At first after she's born, I hate my
sister Karen more than anything. She cries all the time, and she
poops her diapers. And the grown-ups don't notice how disgusting she
is, they just keep on liking her. They take millions of pictures of
her. They never take pictures of Linda or me any more, but all Karen has to do is sit there, and out comes the camera, because that's
apparently the cutest thing in the world. She sleeps in her crib. I
want to know! How is that special? I sleep too, and no one ever
wants to take a picture of me. She washes dishes. What's so big
about that? Don't I do the same thing practically every night?
She learns how to say a couple words of
Spanish when we're in Mexico, and everyone thinks it's the cutest
thing in the world. They don't notice that I can say whole
sentences. – And do! – They don't notice that I'm doing
everything Mama and Daddy tell me to, and I'm not arguing about it.
And when we go on a picnic and the other kids are drinking up all the
lemonade before we even get there, I'm the one who tells them, “no
mas limonada.” (They don't listen, by the way.)
It's like a year later than that, when
Karen is three or maybe four, when I first learn the story of the
Prodigal Son in Sunday School. The little brother goes out and gets
in trouble all the time, but he's the one that gets all his Daddy's
love when he finally comes home. Jesus says it's the big brother's
fault for being jealous and selfish. That makes me feel guilty,
because I feel just like the big brother in the story, so I must be
jealous and selfish too. But I still can't make myself like Karen.
Then I notice
Karen starting to change a
little bit. One day when I'm in the Fifth Grade, I get really really
sick, so sick I can't hide it, and I have to stay home from school
for a day.
Karen comes over and she asks how I'm doing, which is a
really nice thing that I know I probably wouldn't have done for her.
It makes me feel embarrassed, because I don't like people noticing
when I'm sick, but it also makes me love
Karen a little more.
Then about another year later, we're at
Grandma Johnson's house and I want to do something nice for
Karen. I
realize that I always play with Linda, and so do Johnny and Julie who
live across Grandma's back fence, so that means
Karen must get pretty
lonely when we're in Redlands and none of her friends are around. I
don't want to play with her exactly. Linda and I have our games, and
they're big-girl games. A little kid like
Karen is only going to ruin
them, I think. So I come up with another idea. And that's how I
invent the Pizza Fairy.
The Pizza Fairy brings
Karen nice notes
and presents. The first time, I make the presents out of stuff I
find around Grandma's house. Later on, I buy them. The notes, I
make up out of my own head. It's not as fun as writing a story,
because the Pizza Fairy has to sound real, but it's still pretty fun.
I tell stories about where the Pizza Fairy's been and what he's
seen. I have him ask
Karen how she's doing and what she's been up to.
Later on when she tells me about them, I help her write notes back.
It's not until a couple years later
that I start really playing with Beth. When I do, it's not because
she's gotten any better at it (and I'm old enough by then to realize
that she was probably never as bad as I thought she was). It's
because Linda's suddenly turned into a teenager or something, and
never wants to do anything good.
Karen can still be persuaded to play
make-believe games and use our Barbies with me. Linda just wants to
lay out and get a suntan, and talk about clothes.
I write plays and
Karen acts in them for
me. I make paper dolls with gorgeous wardrobes that I copy out of
History of Fashion books. – Later on after a friend of Linda's
named Roxie starts playing paper dolls with us, Linda decides it's
okay for her to play too (as long as none of her cool friends find
out), but at first it's just
Karen and me. – We play a game where
my hand is a spider, and
Karen's trying to kill it, that hurts
sometimes because she hits too hard. I find the ugliest photo of
Karen when she was a baby that I can, and I tease her by keeping it in
my wallet instead of any of the good photos she's had taken since.
Then when I go off to college, that's the only photo of
Karen that I
have, and I look at it a lot and feel homesick for her.
I remember how I used to treat
Karen back when she was a baby, and I feel guilty about it. I think it was
a bad time for me, and I was too young not to blame
Karen for all the
bad things that happened. This is the kind of explanation that makes
sense, but doesn't make you feel any better. And it doesn't do
anything about the fact that I had 12 years of practice siding with
Linda about everything, and never siding with
Karen. You don't
unlearn that stuff just by feeling guilty. You don't learn the
courage to stand up and say “
Karen is right,” when Linda is being
unfair.
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