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Stories of my sister

I want to tell you about my sister. I want to tell you about the person she was to me. Not the poet, the prostitute, the bleached out blonde, the mother, the paranoid trainwreck.
    No, simply,
    My sister.

She entered the world quietly, which was always a surprise to everyone who knew her, considering the life she led and left behind, in secret diaries and public bathroom stalls. She did, however, enter with a splash. In June 1982 she was found floating amidst toilet paper and urine in the upstairs bathroom. 'How rude!' she would declare at dinner parties, Christmas or Easter, never quite getting over the indignation of having been born in a toilet. She never fully forgave our mother for not letting her have been born in fresh air and clean sheets.
    But she didn't make a fuss, no matter how much she liked to complain about it. Our panicking mother, who wasn't really aware of what had just happened, was put at ease by the look on the new-born's face. She looked up at my mother, eyes big as plates, occasionally smiling; a new human being simply content with having made a successful transition from womb to world.

'Do you get scared?' she asked as she climbed into my bed in the early hours of the morning, gently pulling me out of a heavy sleep, willing me to stay awake with her.
    'No,' I lied and I could tell she knew. Because she knew all too well how I wanted to be like her, fearless and stubborn. How I longed to see the world through her eyes. She lived in a world of dreams, a world I wanted nothing more than to be a part of.
    She didn't say anything, satisfied with my answer for now, because she wanted to help me be more like her. She made me believe I could, if I wanted it enough.

Six years seperated us, but she never treated me like the annoying younger sibling, never talked about me to her friends. She wasn't eager to pick a fight or wreak havoc when I was treated to the benefit of the doubt most younger siblings get. You know how some people are born to be something? I think she was always born to be a sister. When I was born it was as if something fell into place inside her. Something was made whole and right.
    I think they were worried, both of my parents, when I was born. Even though they never complained of her openly, at least not to me, I could tell they were, and always had been, walking on eggshells around her. Plagued by mood swings as she was, you didn't know what kind of reactiong your words would prompt. But when I was born, she calmed the tempest inside her, willed it to silence.

'Has she left for good, do you think?' I asked my mother. We were both sat in front of the telly, nursing steaming mugs of hot chocolate none of us felt comfortable about drinking.
    'It's difficult to say with your sister,' she told me, sighing.
    'But...why did she leave? Why did she leave tonight?' I looked up at my mother expectantly. I knew why my sister had left this house, the same reason why I was having such a hard time having a mug of hot chocolate in the presence of my own mother. There was nothing left there that made us want to stay. But I wanted to hear her say it. I wanted to hear her say 'she probably couldn't stand it anymore.' Instead she only looked at me, face ashen and devoid of human emotion. For a split second she looked dead.
    'I...' she began and took a sip of the hot chocolate.

Hi poppy,
Sorry to be leaving you like this, but sometimes you just have to do the right thing. Even though that means leaving you behind. One day I'll come back for you, remember that. There really was no other choice. Mum and dad both knew they couldn't keep me locked up for too long. This was always going to happen. I need to unfold, you know? Make my mark on this ugly world. 
I will be seeing you, don't you worry about that.
Miss you already and love you always,
Yours until the end of time,
Dot. 

One summer we went to Scotland. I had just learned how to ride a bike and would count my time wasted if I wasn't riding one. My sister would roll her eyes, but always joined me on her bicycle, too scared to disappoint me. All she wanted to do was go exploring, scale cliffs and venture into dark caves. She didn't care how we got there as long as we got there.
    I realised, years later, that the journey is everything. I wonder why she didn't know that.
    No matter where we went, she would always be there to hold my hand. We spent hours outdoors, my sister finally set free, at least for the time being. It was the happiest I ever remember seeing her, that sumer. She looked perfect when she laughed with the wind whipping her hair in some completely desolate yet beautiful part of Scitland. I was always able to hear my own heartbeat, almost ringing in my ears. I got so scared and nervous every time we ventured into territory that seemed completely forgotten by the rest of civilisation. Questions and thoughts would pop up in my head like "what if something happens to us?" or "they'll never find us", but I was too afraid to say anything. I didn't want my sister to think I was scared. I hated myself for not being able to experience the same gleeful delight she felt whenever we went somewhere new.
    I broke my foot on that trip and spent about two days in hospital. No matter how much my parents wanted to blame my sister, it wasn't her fault. It was all mine. I woke up in the hospital, drugged an pain free, to her sitting by my bed, mascara all over her face.
    'Hi,' I croaked and she let out a sigh that sounded long overdue.
    'Thank God,' she said and took hold of my hand and squeezed it gently.
    'I'm so sorry,' I said. I didn't know what more to say. I felt like a complete idiot. Why couldn't I simply have confidence in myself and let go for a little while? Thinking always got the better of me.
    'What happened?' she asked.
    I didn't want to look at her. Her blue eyes piercing into my mind, exposing my pathetic little soul and I knew she could see me on that bike, both hands in the air and then eventually falling off.
    'I got scared,' I finally said and felt a wamr tear trickle down my cheek and on to the pillow.

One night when I was fourteen we made arrangements for her to come visit. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen her and we both agreed upon a night when my parents were out of town. My grandmother was watching telly downstaris in the living room and I knew she would fall dead asleep during the nine o'clock news, but I couldn't take any chances. I found my mother's sleeping pills and ground a couple to a fine powder I slipped in her last cup of tea for the night. I stood by the chair next to her, stomach in knots, listening to her going on about whatever was on the news, sipping her tea until she finally gulped the whole thing down. I had no idea what ground sleeping pills tasted like. After a while her speech grew slurry and a couple of minutes later she was snoring softly. Five minutes after that my sister was in the house again and it felt like waking up to a sunny day after weeks of rain. Her presence felt so right in mine. That's she effect she had on my and maybe if I had been a little bit more mature, if I hadn't been so woefully selfish, I would have asked her about how skinny she'd gotten, how it looked like she hadn't slept in days. I would have asked,
    'Are you OK?'
    But I didn't. Our time together was too precious for that.
    The night grew into a long one of cheap red wine and catching up. She told me about all the parties she went to and all the boys she met.
    'Are you being sexually active?' I asked her in a mock teacher- voice and instead of laughing like I suspected she would, she just looked at me for a long time.
    'I want you to bleach my hair,' she said finally.
    'But your hair is black,' I told her.
    'Yes, it is, poppy,' she said and walked towards the bathroom.
    'It's going to take a lot of bleach,' I said and followed her.
    'Oh, I know,' she said and her flashing smile gave me chills.
    After a while of mixing and adding I asked her, 'Why bleach anyway?'
    'I want to look pure in the fakest way possible.'
    I wanted to laugh at her endless row of stupid ideas and ask 'What's the point?', but when I looked at her something stuck in my throat. She was being so deadly serious I was afraid of what would happen if I had laughed.
    Hours later, her hair was a snowy white, tinged with orange, and dense tufts of hair lay scattered all over the bathroom. I looked at my work, resisted an urge to grind my teeth and looked back at my sister as she lit a cigarette.
    'I think we have to cut a lot of it off.'
    'Do it,' she said and blew a grey cloud of cigarette smoke, obscuring her reflection in the mirror.

I finally turned eighteen and was able to escape the incredible hollow house that had been known as home. I went to university and that first year felt like one long visit to my sister's flat. I spent hours on clammy trains and smelly buses, simply living for the times when I would get back to her. There was never a time when it was "inconvenient" for me to visit and for that I loved her even more. I felt so awkward everywhere else, never fitting in anywhere other than in her presence. But as much as I longed to see her, I was also so terribly afraid. A shifty look at replaced her relaxing countenance and she seemed so eternally lost. I had seen the needles. I had seen the bruised marks on her sinewy arms. I knew about the nameless men who all wandered into her life and her apartment and left without as much as a kiss goodbye. I knew there would always be a twenty pound note missing when I got back to uni. So I kept coming back. Without a plan. Without asking the questions I should've been asking.
    One night I was woken up by loud shouting and doors baning, so I got up and walked into the nursery. The baby I found awake and restless, but the minute I picked her up she went quiet. I sat back in the rocking chair, the only gift from our parents, and sang lullabies I had thought long forgotten. I felt that I was finally able to repay my sister for all the times I knew she had picked me up in the night and done the same. Hours later, when everything was silent, she came in and stared at us.
    'She looks like you,' she said.
    'No, she doesn't.' But I knew she was right and it pained me. I didn't want the baby to look like me. The baby was something that should be hers, only hers. But my sister hadn't been born to be a mother and I couldn't deny the constant growing love I felt for that little life, sleeping soundlessly in my arms. I couldn't deny how good she felt. My sister smiled sadly at us, lingering a few seconds at the door before she was gone.