We’d return to the city on some holidays, but usually stayed in the big old house in Albion where we’d gather around the heat and make the most of whatever day was to be celebrated.
We didn’t trick-or-treat on Halloween because the houses were so far from each other. Instead, our mother asked questions about past presidents or spun the globe and had us locate Istanbul or Uruguay. In exchange, we’d receive thick candy bars, with the game rigged to make sure everyone received equal doses of chocolate.
For Christmas, Steph and I received twin dolls. The closest in age, we always got different versions of the same thing. Same winter coat, different color. Same dress, different pattern. She got the George doll, I got Georgina. Both of them were three feet tall with pink grins plastered on their faces. Their milk-white skin was sprayed with freckles and crowned with red hair. But no matter how charming their scrubbed Gaelic features may have been to some, their green-eyed, button-nosed look was the one that none of us had. As a result, and in a sole attempt at unity, we were repelled by the sweet-faced pair. Still, I didn’t hate Georgina the way that Steph hated George. The fact was, she despised dolls altogether, and was endlessly irritated by my mother’s sloppy inattention to this detail.
“Oh Steph,” my mother said, puffing out disclaimers like other mothers blew out silky loops of smoke—“I forgot about you and dolls.”
Another Christmas and she’d meet Steph halfway, get her a GI Joe. But there was no compromise in Albion, when Steph still hoped that every unwrapped gift would be the Erector set she’d never get. Unable to shake the disappointment of getting a doll, Steph refused to touch George at all until that spring when she beheaded him and hung his ugly red head from the treehouse perch. I cried, though in truth, I wasn’t so much mourning the doll as grieving the loss of the pair. Georgina was nothing without George.