closed her eyes and lifted her round chin, the soft spring sun on her pale face and dark hair like a graceful caress. She smiled, her closed hands patting their gentle dance. Her gaze caught mine and I smiled back into her deep blue eyes.
Home,
I thought, and she laughed, a sound so pure and clear it smoothed the edges of my ragged soul.

•  •  •

For six years after Jenny first began to show signs of her disabilities, our mother took her to an unending line of specialists, neurologists, and pediatricians who had nothing to give us but more forecasts of my sister’s impending death. “If I were you,” one had actually said, “I’d want to get some tests done to find out if she’s playing with all her marbles.” But despite the negativity she encountered, my mother led a determined search for the name of the monster who had invaded our lives. More than once, we had been told Jenny could die any day.

“She’s regressing,” several specialists concluded. “More likely than not, she’ll continue to regress until her brain simply stops functioning. You should prepare yourself for losing her.” Not one of them could tell us why this was happening. Not one of them could give it a name.

My mother came home from these appointments tearful and depressed, often locking herself away in my parents’ bedroom for hours, leaving me to care for Jenny. I did my best to entertain my sister; she loved to watch me make silly faces and sometimes even attempted to mimic my expressions. At three, she had begun to look us in the eye again, an occurrence my mother took as a sign of her ability to be healed. Anything could be a sign: a smile, a laugh, a particular movement of Jenny’s hand. My mother interpreted them all as proof that her daughter was simply ill, not
permanently damaged. Back then her hope was a bright thing, sometimes dulled, but always burning.

But the professionals she consulted provided little encouragement. So when Jenny was nine, Mom decided to look away from medicine and into the spiritual world for answers. There was a healer, a supposed miracle-creating interpreter of languages unheard by the rest of us. Mom found out about her from a friend who swore the woman was God’s unnamed daughter. “She knew things about my life I’ve only prayed about,” the friend said. “You have to take Jenny to see her.”

My mother made the appointment. She didn’t tell my father, sure he would only scoff at the waste of time. She did, however, insist that I come with them; if the healer said or did something worthwhile, I could back her up when she told Dad about it.

“But I don’t
want
to go,” I had whined when she told me of the appointment. It was the summer I turned twelve, and the days were hot. My best friend, Nova, and I were spending as much time as possible at Colman Pool in Lincoln Park, practicing our high dives and giggling over the boys in their wet swim trunks.

Helping my mother take care of Jenny at home was one thing, but going out in public with them had become another. I was easily embarrassed, painfully vulnerable to every sidelong glance sent our way, every whisper of a child who asked his mother, “What’s
wrong
with that girl?” I had learned that the safest response to these situations was to ignore them. Too many times I had watched as my mother attempted to introduce Jenny to an inquisitive child only to have that child’s mother yank him out of Jenny’s reach, as though her disabilities were a virus that might be caught.

This was not the sole lesson I learned about life as the sister
of a retarded child. Unwilling student that I was, I learned that no matter how many times my parents tried to convince me differently, I always came second. By simple necessity, Jenny’s needs were foremost, pushing me into the role of less important child even when I had accomplished the most. My straight A’s won a quick smile; Jenny’s managing to get a spoon to her mouth won her an hour of cooing and congratulations. This realization forced me into a subconscious hyperachievement drive, compelled to be more, do more, as though it were my task in life to make up for my sister’s disabilities.

Not wanting to give my mother more than she already had to handle, I rarely misbehaved. I struggled to match Jenny’s angelic demeanor, though on some level I sensed I would always fall short; I would always be the imperfect daughter. And since Jenny didn’t have the capacity to misbehave, the standard I set for myself was completely unreachable. Still, I reined in my rebellion as best I could, the ache I felt for normalcy binding me like a too-tight blanket.

But that morning, of all the lessons I had learned, duty to my sister spoke the loudest. As my mother got Jenny dressed, skillfully sliding her daughter’s stiff limbs into a calico sunsuit, she looked at me, her eyes hard at my reluctance to accompany her. “I don’t care if you don’t want to go. Take that bathing suit off and get your clothes on.”

“But Nova and Star are supposed to pick me up in fifteen minutes…. ” Star was Nova’s mother, and her father was Orion; a couple of hippies who had met and married in a commune, they had stuck with the celestial theme in naming their only child.

“Nicole Hunter!” my mother snapped. “Get dressed. Now. Call Nova and tell her you have something else to do today and you’ll go to the pool tomorrow.”

I looked at the floor, scowling, scuffing my bare foot against the carpet.

“Did you hear me, young lady?”

Jenny was silent, her eyes large and liquid, looking at me, not blinking.
Please,
I heard her say, so I twirled around and stomped out of the room. I called Nova from the phone in the hallway.

She was disappointed. “But why can’t you come? What am I going to do all day without you? Who’s going to put baby oil on my back?” Both pale-skinned with a tendency toward wild freckling, Nova and I approached tanning with scientific vigor. I knew her shining, sandy blond waves would look better next to a Coppertone tan than my red mess of corkscrew curls, but since she was my best friend, I tried not to hold it against her.

“My mom is making me go with her to some stupid appointment for Jenny.” Nova was the only friend I ever felt comfortable bringing around Jenny, the only friend who embraced my sister as special, hugging her, wiping away her drool, and singing her the “Alphabet Song” in a Cookie Monster voice. Jenny, in turn, adored Nova, lighting up whenever my friend appeared. I raised my voice so my mother would be sure to hear how angry I was with her. “She’s so dumb.”

My mother called out from Jenny’s room. “Watch it, kiddo. Keep it up and the pool is off-limits for the rest of the week!”

I spit air out of my mouth like it had a bad taste. After telling Nova I’d talk to her later, I got dressed and we left. I kept silent for the entire drive, staring out the backseat window as we headed through our local shopping district, the West Seattle Junction, and up Thirty-fifth Avenue toward White Center. When we pulled up in front of a beaten-down brown house with a rotten-looking roof and sagging front porch, I finally spoke. “This place is a dump.”

My mother whipped around to look at me, her hands still gripping the steering wheel, her knuckles white. “That is a terrible thing to say. Maybe it’s all she can afford.”

I crossed my arms over my budding chest. “Then she’s probably not that good. If she was, she’d make more money and live in a mansion on Lake Washington.”

“Get out of the car, Nicky.”

With one of us on either side of Jenny, we gingerly led her up the front steps, careful to avoid the soft-looking spots of wood. A small handwritten sign hung in the window next to the door; it read
SONIA SMITH, PSYCHIC HEALER
. I rolled my eyes.

Before we had a chance to knock, a woman came to the door. At a little over five feet tall, she was small-boned, petite enough to appear childlike. Her black, straight hair fell to the middle of her back. Her skin was pale, her eyes piercingly gray. She wore a purple robe with a hood, its hem edged in gold rope. “Welcome, you must be Jenny,” she said to my sister, her voice low and melodic; then she paused. “Yes, I’ve been waiting to meet you, too,” she continued as though my sister had spoken to her.

I snorted at this, but when she directed her eyes at me, I shivered. “Hello, Nicole. Your mother told me you’d be coming. I’m so happy to meet you all. Come in, please.” She gestured with her winglike arm for us to enter the small living room.

The space was dimly lit; heavy velvet curtains hung over the windows, blocking out the bright morning sun. Sweetly scented candles burned in several corners of the room, and dark tapestries depicting scenes from the Bible insufficiently covered cracked plaster walls. Sonia motioned us to the large couch by the door while she sat opposite in a deep, comfortable reading chair. There was a short wood table between us, lined with a pretty piece of burgundy fabric, candles, and an ornate deck of cards. She folded her hands gracefully in her lap.

“What can I help you with, Joyce?” She addressed my mother.

“Well,” my mother said nervously, her fingers busily fiddling with the straps of her purse, “like I said on the phone, we want to know what’s wrong with Jenny. The doctors can’t—” She swallowed; I watched her voice box bob up and down her slender neck. “They say she’s as good as dead already … ,” she whispered, her voice faltering as she lowered her chin to her chest. “I—”

Sonia reached out for her hand and squeezed it. “I understand. You want to know if the disease that grips your child’s mind is hopeless. If it can be named, it might be healed.”

My mother nodded once and whispered, “Yes.”

Then Sonia looked at me. “And you, Nicole—what do you want to know?”

I froze, then shrugged my indifference.

“Nothing?” Sonia smiled, her eyes twinkling. “Well, we’ll see if there’s anything your sister wants to tell you.”