Chapter 6: There Came: Opus in C Minor Prose (pages 62-66)

1. Heavy chords, loud (f).

            There came upon my sister a strange tongue. “You are the Alpha and the Omega.” These words vibrated strong from her lips and this much she understood, though she wasn’t accustomed to its form. The words that followed, that flowed, they flowed foreign in that familiar place. Something like Spanish, she had said.

“Did you ask for it?” I asked her.

“No.”

Much later, I asked her if she could repeat the words to me. “My lands, no,” she said. “And when it happens now, it’s not as long, not as much—not near as much now as then.”

There came upon my sister a strange tongue. It came upon her the sixth day of April in the 2004^th year of our Lord. There, in front of her coffee table, my sister, tired from homework and housework and work-work, there, my sister knelt. Just tired. These things, familiar. They are her custom.

It was in this sameness she was in tune with each night that a chord was struck in heaven, its reverberation, unfathomable.

And on the seventh day, with crossed legs and joined hands, in the middle of my son’s bed we praised, my sister and I in our own tongue, and together for Aaron we prayed.

2. New section, soft (p).

            She used to say, “When I grow up and be a De’on ...” Three years my junior, she was, is, the middle child. We slept in the same bed together growing up. For a while, we slept in a twin bed; our feet shared each other’s faces. We told secrets and spoke in low tones when our mother was sick. We dressed our dolls, grew bored with that, dressed the stray cats and dogs that wandered up into our yard of red dirt. They became our children in their clothes of ruffled pink and blue.

Fat-butted and fat-cheeked at age three, she reminded me of a little green-eyed perfect portrait, dumpled and laced, something like I’d once seen in someone’s fancy bathroom or maybe a magazine. Her hair in dark ringlets, a little Lassie close by her side.

I loved her. She loved me more.

We ate cream of tuna and pork and bean sandwiches. We learned to sort laundry with paper sacks. Whites, Darks, Towels, the sacks read. I tricked her into the joys of washing pots and pans, the silverware; the plates and glasses were my job. She graduated into the big league, after I let her take over responsibility of cleaning the refrigerator.

I trained her well for the life that was to be. The soft dumples of her cheeks are gone, she’s earned a couple of lines between her eyes, her elevens, she calls them. Those eyes get greener with age. A focus of perpetuity.

Her form, hard and fit, strong shoulders, dry wit.

When we were but wee little ones, well past forty years ago, well meaning ladies would look at us in my grandmother’s shopping cart and say, “Oh, how cute. Twins.” I must have cursed them in a child’s language, for my grandmother would remark later of her embarrassment. Lisa must have been proud to be dressed exactly like her big sister.

Years later, we shared the same clothes, but she had to pay me first.

She’s lived with the same man since she was sixteen, raised one child, half-way-home on the other, two-only-children, fourteen years apart. She keeps what’s hers, pays her half on everything. Lisa made it through the oilfield crash in the eighties.

Then taught me later, about tearing paper towels in half, recycling coffee grounds.

Her twelve year old daughter still checks to make sure the paper plates aren’t stuck, tries to pull them apart, sometimes makes one into two, even if they’re the good kind.

They held onto their home through the crash. Others, less pragmatic, lost everything; their homes joined the long list of real estate sales known as two for one.

Frugal? Always. Emotional embellishment? Never. When I ask her to commit to anything, she answers with, “We’ll see.”

Telemarketers fear her while the fifth graders she subs for correct her grammar. Her grandson calls her Mimi. My son called her Anti. Yes, he spelled it like that.

Her agnostic husband calls her Woman, knows her death will be his own. Her son calls her for everything. He took up where I left off. The eighty-five year old man she cleans for calls her a godsend. He’s called her that for twelve years now. She won’t give him up. Not for the money, but because she’s a godsend.

Still takes in strays, spoils her own lineage, but blames it on the genes.

She does everything. Falls for nothing.

      We nursed each other’s children. She helped me bury my only two.

3. Heavy chords, loud (f), repeated variation of section 1.

            When there came upon my sister this strange tongue, I knew what it had to be. I had pleaded for this unknown language. Then wondered at it.

I found Jesus in my early twenties, but often mistook him. Something would sneak in, and then disguise itself as a ray of light. It called for constant self examination, never gave any peace.

Jesus must have doubted once. He cried out and questioned the Father. Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?

He must have known there’d be times I’d cry out and wonder why He’d forsaken me. Maybe that’s why He gave me some little dumpled doll to sleep with. Something flesh and blood real. Someone who’d slept with her feet in my face. I could doubt my faulty faith, His love for me. I’ve never doubted her.

She questions everything. Then drowns in the Spirit.

4. Heavy chords, very loud (ff).

            There came that day in which my sister howled in my driveway. I sat watching her, helpless from my porch. Even the Marines looked a little defenseless on the twenty-sixth day of April in the 2004^th year of our Lord. And later, she told our father, “We haven’t just lost Aaron, we’ll lose De’on, too.”

5. Very soft (pp), repeated variation of section 1.

            There came upon my sister the Spirit that day. It was a voice behind her very own. Be quiet and listen. This much she understood. The rest, without interpretation then.

On the seventh day, I had asked her, “What were you praying about?”

“Aaron. The soldiers. Everybody there.”

“You didn’t ask for it?”

“No.”

I got quiet then.

Later she told me, “I tried to stop it from happening after Aaron was killed. It scared me some.”

“It didn’t quit?”

“No.”

I get quiet, still. Unfathomable prayers, answers. They just come.