My sister’s house is a circus. The front door is unlocked, and when I push it open, two children scamper past me, dressed as Ninja Turtles. “Siouxsie, Sal!” a female voice yells after them. “Don’t run on the road!”
There are more hyperactive children in the backyard, knees damp with mud stains. Storm, dressed in a makeshift fairy-princess outfit, chases two smaller boys, then spins around as they chase her, all of them squealing. In the living room, half a dozen chattering women are knee-deep in bubble wrap, boxes, mailing labels, and stamps. They are Boreal Springs locals, evidenced by their collective look of “I pickle my own vegetables.” Hippies, basically; harmless. One has a baby on the boob; several have unshaven armpits. I didn’t dress down today: I wore what I wanted. It was meant to be defiant. But in my black shiny leggings, purple lipstick, and cropped leather jacket, I am at best an overdressed city slicker, at worst, a clown. When I lift a tentative hand in greeting, they all stare a second longer than necessary.
“Lace.” My sister gets up, unthreading her fingers from a half-dozen mugs. “This is my sister,” she says to the women, crossing to give me a quick peck.
“Did you forget about our lunch?” I murmur.
“No.” This annoys her. “I figured you could help. I had a big order come in, last-minute.” You’d be forgiven for thinking this boon is a massive inconvenience. “This is Kathy from next door, Pam from my yoga class, Sue from the studio—”
They all smile somewhat quizzically at me, as if I am a bizarre piece of furniture Mara’s dragged home from a flea market.
“Lacey lives in Brooklyn,” Mara finishes.
“Ah,” the women say. This explains everything.
I touch Mara’s arm. “I was hoping we could talk.”
Studio Sue asks, “Mara, do you want the plates and mugs bubble-wrapped separately or together?”
Yoga Pam points to a plate of brownies. “Do these have nuts in them?”
“Mom, I’m thirsty!” a Ninja Turtle wails.
“We’ll talk later.” Mara ushers me to a spare spot. “Stick these labels onto those boxes.”
“Sugar cookie?” Kathy-from-next-door offers me a plate. Sensible ash-brown bob and a gold cross over her terrible turtleneck. Unlike the crunchy granola types, Kathy-from-next-door has a distinct Kathy Bates in Misery vibe.
I take a cookie, even though I don’t want to. My hangover is demanding something fried. My conscience is demanding an honest talk with Mara about the test. My ego wants to announce last night’s sexploitations to everyone. My cynicism knows no one in this room has heard of Elan Behzadi.
Storm hurricanes in with a gaggle of friends. They grab sugar cookies and thunder into her room as mothers call various reprimands and reminders. I stare after her.
I have to tell Mara, and it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t want to know. Storm has a right to know. My sister will be thirty-one next year. The same age my mom was when she died. I might not be around in ten years time to tell my niece about her own risk if Mara doesn’t.
“And what do you do, Lacey?” Kathy Bates turns to me.
Unwillingly: “I work in trend forecasting.”
A round of wrinkled noses. “What’s trend forecasting?”
Mara pulls her faded red hair back into a messy ponytail. The same ponytail my mother had in Mara’s favorite photo of her, sitting by the window, staring outside as if she’s unhappy but resigned to her fate. I’d never realized it was the same length, and almost the exact same cut. Has she done that deliberately? “It’s a way of telling the future,” I reply faintly, and then I ask Mara if we can talk in her bedroom.
Mara stands in her doorway. “Can this wait? I don’t want everyone down there doing my work while I’m not helping.”
“Can you shut the door?” I slip off my jacket, overheated.
Mara raises her eyebrows high. She turns around to quietly close the door. When she turns back, her face has changed. “You got the test.” Her ability to jump to accurate conclusions when it comes to me has always been disturbingly Olympic.
I can’t speak. I nod.
She folds her arms. “And?”
The words seize in my throat. I stare at the balding carpet.
“Fuck.” My sister presses one hand to her mouth.
I step toward her, but she holds up a hand. The warning strikes me in the chest. My need to have her hold me flares painfully.
An exhausted worry washes over her. She raises her eyes to the ceiling. When she speaks, it’s more to herself than me. “And I just— Christ, everything at the worst possible time.”
“What?”
She sighs, and presses her fingertips to her eyes. I’m eight years old again and asking for help with my homework. “Nothing.”
But I’m not eight. “I’m not saying you have to fix this, Mar. I’m not saying you have to do anything, I’m not saying you have to be involved.”
Her palms turn skyward. “But who else is?”
I start to babble. “I didn’t plan it; it just came up, as an option, in the moment, and I thought it’d be a good idea to rule it out. I didn’t think I’d have it, I really didn’t think it would happen.”
“Why not?” Mara hisses. “You know our history.”
“I don’t know,” I say, and now I’m crying. “I’m an idiot, what do you want me to say?”
Mara flicks her hands at me. Her eyes are icy. “So, what? You’ve started getting the screenings? Have you had a mammogram? You know those things can give you cancer.”
I inhale hard through my nose and shut my eyes, willing them to stop filling with tears. I can do this. I meet my sister’s gaze. “Mara, I’m thinking about getting a mastectomy.”
Her expression lands somewhere between disbelief and disgust. “Don’t be ridiculous, Lacey.”
“Spending my life getting screenings, waiting for cancer to happen, is not a path I want to go down. A mastectomy reduces my risk to pretty much nothing.” My heart is speeding. I’m trying to sound calm and reasonable, but the truth of what I’m saying is making me panic. “You don’t know what it’s like, waking up every day wondering if today’s the day I find something, if today’s the day I start to . . . to die—”
“Lacey,” she interrupts. “Stop. Just stop.” For the first time in a very long time, she looks at me in the way she looks at Storm. She opens her arms.
I fall into her. She wraps me up and I let myself melt, burying my head into her chest like I used to do when we were children. She’s never worn deodorant but I love her smell: spicy, fruity, undeniably my sister. I close my eyes. She strokes my hair. “Poor baby,” she murmurs. “Don’t worry. I can help.”
I nod into her chest.
“We’ll put you on a clean diet,” Mara says. “Vegan; no fats or animal protein. You’ll need to start taking vitamin D.”
“I’ve already cut back on booze,” I tell her, wiping my nose.
“Good girl.”
“It’s so hard,” I say with a wry smile. “But if I go through with it, I’ll be able to—”
“No, sweetie.” She tucks a lock of white-blond behind my ear. “You don’t have to go through with anything.”
I stiffen. “But I might. I’m still thinking about it.”
She stiffens. “No. You’re not.”
I pull back. “Mara, I’m really thinking about this. It’s really an option for me.”
“No,” she tells me. “It’s not.”
“It is.”
“No, it’s not.” She says it as if we’ve already had this irritating conversation a thousand times before. Her face becomes hard. “Are you crazy? Or just stupid?” She forms her words as if I’m a child. “You’re not having a mastectomy, Lacey. You are twenty-five years old. You don’t have cancer. I can help make sure you never get it.”
“No, you can’t, Mar. You can’t. We can’t stop what’s in our DNA. I have it. You—you might have it too.”
Mara stares at me, her gaze flickering fast between my eyes.
“You might have given it to Storm,” I croak. “You understand that, right? You need to get tested, Mar. You need to know.”
“No!” She thumps the wall with her fist. “Goddamn you, Lacey.”
“Mar,” I whimper.
“You’re so selfish! You’ve always been so fucking selfish.” Her cheeks are blotchy red. “I was the one doing the housework, keeping the lights on, while you’re off, wearing a tutu to prom!”
“What is it with you and that fucking tutu?” I groan. “Why do you care what I wore to prom?”
“Because I never went to prom!” she shouts back.
“Yes, you did!” I’m amazed she’d even attempt this. “I remember the dress you wore: black, a black slip.”
“No, I didn’t.” Her words are acidic. “Remember? I was all set to go, and then you threw up, and then you threw up again, and Dad was who-the-fuck-knows and I had to stay home and look after you.”
“No,” I say, uncertain.
“Yes,” she says. “Yes.”
A new memory: Mara in a black slip and smudgy eye makeup, holding a cold compress against my head, hissing into a landline: Can’t go anymore—my stupid sister.
Is that right? Did she miss prom for me?
“It’s always been about you,” she says. “Your future, your dreams. Dad left it all to me. He didn’t even ask.”
“I know,” I say helplessly. “I’m sorry—”
“You had no right to make a decision like this without me,” she shouts. “It affects me, and it affects my daughter, and you made it without me because you’re selfish and you’re stupid.”
“Hey,” I snap. “Back off. I did ask you about the test. I can’t live my life based on your needs. I have a right to take control of my health, which is what I’m doing, with or without your help. I’m not stupid, and I’m not selfish, and if you call me those things again, we’re through.” I snatch up my jacket. “You know what’s interesting, Mar? If Mom had gotten this test, she might not be dead. She could’ve done what I’m going to do, and we’d still have a mother. Storm would have a grandma. But if it was solely up to you, you’d have told her not to do it and she’d have gotten cancer and died. Think about that when you make a decision that could save your daughter’s life.”
I tear out of the house, a hurricane of dark feeling. I drive less than a mile before I have to pull over on a quiet back road dappled with sunshine. I switch off the engine, put my head against the steering wheel, and start weeping. I cry as a release. I cry because I love and hate my sister. I cry because I feel exhausted and alone. After ten or so minutes, I switch the engine back on, and I drive myself home to Brooklyn.