Human Sister (7 page)

“I’ve been thinking about your desire for a companion,” Grandpa said a few days after he’d admonished me to be a good sister to First Brother. “Let’s find Grandma and go for a drive.”

“Did you make a new brother for me?”

“No, no,” he chuckled. “Brothers aren’t made that fast. Besides, you already have two marvelous brothers. You just need to learn how to love them.”

About a half-hour later on that sunny late-winter day, the yard gates opened, a gardenerbot scurried to the side with some weeds it had just pulled, and Grandpa drove out onto our long driveway. The car was peculiarly quiet inside, the kind of silence made of invisibly fitted heavy armor. Another car followed us, a car driven by one of Grandpa’s security guards. The sunburst honey locust trees lining the drive were bare, but in the vineyard wild mustard blossoms brightened the ground like thousands of tiny suns.

As we drove on narrow, winding country roads, a few early wild blossoms—red delphinium, Grandma told me, and blue periwinkle and yellow Spanish broom—smiled at us from grassy verges along the way. We finally pulled in to a homestead with a small white house, an old red pickup with a deep dent in its side, and a dilapidated barn, all tucked in among winter-naked oaks, willows, and black walnut trees. A man, older than Dad but younger than Grandpa, came out of the barn to greet us. Grandpa said the man worked on a vineyard nearby. A dog was barking—a deep, scary barking—from somewhere inside the barn. I held on firmly to Grandma’s hand.

Following the man through a creaky spring-hinged gate, we walked on a sidewalk, grass sprouting between jagged cracks, toward the house, up a few stairs, and onto the pillared porch, where there were two Adirondack chairs from which most of the white paint had peeled—a center slat was absent from one, like a missing front tooth—and a wicker basket in which a litter of sleeping puppies snuggled: five, taffy colored; one, pure white.

Reminded of Grandma’s Madonna lilies blooming then in our greenhouse, I pointed to the white puppy and exclaimed, “Lily!”

Even now, remembering, I can feel the excitement I felt when that soft, warm, sugary bundle of sleep was placed in my arms; and I can hear myself beg, “Please? Please, Grandpa. May I keep her? Please?”

But Grandpa was coy. He reminded me of the toad I’d quickly lost interest in. And the lizard.

I said everything would be different with Lily: I’d take good care of her, really, forever.

Grandma smiled approvingly, but Grandpa knelt down and, face-to-face with me, said, “You may keep Lily, but only if you promise me two things.”

I nodded solemnly, reflecting the look on his face.

“First, you must promise to feed her, clean up her messes, and exercise with her outside every day.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious about this. Grandma has enough with her vineyard and garden and greenhouse. She doesn’t need a dog to take care of on top of everything else.”

“Okay.”

“Second, I want you to promise that you will think of Lily not as something to be understood or a problem to be solved, but as a complete, indivisible living creature, full of mystery. Never think about how she might be put together, how her neurons work, and so on. Can you do that for your grandpa?”

I nodded, though I liked to know about the kinds of things I heard Grandpa and Grandma talk about with Mom and Dad whenever they visited.

“Good. You will discover with Lily that love is another way of knowing.”

For the first few weeks my delicate, floppy-eared puppy was afraid to leave my presence. By whining, she even managed to secure a cozy place for herself beside me in my bed—for a while, that is, until Grandma objected to the messes. Then, despite my pleading and tears, a doghouse was installed beside our garage, and Lily was banished from the house. Too many microbots, I was told, could hide in her fur.

I’ve had to ask Michael to make more paper. He thought I would fill the pages he’d initially given me; then he would scan them into the computer (and probably read them) before recycling them. But there are things I want to write that I don’t want him to see, not now, not until I’m finished, if ever. Jealousy is new to me. I need time to heal.

It was spring, and although the garden and trees were full of blossoms and Lily seemed to enjoy romping in the wide-open spaces of the yard, I felt a growing emptiness; it had been weeks since I’d seen Mom and Dad, and I missed them.

“When are Mommy and Daddy coming to see us again?” I asked Grandma late one afternoon while Lily and I were helping her find some weeds the gardenerbots had missed.

She looked up at me. “I think you should speak with Grandpa about that.”

I often wished she would, but Grandma never—I can’t think of a single instance—interfered with the way Grandpa taught me.

She pulled another weed. “I think you should ask to see First Brother, too.”

I turned to Lily and began telling her my words for the week and a story I’d composed using those words. While I spoke, she licked my hand and nibbled on one of my fingers, then rolled onto her back, inviting me to rub her tummy.

I now know there is disagreement among experts as to how early a child develops a theory of mind. But I distinctly remember thinking—at least, I believe I do, remembering being a creative and therefore an unavoidably fictionalized process—that even though Lily’s internal world did not include my concern for numbers or words or stories, she nevertheless had a vibrant, happy life; and I loved her. Maybe First Brother liked different things, too, just as Lily did. Maybe he wasn’t bored with me, either. Maybe he was just waiting for me to do something such as play ball with him or rub his tummy—perhaps where the electricity went in.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Grandpa said when I asked him about an hour later if he could have Mom, Dad, and First Brother visit us again. “But I want you to think about how you can be more patient with your brother than you were the last time.”

“I will.”

“And I want you to think up some games you can play with him. He likes to play games. Can you do that?”

By the next Saturday, I’d devised two games. Mom, Dad, and First Brother were scheduled to arrive just before afternoon tea, and although it would still be my sun-curfew time, Grandpa said I could take them out to meet Lily, provided I stayed in the shadow of the garage.

As their arrival drew near, I waited anxiously beside Gatekeeper. Clunk, clunk, whoosh and there they were, standing hand in hand as before: Mom and Dad smiling at me, First Brother staring at the wall. Lily, who hadn’t yet thoroughly accepted that she wasn’t permitted into the house, squeezed in between their legs. I scooped her up in my arms. She was already getting heavy for me.

“What a cute puppy,” Dad said. He freed his hand from First Brother’s and petted Lily before leaning down to hug and kiss me.

“What kind of dog is she?” Mom asked. She, too, had freed her hand from First Brother’s and was stroking Lily.

“A German shepherd,” I said. “Her name is Lily.”

“Oh, my. She’ll be a big dog.” The expression on Mom’s face wasn’t altogether approving.

I looked up and noticed that First Brother was still staring straight ahead. “Would you like to pet Lily?” I asked, lifting her slightly toward him.

Though his gaze didn’t move from the blank white wall, his right hand rose and gently caressed Lily’s head and back. I was shocked by this apparent dissociation between his eyes and hands. Evidently, he was able to pay attention to something, perhaps even to me, without appearing to do so. Crowding out that thought was my growing concern that Grandma would appear and discover that Lily had again sneaked into the house.

“Grandpa said we could play with Lily by the garage,” I said, stepping outside.

I set Lily down and walked under the vine-covered arborway connecting the house with the garage. In front of the garage, in shade that time of day, I had left two of Lily’s squeaky chew toys, the implements of my first game, which was to see who was better at getting Lily to come.

After explaining the rules of the game, I demonstrated both toys, cream-colored bones, by squeezing them, then handed one to First Brother. Dad, as instructed by me, carried Lily to the far side of the garage and set her down.

“Come, Lily. Come here,” I said excitedly, while squeezing the squeaky toy. First Brother just stared at the toy in his hand. Lily came to me and received a reward of hugs and kisses.

Mom showed First Brother how to squeeze the toy to make it squeak and instructed him to kneel down, squeeze the toy, and repeat, “Come, Lily. Come here.”

Still, Lily came to me. Five times straight. What a good girl, I thought. You don’t prefer First Brother over me.

Dad picked me up and hugged me. “Lily’s a nice dog,” he said. “I see she loves you very much.”

I hugged Dad back, melting into his warmth and strength and earthy scent.

“We should go in,” I heard Mom say. “They’re undoubtedly waiting for us for tea.” From her chilly voice, I sensed that she thought I’d just been naughty.

The next game I’d devised was one for First Brother and me to play in the kitchen. Its object was to see who could name the most flowers rising in curly plumes of steam above freshly poured cups of tea. I quickly pointed out a marigold, then an iris, over Grandpa’s cup.

“Don’t you see them?” I asked, turning to my brother, who’d said nothing. He slowly shook his head while keeping his gaze fixed on the steam. I glanced back to the tea, and just then, clear as day, the gentle swirl of a white arum lily appeared over the cup.

“Arum lily!” I shouted, pointing at its outline as it evaporated.

Then, for the first time, my brother looked at me—not just at my hands or feet, but at my face and into my eyes. I remember feeling a tingle, as if from a prickly net wrapped around my scalp, and thinking something to the effect that perhaps a little girl who could find phantom flowers with steamy stems wavering in the kitchen air held for him some of the interest of water swirling in a toilet bowl or of milk dispersing into tea. And then he smiled—not a broad happy smile, but a thin smile expressing interest, his eyes darting about like dragonflies over my face—and I felt for the first time that he was my brother.

I smiled back, and saying, “I’m glad you’re my brother,” I put my hand on his hand, which still felt strangely cool and smooth. His smile evaporated, and his gaze turned back toward the curlicues of steam rising over the cup of tea.

Grandpa then asked me to read aloud my list of new words for the week and the story I’d composed about Lily getting one of her paws stuck in chicken wire that Grandma had put up in the garden. I wasn’t excited about doing this, considering how bored with my new words First Brother had earlier appeared, but I did as Grandpa requested.

Sure enough, all the while I read my list and my story, First Brother’s attention appeared to be directed toward something else—the purring of the biorecycler as near as I could tell—and my patience began to fray.

“Brother, what were my new words for the week?” I asked, imitating the kind of question Grandpa would ask and the stern tone he would use whenever he sensed my attention waning.

I was surprised when First Brother listed all twenty words without hesitation. And then I was struck with a realization: “You can think about more than one thing at a time, can’t you?”

“I think about many things at once,” he replied, still staring at the recycler.

“What else were you thinking about when I read you my new words?”

He glanced at Mom, then looked back at the recycler. “Such things are not to be discussed with my sister.”

When they left that day, I hugged and kissed Mom and Dad. First Brother extended his hand—to shake good-bye, I suppose—but I asked him to pick me up. He did, and I put my arms around his neck and hugged him and kissed his cool cheek.