“You were ashes.”
As I stood in the doorway of my sister Everette’s bedroom just past midnight, tears were warm and sticky on my face like honey on toast. I’d said what I needed to say. I knew those three words were the truest I’d ever said in my six-year life. I knew more truth then. It was one of those moments I wished someone would have painted and put in a picture book so I could’ve seen the story of it from outside my small body. The silky fabric of my rose pink nightgown pooling around my feet. The soft amber glow of the tall floor lamp in the bedroom. The way lines, light, and everything bent a little against the sage green walls at nighttime, blurred by shadows. But even though the world around me was hazy, I was clear and resolute. It was one of the rare moments of my life when I knew something for certain, and I had to tell someone. And if I had to tell someone, that someone would be my sister.
Everette, who’d hunched her lanky frame over her botany books on her desk, uncurled her spine to sit up straight, drew herself out of a daze, and looked at me. Her presence was heavy, but not in a sad or scary way. A powerful way like the good queens in fairy tales. Even though she was wearing a burgundy UPenn sweatshirt and navy pajama bottoms, to me, she might as well have been in a fancy royal dress.
Everette furrowed her brow, tucked a stray box braid behind her ear, and pushed her gold hexagon-rimmed glasses higher up the bridge of her nose. I knew that stare. I answered the question her face was asking.
“You were ashes,” I repeated, my voice wavering. I knew better than to let myself crumble.
Everette opened her arms wide. Big sister instinct. Hug first, ask questions with words after.
I was not a big sister, but I thought that’s what she thought. I tiptoed toward her and let her hug me. Little sister instinct. I wanted her help, but I didn’t want Everette to think I was a baby. As I leaned into her chest, I kept new tears from falling. I was still kinda scared, but I was a big girl. And it helped that Everette still smelled like her favorite perfume, some blend of coffee, firewood, and pepper. She was my sister, and she smelled like a grown-up I could trust.
I didn’t know how long the hug lasted, but it lasted long enough for Everette and me to collect words to say. It was Everette’s first night home since she’d left for college, and maybe we both thought we’d forgotten how to talk to each other. I mean, Everette was eighteen, so she was an adult, and that made her someone new, right? But this hug felt the same as the ones from before she left. That made me happy.
When I withdrew from the hug, I went to sit criss-cross applesauce on Everette’s bed. She sat next to me, held my hand, and turned ever so slightly so she could look me in the eye.
And then Everette asked, just above a whisper, “Why are you so blue, Ixora?”
I crossed my arms to match my legs, matter-of-fact. “Actually, I feel more red than blue, but still a little blue, so like purple.”
In my mind, blue was sad and red was mad, so purple must be sad-mad. That’s what I was. Sad-mad. Yes, I was definitely purple.
Everette nodded slowly and reached for my hand again. I let her hold it. “Okay,” she tried again. “Why are you so purple, Ixora?”
I liked talking about my feelings as colors. It made my feelings easier for me to explain. I liked that Everette knew this about me. It made it easier for me to pull from my word collection to answer her. “I had a nightmare that you were ashes,” I began. “Not like the ashes in great-Grandma June’s urn though. More like the ones at the end of Dad’s cigar, still, um, smothering.”
“Do you mean ‘smoldering?’” she gently corrected.
“That too. Smothering and smoldering,” I insisted. “The nightmare started like a normal dream. Mom, Dad, and I were at your school, and when you came out of your dorm and saw me, you opened your arms wide. I ran to you as fast as I could. But as soon as I touched you, you fell apart. Glowing orange, white, and gray flakes spun around in the air and got in my new braids and all over my green sweater. And when I realized the flakes were you and not some magic trick, I screamed and screamed and screamed. That’s what woke me up.”
“Oh wow. That sounds scary.” Everette squeezed my hand.
“It was scary. I’m afraid you’ll fall apart.” I squeezed her hand back and wondered if I could help keep her together.
“Well, we are holding hands right now. Do I feel less solid than normal?”
“No, it’s not that. I think you feel the same, but that’s not what you told Mom at lunch today.”
She furrowed her brow even further, squinting. She leaned forward and put a finger to her chin like the weird, crouched thinking man statue in front of the library. “What did I tell Mom at lunch? What did I tell Mom at lunch…” Everette pondered, mumbling. Suddenly, her eyes twinkled, seeming even brighter because of the dark circles lodged beneath them. “Oh! Did you hear me tell Mom that I was ‘burnt out?’”
“Mhmm.”
“Oh, Ixy, you have such a beautiful and vivid imagination.” Everette smiled. “Burnt out is just a figure of speech. I’m not burnt or burning. I might be doing a bit too much.” Her grin faded as she glanced at the botany books next to her Chroma plant named Rainbow on her desk. She shook her head and sighed. “I have this big exam right after break, and I have to memorize plant anatomy and binomial nomenclature and the Calvin cycle and…never mind. I promise I’m okay. I’m just really tired from school.”
“How tired though? Like fall-apart-tired?”
Everette’s smile came back a little. “No, not quite. I am glad I’m home though. I, um, really need to rest.”
“Then why are you still up studying?”
“Just because I know I need to rest doesn’t mean it’s easy for me to do. But you make a good point. We both should get some sleep.”
“I’m not sleepy though,” I pouted. And that was the truth.
“Well, that’s a conundrum. Hmmm, how about I make us some tea? What do you think?”
I liked daytime tea parties with my parents and stuffed animals, so maybe a nighttime one with Everette would be fun too. “Sounds lovely to me,” I declared with my best princess voice.
We both got off Everette’s bed, walked through her door, and made our way to the kitchen, thankful that Mom and Dad were extra heavy sleepers. When we got to the kitchen, I sat at the table, and Everette reached up to the high cabinet above the microwave without even needing the step stool.
“What kind of tea would you like?” she asked.
“Peppermint, please.”
“Mentha x piperita,” Everette said in a smooth lullaby way. “That’s the scientific name for peppermint. What an excellent choice.”
# Twelve Years Later #
“Do you remember when I said you were ashes?”
As I dried the dishes that Everette washed in her newly renovated kitchen that evening, I marveled at the life she’d built.
Everette’s husband, Jamal, was upstairs putting my two-year-old twin nieces, Nathanie and Nayeli, to bed. They all were the magazine-cover-beautiful kind of family that wore matching pajama sets for every major holiday. Everette and Jamal both had PhDs, hers in Botany and his in Chemical Engineering. Their crimson-brick townhouse on the outer cusp of Philadelphia, too close to the city’s heart to be in the suburbs, wasn’t huge, but they had enough space for a guest room. And compared to my closet-sized dorm room with two loud and body-odor-challenged roommates, Everette’s home might as well have been a palace. Its regalness suited her. So when Everette offered for me to stay with her for my first Fall break instead of me third-wheeling on our parents’ romantic Paris getaway, I’d eagerly accepted. I needed the change in scenery to break my writer’s block, to work on a short story due for my Fiction workshop, and getting off at random subway stops to explore more of New York City wasn’t doing the trick. I definitely made the right call. Everette’s robust home cooked meals alone, made with herbs, fruits, and vegetables from her own garden, made every scrunched up minute of the two-hour bus ride worth it. Besides, it was nice seeing a glimpse of Everette’s life, a glimpse of what my life could be like someday too. Maybe.
And this should have made me happy, but it didn’t. I was tired of not knowing myself.
I assumed Everette didn’t hear me over the clang of pots and the splashes of soapy water in the sink, so I repeated a little louder, “Do you remember when I said you were ashes?”
Everette didn’t look up or turn away from the dishes, but she furrowed her brow. “I think so. It was after you had a nightmare, right?”
I finished drying a black ceramic plate shaped like Mickey Mouse and set it on the counter with a soft thud. “Yeah. It was after a nightmare. Do you remember how convinced I was, how sure of myself I seemed?”
I tried to picture myself ironing out the creases in my voice to keep it from wavering. It did not work. Everette could tell, and so she hugged me. I hugged her back, and it was strange remembering I was taller than her. She was 5’10” and I was 6’2,” both of us too lanky for our own good. But in my head, Everette was still bigger than me. She knew so much more.
As I leaned into her, she still smelled like coffee, firewood, and pepper, but also like shea butter, boob sweat, and baby lotion, her “mom scent.” I wondered if her mom hugs and her sister hugs were more alike or different from each other. I didn’t know how long the hug lasted, but it was long enough for me to lose the battle of holding back my tears. Sometime during puberty, my tears went from feeling like sticky honey to stinging acid, and I hated that. At least I didn’t let myself whine or whimper. I had one last shred of grown-up dignity. But really, I was more than scared, and I was not a big girl. I was falling apart. It was one of those moments I wished someone would have sketched on a crumbled up scrap of notebook paper so I could’ve seen the story of it outside my body before I lit a match and set the sketch on fire. Ashes. How pathetic.
As I pulled away, I leaned against the polished granite counter, my mind spinning. I wanted to curl up into a ball and pull the hood of my Columbia sweatshirt over my head, but I knew it wouldn’t fit over my high cornrowed bun.
And then, after what felt like an eternity, Everette asked, just above a whisper, “Why are you so blue, Ixora?”
“Actually,” I confessed, “I feel more yellow than blue, but still a little blue, so like green.”
I still liked talking about my feelings as colors. I’m glad Everette still knew that. For my Psychology class, I did a research paper on the Plutchik Wheel of Emotions and all the different iterations thereof. The framework assigned colors and gradients to feelings, which, in theory, made them easier to talk about and understand. I’d seen a lot of different colors used across versions of the wheel, but most often, blue was grief, yellow was ecstasy, and green was the terror right in between. I grieved what I was not, was excited for what I could be, and terrified that I had no idea what to be. Yes, I was definitely green.
Everette nodded slowly and reached for my hand. Big sister instinct.
I let her hold it, even though her hand was wet and pruney from the dishwater. Litter sister instinct.
“Okay,” she tried again. “Why are you so green, Ixora?”
I cleared my suddenly raw throat. “I want to be happier than I am right now. I want to be more like you. You’ve always known what you’ve wanted, and you’ve always worked hard to get it. I mean, look at your life. You’ve always loved plants, and now you have a PhD. You have a gorgeous family. It’s like God took extra time molding Nathanie and Nayeli because they are the most beautiful little girls I’ve ever seen. And somehow, despite the world constantly deteriorating around you, you always feel so the same, so stable. Meanwhile, I feel like I don’t know anything about myself. I thought I wanted to go to Med school so that I can take care of humans the way you take care of plants, to be nurturing in a different way. But during a lab practical when I was supposed to dissect a sheep’s brain, the squish of the gray matter and sting of the formaldehyde made me so sick, I threw up. I blew spinach green chunks everywhere. It was disgusting and embarrassing.”
Everette squeezed my hand. “Go on. It’s okay.”
“I do really like my writing classes, but I barely have the patience to sit down and write anything because I feel like my mind is always racing. Everything around me is burning, and I’m burning too. But what other choice do I have? That’s the only way to succeed, right? To just keep going, no matter what. I had a nightmare about you falling apart, but I should have been more worried about myself. Sure, you were occasionally burnt out from working too hard, but at least you knew why. At least you knew what you were burning for, what you were living for. I don’t know anymore, and I’m so tired of being confused. I just want to know what I want for myself. And then maybe I can have a fraction of what you have and be happy.”
“Oh, Ixy,” Everette consoled, “I’m not as stable as you think I am. I don’t know as much as you think I know.”
She used her other hand to pull the drain plug out of the sink, gravity sucking down the water, slurping and heavy. “When you told me I was ashes, I panicked because I was afraid your dreams were showing you something I tried to hide from you. I didn’t want my six-year-old sister being scared for me, so I tried to play it off. But you knew the truth. I was not doing well.”
Not doing well. I knew it took a lot for Everette to admit to that. She always minimized everything. It must have been serious.
“Does that mean that you were…that you were, um…” I couldn’t finish the question. Everette knew what I was asking.
She sighed. “No, not quite. I didn’t want to die, but I started to be curious about what would happen if I did. I found myself wondering how many people would cry at my funeral if I were to die young. I romanticized it. I told myself the hottest and brightest burned out fastest, there for a short time but remembered forever. I dreamed about being missed. I thought that maybe my absence meant more than my presence ever would, that I would be more important as a memory. I figured that if I burned myself out, at least it was my doing. There are so many people and systems in this world that would gladly light me on fire to keep themselves warm. So, I thought it was better to just get it all over with on my terms. Burn fast and bright and become ashes. That’s how I would matter.”
Everette choked on her words. The tears on my face stung even more, but I knew to stay silent, to hold as much space for Everette’s voice as possible.
“But being around you always reminded me that was a lie,” she explained, a soft smile gracing her face. “When you told me about your nightmare, I was proud to be there, and I was proud that you wanted to share your imagination with me. You showed me that it was always better to be present. You showed me that it was always better to grow than burn. And it is such a privilege to grow alongside you.”
Everette didn’t cry often, and she didn’t cry then either. She won the battle of holding back her tears. Still, it meant the world that she was so vulnerable. There were glimpses of her darkness, cracks in her pristine facade; but no matter how old we got, I knew there would always be things Everette protected me from seeing.
Big sister responsibility.
That used to bother me, making me feel like I could never help her back. But with Everette, letting her protect me was the best way for me to protect her.
Little sister responsibility.
This would always be how we held each other together.
I didn’t know what else to say other than, “Thank you for always being here for me. I will always be here, growing alongside you.” I hoped that was enough.
“Thank you, Ixy.”
Everette squeezed my hand again. I squeezed her hand back before I let it go. I felt better. My mind wasn’t spinning anymore, I was more rooted, but something beyond words welled up inside me.
To keep myself from crying again, I said, “So, I think I might do some writing tonight.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Are you already tired of talking to me?”
“No. If anything, I feel inspired. I think I know what I’m going to write about. I can stay and talk for a bit longer though. Being present is important after all.” And that was the truth.
Everette put a finger to her chin. “Hmmm, how about I make us some tea? What do you think?”
I smiled. I loved all kinds of tea parties, but especially ones with my sister. “Sounds lovely to me,” I declared, in my even better princess voice.
“What kind of tea would you like?”
I pulled from deep in my memory collection. “Mentha x piperita, please.”
Everette laughed in the same way that gold shimmers, familiar yet surprising. She walked over to her herb box and plucked fresh peppermint leaves.
“Mentha x piperita. What an excellent choice.”
*Edited by Fiction Editor, Dayo Akinyemi
************
Are you a Black woman writer? We’re looking for short stories and personal essays to feature on our digital and print platforms. Click HERE to find out how to submit.
