My
sister and I reached
the
same conclusion:
the
best way
to
love us was to not
spend
time with us.
It
seemed that
we
appealed
chiefly
to strangers.
We
had good clothes, good
manners
in public.
In
private, we were
always
fighting. Usually
the
big one finished
sitting
on her little one
and
pinching her.
The
little one
bit:
in forty years
she
never learned
the
advantage in not
leaving
a mark.
The
parents
had
a credo: they didn't
believe
in anger.
The
truth was, for different reasons,
they
couldn't bring themselves
to
inflict pain. You should only hurt
something
you can give
your
whole heart to. They preferred
tribunals:
the child
most
in the wrong could choose
her
own punishment.
My
sister and I
never
became allies,
never
turned on our parents.
We
had
other
obsessions: for example,
we
both felt there were
too
many of us
to
survive.
We
were like animals
trying
to share a dry pasture.
Between
us, one tree, barely
strong
enough to sustain
a
single life.
We
never moved
our
eyes from each other
nor
did either touch
one
thing that could
feed
her sister.
This is so good
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