DIED 2018
MY FRIEND IN TEXAS, the one who lost her daughter, had a younger sister. Both went to college in Austin, where Big Sister rushed Pi Phi and lived at the sorority house, while Little Sister pitched an indoor tent at the hippie co-op. Later, Big Sister filled her closet with Neiman-Marcus employee discounts; Little Sister came over with Tarot cards and tea in a jar. Then with a young husband who took her to a church where they spoke in tongues. After some anxious behind-the-scenes discussion, the girls’ parents asked Little Sister and her husband to come help out at the family ranch in the Texas hill country, as far from that church as possible.
But the husband set up a shortwave radio in the apple orchard, where he heard the call of an even crazier preacher man. He moved Little Sister and their baby to the preacher’s commune in South Carolina, and that was the last anyone saw them for the next ten years.
His disciples gave the preacher everything, took vows of poverty and simplicity, renounced driver’s licenses and medicine and all technology except the PA system that broadcast their daily instructions. Over the years, the preacher was brought up on charges of sexual misconduct, assault, burglary, and kidnapping, but even after he went to jail, Little Sister stayed on. Even after her teenage daughter married her childhood best friend and the two of them left.
Fate was not easy on Big Sister. By the time she finally brought herself to visit Little Sister at the commune, her own daughter had died. The next time they met was eight years later, when their parents were in a car crash and Little Sister actually showed up. Two years after that, with no explanation, she finally moved off the preacher’s land.
So it is you! thought Big Sister when she came to visit. Still smart and funny and hard-headed. Ready to watch the old movies, tell the old stories and remember jokes Big Sister hadn’t thought of in fifty years. But because she had been through it herself, she knew her sister had breast cancer before she ever told them. Never once saw a doctor. Soon she was gone.
So many people to be mad at: the husband, the preacher, Little Sister herself. But after all these misfortunes, Big Sister will not poison herself with anger and blame. Grief is enough. She puts on sunscreen, and turns her face to the sun.