You see a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and most people think of a tall glass of milk. Not me. I think of a Roy Rogers thermos full of sweet tea. I think of long, lazy, summer afternoons. I think of two barefoot girls catching crawdads in the crick. I think of my younger sister Kitty.
It’s funny how some things become linked in your mind. Advertisers and politicians capitalize on it. Lately they’re trying to convince us that green bean casserole is somehow a Thanksgiving tradition and that torture is as American as apple pie. But we know better. Or do we? Sometimes the truth gets lost in the wake of a real good story and sometimes we seem to prefer a really good lie.
I come from a family of story tellers. Most of us are pretty good at it. At the heart of each story is a little bit of truth. That’s what makes it a good story. Like the size of the one that got away, we always add just a bit to make the story more interesting. This works fine when you’re talking about fish but we tell stories about each other. We tell stories that hurt and cripple. We are so obsessed with holding the audience or proving the point that we ignore little details like the truth.
It’s that way with my sister Kitty. When we were young she was labeled the pretty one and I was the smart one. It made a good story. My mother dressed us alike, passed us off as “the smart twin and the pretty twin.” In fact, we are not twins but two years apart and I don’t consider myself ugly and Kitty is every bit as smart as I am. But those lies stuck to us and like thalidomide babies, we grew with stunted limbs.
When she was very young Kitty also got the reputation of being spoiled and selfish. It started one Christmas. Our Mom worked as a waitress and we barely survived on what she earned. A good week in tips made all the difference, especially at Christmas. In our house, Santa Claus waited to count the tips before he loaded his sack with presents. Knowing all this, we waited for Santa just the same. One year my mother surprised both of us with Penny and Patty Playpal dolls. They were dolls that were three feet tall – the same size as my sister and I and they were nearly identical except one had curly hair (Kitty) and one had straight hair (me). Christmas night Kitty and I sat on the floor playing with our two new friends.
The story goes that Kitty was unhappy because I had a doll as nice as hers. She wanted to be the favorite child. So she walked over and pulled the arms off my doll. According to the story, she said, “Now that’s right, you’ve got the ugly doll.” After that, she got the reputation of destroying the things I loved. In fact she has spent decades doing just that.
When we were very young, I stopped talking for a couple of years. No one really noticed since my sister did the talking for both of us. It wasn’t hard. We could almost hear each other’s thoughts the same way twins do. But Kitty started ignoring me. She’d say that I didn’t want my pudding and she’d eat my share. She’d say that I had broken the glass and I’d take her punishment. I finally started to speak for myself and when I did, she acted as though I had no right to my own voice.
She still acts that way. She puts herself in my place. She steals my clothes, books, and records like they are totems that would give her my power. She takes my stories and tries to makes them her own. It is as though we really are twins fighting for survival inside the womb. Only one of us can exist and she is determined to erase me from existence. I am not going quietly.
Once we were all together at a family dinner. I was telling the story of how when he was only three, my son had opened the car door as we turned the corner onto a busy highway and fallen out. I instinctively reached over and grabbed the hood to his ski parka and dragged him on his knees till I stopped the car. Once I got him inside I shook for nearly twenty minutes unable to drive. As I told the story, my niece kept interrupting, “No, Mommy, that story is about ME! Don’t you remember? It’s about me in our old car!” My sister shushed her. Later I wondered how she had explained away the ski parka since they lived in Arizona.
She gives me no more credit than a ventriloquist does his doll. When I finally did speak, I did it poorly. I stuttered and stammered my way through the simplest response but Kitty could dazzle with delightful stories. Asking why she hadn’t done her chores would elicit such entertaining excuses that everyone would forget to punish her. Instead, I would head off for the kitchen and do her share of dishes or laundry. My housework never brought me the kind of praise her excuses brought her. That’s when I took up writing.
Back to the Christmas doll story. I suggest that the story happened another way. Those two little girls were happy with each other and they didn’t really hate each other or feel the need to compete. They loved each other and enjoyed each other’s company. Simply two little girls enjoying their new dolls, dancing with them and making them play patty-cake with each other. But as we played, we swing each other and each other’s dolls and in the process the arms from my doll came loose. There was no malice, no jealousy, just two little girls playing a bit too hard with their new toys.
That’s the way I remember it. That’s the sister I remember. But if you’re told long enough that you are selfish and can’t stand to see your sister happy – maybe you give in and become that person. Or maybe not. Maybe other people just see you that way. All I know is this, my sister was my first friend and to this day there is no one who knows my heart and soul as she does. My life is hacked with her sabotage and yet I miss her.
Her crimes are unforgivable and yet I do forgive her. It has been the quest of my life to understand “turn the other cheek”. Have I simply taught her to be cruel? That I don’t deserve any better? Decade after decade I retrace my steps to find my way back to that childhood friendship. To the comfort and giggles of that first friendship. To find the secret thread that I can pull to unravel the mystery and find my way back to her.
So when others see peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and my little sister and they think of a tall glass of milk and a selfish liar, I see sweet tea and my very best friend.
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