About My Sisters (20 page)

Bo was the prince of our family before he was even born. The very location of his arrival seemed auspicious. We were living in Los Angeles then, in an apartment just beneath the Sunset Strip. It was warm all the time and the air had a permanent rose-gold glow. Disneyland was around the corner. We went out for ice cream at least once a week. And, unlike the other places we had lived, there was always a beach close by. I fell in love with the ocean and with California that year and wasn't entirely comfortable in any of the places I lived until I moved back here sixteen years later.

When my mother was still a few months away from delivery, she had a dream that she was sitting in front of a large, brightly colored bowl. In the bowl was a giant pea pod which she split open, revealing a plump, pink baby boy inside. She told me, in excited detail, all about the dream, and said, “It means that this baby is definitely a
boy
. I know it.”

My mother said the word “boy” with a certain reverence. It wasn't that she believed that boys were somehow worthier than girls, because I've never for a moment believed that either of my parents had a preference as to the sex of their children. Rather, there was a certain awe that came from knowing that she could create a male within her female body. Even at ten years old, I had an unconscious understanding of this miracle and when I gave birth to a son fourteen years later, it struck me, all over again, how astonishing it was that a woman could produce a child who would become a man. I've since decided that it's entirely possible that some women never quite get over this sense of awe, which would explain quite a bit in terms of the sense of entitlement so many of their sons feel. My brother was
born into a house that was full of awe-struck females just waiting to lavish him with adoration.

I was almost eleven years old when Bo was born and Maya was eight. I'd forgotten any awkwardness I might have felt handling a baby by the time he came along. Lavander seemed so fragile to me when she was born and, for a long time, I was afraid of breaking her. I never had this worry with Bo, who often ended up on my hip after being passed from person to person like a football. Maya carried him around plenty as well. He was handled a great deal. He was also kissed relentlessly. As an infant, Bo was ruddy and hot. In the presence of strangers, he was an angry howler. Maya and I thought he was the cutest thing to ever have graced the earth and marveled endlessly about his darling chin, his fat lips, his dark curly hair. He was a more willing prop for our living room plays than Lavander was at that point, and so he became the center of every set piece. He was the boy Prince, boy Superman, or boy whatever we could find a costume and a concept for. He was happy to participate in his own way, most of which involved his tearing off whatever outfit we put him in and when he got older, trashing whatever other props we'd constructed. Destruction was always forgivable when he did it. He was a boy, after all.

While Maya and I cuddled and coddled, it was Lavander, only nineteen months old when he was born, who totally co-opted our brother. Bo was the second half of the set that made up him and Lavander, just as Maya was the second half of the set that made up the two of us. As soon as he was old enough to stand, she taught him to bang his crib against the wall and hurl his bottle across the room just as she did. We could always tell when naptime was over for the two of them by the rhythmic Doppler thumping of cribs, the slosh of milk as it hit the floor, and Bo's gleeful chuckle. From the time he formed his first smile, Bo thought Lavander was a laugh riot and he followed her lead in every way.

I never felt as protective of my sisters as I did with my brother. He always seemed so much more vulnerable. Perhaps this was because I'd already discovered that the girls could take care of themselves. Perhaps it was because the boy brought out more maternal instincts than they did. Whatever the reason, it was easy to baby him and to lavish on him the kind of attention I didn't think my sisters needed. Unfortunately, my protectiveness had limits, beyond which lay a maddening helplessness. I discovered these limits when I was twelve years old and he was about two.

He was a sweet little toddler in a light blue jacket and yellow galoshes. He had beautiful curls that my parents didn't want to cut (my father, especially, has always had a thing about hair and always discouraged us from cutting our own) and they hung around his shoulders. We'd moved twice since he'd been born and were living in Upstate New York on the edge of what seemed like a perpetually frozen lake. There was a playground in our town-house complex and I'd taken Bo out to play. We were at the tail end of a particularly frigid winter and hadn't been able to sit outside for months. As we walked down to the playground, I told him a story that I made up as we went along. This was a habit of mine when we went walking. I took the imagery from the fairy tales I'd read and pasted them into my own stories for him. I don't know if he ever really listened to me, let alone understood what I was talking about, but he was always very quiet while I rambled on and he never let go of my hand. I sat on a swing while he poked around in the cold dirt and fallen leaves with a stick he'd found on the ground.

There were a group of older boys, maybe ten or eleven years old, hanging out on the periphery of the playground, chasing each other and throwing clods of dirt and rocks at each other. Up to no good, I thought, and kept an eye on my brother, who was jumping up and down with glee over some particularly interesting leaf or stone he'd discovered. I heard the shouts of the boys come a lit
tle closer to us, but I didn't pay it much attention. I was in a state of semi–self-hypnosis, rethinking the story I had told Bo on the way down and watching the way the grays and browns of the trees blended into the grays and blues of the chilly sky.

The rock came so fast, I didn't even see it until after it hit Bo in the face and fell at his feet. He was screaming in pain and shock by the time I ran over to him. There was a large, deep scrape on his cheek, just under his eye. The rock had hit him hard and he was bleeding. I looked up only long enough to see the perpetrators pointing in our direction and laughing. I was filled with a combination of blinding rage and utter panic. Bo was crying in that heartbreaking, uncomprehending way that children have when they have no idea what caused the sudden pain they are feeling. Large teardrops fell from his big blue eyes. I wanted to kill.

“Hey! Hey, you!” I yelled at the boys. “Hey, look what you did!”

“Yeah, so what? What are you going to do about it? You can't do nothing,
girl
,” I heard come back in my direction. And it was true, there was nothing I could do about it, just as there was nothing I had done to prevent it. I was a girl—a little, timid girl at that. My fury was completely impotent. I couldn't go chasing after them any more than I could a pack of wild animals. I had to pick up my bleeding, crying baby brother, carry him home, and tend to his wounded face. I felt like crying myself over my own lack of power.

My parents were livid when I got Bo home and, ultimately, it was my father who went out in search of the boys who had thrown the rock while my mother wailed about the damage to her son's face. I followed my father as he stalked off to the playground, keeping something of a distance between us, both because of my embarrassment over being such a weak girl and because his anger, quiet and cold, was more intimidating when it was directed at someone else. I saw him walk over to the boys, deceptively casual in his approach, and start talking to them. He
even smiled. I watched his body language and that of the boys as he continued his speech. I could see when he got to the part about Bo being hit with the rock. The boys lost their tough attitudes, straightened their bodies, and stood at attention. My father leaned in closer to them. I could tell that he'd lowered his voice, even though I couldn't hear either him or the boys. I saw a flurry of finger pointing. “
He
did it,” I imagined all of them saying. I saw my father pick up a rock in his hand and weigh it out. I saw him lean over and palm the air about three feet above the ground. My brother's height. Look what you did. Consider the rock. Consider how big the baby is that you hit with it. The boys' eyes rounded with fear. I could see them making fiercely apologetic motions. I could see them leaning, poised to run, as soon as they were released. I could see the strain in their bodies, how difficult it was to stay in that place.

When my father finally walked away, they scattered like dry seeds on the ground. He'd taken care of everything, my father had, in a way that was completely unavailable to me. My brother forgot about his injury almost instantly. His scrape healed soon after that. But I never quite got over the sense of impotence I felt that day. It was the first time I'd ever felt the fundamental disadvantage of being a girl in a world that belonged to boys.

The world certainly belonged to my brother as he grew older, although nobody in our family ever held this against him. He had free reign, as he was growing up, to tease and torture, to practice using his wiles and charm, to be a contemporary (of Lavander's), a baby (to me and Maya), and a protector and defender (to Déja). He was able to discover what worked and what didn't in the realm of women. All the while, he had the impunity that came with being the only boy. I think it's safe to say that if my brother has any self-esteem issues at this point in his life, it has nothing to do with a lack of acceptance and adoration in his childhood.

Nor have we ever given him a hard time about his romantic choices. In this respect, my brother has had the easiest ride of all. His sisters have always been so concerned about his happiness and emotional well-being that we have all striven to make his girlfriends feel welcome and included. We are less critical of the women he dates than we are of each other's boyfriends and
much
less critical than we are of each other's women friends. Perhaps this is because of the protectiveness we still, and will always, feel toward Bo. Then again, perhaps my brother has simply made better choices than we have over the years. With very few exceptions, his relationships have been calmer and happier than ours and when they have ended, my brother and his exes always remain friendly. We are almost always on our best behavior when one of Bo's girlfriends is in the house. Unlike his sisters, Bo doesn't conduct his relationships in the spotlight of the family eye. We respect his need for privacy in this regard, whereas we often ignore it with each other. But we also want his girlfriends to like us. I'd even say this has been more important than whether or not we like
them
. The one exception to this rule has been Lavander, who seldom feels that any woman is good enough for Bo. Nevertheless, she has always tried harder than the rest of us combined to befriend the women in his life. Her loyalty to him is intense and unshakable.

Lavander was more distraught than any of us when, about three years ago, Bo started seeing a woman who was at first guarded around our family, then uncomfortable, and, finally, just flat out rejecting. My family is not oblivious to the fact that, as a group, we can be overwhelming. We are loud and we carry on. We tend to fall into usual patterns of communication when we are together. At the same time, though, everything is always out in the open. There are few smoldering resentments in this family because the demand to deal with it
now
is always present. What you see with us is usually what you get. There is not one of us who is capable
of putting on a false face with each other. With each other, we can't help but be genuine, which is why we were stunned when Bo's girlfriend, Hannah, seemed to like us less as their relationship progressed. If she had been a man, she would have been out, off the list, with every one of us, but because she was his girlfriend, we actually tried to modify our behavior around her; we tried, in fact, to be different people, people she might like. There was nothing for it, though, she wasn't having it. She didn't want to come to family dinners, ever. She didn't want to spend time with any of us, individually or together. And, as time went on, she didn't want Bo to, either. For the better part of two years, we didn't see or hear from him at all.

After a while, Maya and I gave up trying, hoping that, ultimately, it would all work itself out. Déja reckoned that if Bo was happy, that was more important than whether or not Hannah liked us (of course, we all suspected that he wasn't, but we weren't about to interfere—
yet
). But Lavander really grieved.

“He's my best friend,” she said, “and I never see him anymore. It's not fair. I've tried to be a friend to that bitch. I've told her that we are always open to having another sister. She doesn't care about him. If she did, she wouldn't be doing this to him.”

Gradually, Bo started voicing his doubts about his relationship with his sisters. We were very careful never to pass judgment on Hannah herself. Yet each one of us pointed out that he didn't seem to be happy and, from what he related, it didn't seem as if she was happy either. He was young, we told him. Why not put off this misery until later?

I want to believe that this helped him, that he was able to draw on the female wisdom of his sisters when the relationship finally came to an end. I like to think that his unlimited access to the collective womanhood of his siblings has been something of value in his development as a man.

I ponder this as I walk home. I'm wondering if I'd trade places
with my brother if I had the chance. I wonder what it would've been like to grow up surrounded by brothers. Would I understand the workings of the male mind any better? Bo's had four entirely different women against whom to judge female behavior. And we've just had him. There's something quite humorous in this. To know my brother is to know that he's not really a quantity against which to measure anything except himself. Although I have to admit, I've gathered a perspective from him that I wouldn't have been able to find any other way. He's gone into some places that neither I nor my sisters would have dared to venture.