A year ago, when Kyle came home from the third
grade, dropping the F-bomb, our house became a full-fledged F-Zone. It was fuck
this and fuck that, and Mom, where’s the fucking Pop Tarts? I joined in, too,
but Mom said be quiet, don’t use words like that, you’re the oldest.
I said it wasn’t fair, Parrot was saying
it and she was two years younger than me and still eating with her hands.
Mom said that was the point. She didn’t
know any better.
And stop calling your sister, Parrot, Mom
added. Her name’s Paris, like the city where anything can happen, and I just
shook my head.
Then Mom spent the rest of the afternoon
telling Kyle to stop playing video games and complaining that she had to go
back to the grocery, and who’d eaten all the bananas anyway? She’d bought a
dozen yesterday, and they were all gone.
I told her Parrot did it, and she said,
nonsense, Eliza, don’t blame your little sister. Besides, she wouldn’t have
done it unless she’d seen somebody else do it, and I said maybe Kyle ate some,
and she said he must have eaten a lot or Paris would never have gotten it into
her head to eat the rest of them.
That’s when I turned to Parrot who was sitting
by the window, banana in hand. I knew what she was doing. She was always waiting
for the paperboy, who wouldn’t be here till morning. I couldn’t imagine what
she found so interesting about him. Every morning she’d be the first one up,
just waiting for him to pass by. And then again, when she got home from school
and after dinner and right before bed, she’d sit by the window and wait for
him, like she expected he’d come around the corner any minute.
Short curly blonde hair plastered to her
broad forehead, she looked like a little cherub without wings. Except for her
sticky fingers and drooly chin I would have hugged her. Except that I wouldn’t
have. I hated how she’d look at me with those large deep-set eyes, spaced so
far apart. How she’d throw the peeling at my feet and howl with delight. How she
laughed at everything and how nothing ever made her cry. Nothing. And so at
that moment, as I stooped to pick up the peeling and wipe the banana gunk from
my shoes, I really hated her. Not that deep-set brooding kind that sits dull in
your gut corroding your innards, just the flashing kind that bursts up hot in
your eyes and throat and makes you want to say hurtful things like SLOW and
STUPID. Which is what I did. I called her STUPID. I said it three times, “STUPIDSTUPIDSTUPID,”
all hot and angry and jumbled together. And I told her she’d never do anything first.
That she was a born repeater. A puppet of sorts. Like God had her on strings
and could make her dance or fall or do all kinds of stupid things like eat a
dozen bananas just because her older brother did.
____________
But that was last year. Now I’m the one
by the window, banana in hand. Mom says I need to stop torturing myself. Every
big sister says things like that, and Paris didn’t know half of what I meant.
Then she says I need to come away from the window. That was her place, and nobody ever knew what she
was looking at anyway.
I know Mom’s just saying that. In a year,
she’s become frazzled and old, with her hair graying at the part and her
mascara clumped and smeared around her eyes like she’s been crying, which she does
all the time now. And Kyle’s just yelling, “Fuck you!” at the TV screen.
So I wait till morning. Around 4:30 I get
out of bed and tiptoe passed my parents’ room. Dad’s snoring and Mom’s head is
turned into the pillow, and I don’t hear anything but the soft hum of “I Dream
of Genie” on the TV that Kyle left on when he fell asleep on the couch with
Mom’s afghan half-covering him and his legs poking out.
The hardwood floors are cold against the
soft soles of my feet, and I whisper run to the nook by the window where Parrot
used to sit. And now I can wait and watch to see what she saw.
The morning light is just peeking out
peachy-orange and ready to burst. I lean into the window, all frosty and cold,
and my breath makes little clouds on the panes, and I think of Heaven and how Parrot
– Paris – finally did something
first.
And the leaves in the trees whisper to
one another. And not a car on the road. Just a few birds singing loudly and
happy like everything’s just the same as it used to be.
And then, I see something dark move past.
A paper thumps on our doorstep. And I strain to catch a glimpse of the boy
pedaling on now, trying to see what she saw. And then I do. He’s riding a
unicycle.
