How To Lose A Sister

Emerging Writer Series

Every two weeks or so I am publishing an essay from an emerging writer. This week, we are publishing “How To Lose A Sister” by Serenity Marshall. Serenity (she/her) lives in Norfolk, VA by way of New York City. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from ODU. Most weekends you can find her exploring the bookstores of her adopted city or chilling with her two Chiweenies and bossy cats. Her work has been featured in Midnight and Indigo and Quarterly West. As a Black, queer writer, she wants her work to explore the nuances of being othered.

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I’ve started and stopped this so many times. How do you write about that most painful thing, the hidden memories, the worst time of your life, the moments that live under your skin, that overtake you when you’re seconds from sleep, adrift, the comforter pulled to your chin, the shelter kitten you adopted snuggled neatly at your ankles? The stories people tell, the details they reveal, tales of rape, childhood abuse. Murder. Marriage to a narcissist, his second family tucked away in the town right across the train tracks that divide their dusty town; an eating disorder where someone loses their teeth, vomit and bile scarring their esophagus; being burned alive and hearing the screams of those around them, their crisping skin smelling strongly of ribs barbequing on a charcoal grill, reminding them of childhood summers, their stomach grumbling even as their skin blackens. The more specific the better.

Specific. Specificity.

Specificity of details leads to empathy of character. (Remember those elementary school equations, something is to something as something is to BLANK. Fill in the BLANK. But I digress.)

(This entire story is a digression.)

Back to specificity. Okay, I’ll give it a try. Here’s my very specific story: my second-youngest sister, Savannah Rai, born when I was nine, was taken by her father when she was four, and I never saw her again.

Maybe if I tell it in song—has anyone done that yet? Just snatches of lyrics to make a new song, a patch quilt of discarded pieces brought together, the whole exceeding the parts.

“I was borrrrnnnn by the riverrrr! In a little tent. And ohh just like the riverrr, I’ve been-”/ “Papa was a rolling stone-”/ What’s love, got to do, got to do with it?? Whaatt’s love?! But a secondhand emotion-”

While a sister’s disappearance is tragic enough, it’s not the inciting incident. Let’s open with a song, lyrics that ground my tale. (Doesn’t every good yarn need something on which to stand, watered roots to grow a story lush and healthy?)

Damn, it’s a shame you’re the mighty queen of vials/ With a wide-eyed look and a rotten tooth smile/ Used to walk with a swagger, now you simply stagger

So, how do I start this story?

It’s as easy as being first. Do nothing, God’s got this. Four years later, KiYanna. Five years after that, Savannah Rai. Two more girls, Tyler then Shay, every half-decade like clockwork, a new girl added to the litter.

See how easy that was? Just come first.

Shit. This is creative writing—guess I can’t just borrow from others for this fireside chat.

(Digression. “Borrow.” Bor-row. /bärō, ‘bôrō/. Verb. Take and use [something that belongs to someone else] with the intention of returning it. A euphemism used by my mother when she meant steal. We’ll just “borrow” these cans of pork and beans, this pack of hotdogs, a loaf of white bread nestled in her oversized bag. If you think I reveal this with shame, then we haven’t been properly introduced. We may have “borrowed” many meals, but we never starved.)

I wrote a rap!

She smelled like scorched milk, and diaper rash ointment,

And thick Dax pomade lathered in her parts,

And a damp two-piece with a tutu skirt,

Right after a splash through the fire hydrant,

And olives she ate straight from the jar,

And bad breath when she jumped into my bed in the mornings,

And

And

And

Okay, let’s try this again. What does it take to lose a sister? Just don’t have the typical oversized Black family. What a stroke of luck. Your mother is an only child, an oopsie baby without siblings, born to your grandmother late in life. You’ll have no aunts and uncles, no cousins. Your grandmother and her siblings—already ancient when you’re a toddler—will die before you reach adulthood. It will be just you and your mother and your sisters. Alone.

(What don’t kill ya makes ya stronger. Used to think this was an Old Wives Tale, but I’ve since learned this is Nietzsche. But how would my ancient great-aunt know a Nietzsche expression? Maybe Nietzsche hung out with some Black folks. He does have that whole master-slave morality thing he’s so famous for. Sounds more like something the descendants of slaves would say rather than a German philosopher.)

Like so many eldest siblings, I became a quasi-surrogate mother. I took this duty seriously. Each sister added to my brood, my ducklings, following me around, eager for my praise and attention.

(Oldest Child Syndrome is real. Characteristics include: (1) wanting to lead and dominate, (2) having a constant urge to be perfect, (3) having high self-esteem, (4) developing an unhealthy competitive attitude, (5) becoming obsessive, (6) becoming controlling. If you think I reveal this with shame, then we’re probably friends.)

I was 13 years old the last time I saw Savannah-Rai. I was homeless by then, moving from house to couch. I would stay with a friend until an adult would ask “don’t you have somewhere to be?” and I would say “yes” even though I didn’t, and they knew I didn’t, but I knew enough to be embarrassed, and proud, and to say “yes,” and to find someplace else to crash. My mother lost our apartment and then we lost her to the streets, to an addiction stronger than her children, the three of us scattered like dandelions. (The youngest two hadn’t been born yet.) KiYanna and Savannah-Rai went to live with their fathers, but I didn’t know mine, and even though I’ve called both men “daddy” at some point, it is not enough to gain me entry. Entry included fresh clean linens, the dryer sheet still in the folds; pork sausage links for breakfast, their fat sizzling when they hit the pan’s hot oil; a small bedroom in the rear of the house that used to be a guestroom, dusty boxes in the corner; a few crumpled dollars for after school snacks, the crunchy cheese curls that stain your fingers orange, a 50-cent soda that stains your tongue blue.

(Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs isn’t theoretical to a homeless, hungry child.)

Savannah-Rai’s father brought her to see me every few weeks, let her visit me at whatever house I crashed at. The last time I saw her: I remember bringing her out to his car. I could see the judgement on his face. I was dirty, a bit stinky, with only a few outfits that I rotated, stuffed in a duffel bag with a broken strap. She was four, and I was her big sister. She had dimples, and skin the color of reclaimed wood, and two pigtails with barrettes attached to the ends of her twists, and—

Nope. This is getting real.

I’ll tell it like a pirate!

“Ahoy mateys! Pulls up your bumper glass and pour yourself a right bit of grog. Rest your weary selves…the captain has a wee tale…now word to Davey Jones! Have yourself that seat and listen up…grrrr…so me hearties, as I was saying the last fortnight we gathered…the lass was surrounded by a thimble of lily-livered adults refusing to give quarter…she was a landlubber, treated like a scallywag from bow to stern! Now maybe if she had a crew, good as ye, a right group of buckos, they would’ve battened down the hatches, took the wee lassie in, given her a tankard for her ale, and a hammock for her backside…grrrr…but no one for her to mutiny with, walking the plank of life with just herself and her head full of chowder…and that son of a wench, took the lass’ mate, never to be seen again…grrrr…she still dreams of the girlie, and in these dreams there’s a bounty on the head of that scallywag, the man that dared to take the girlie…he should bless his shiny coppers we weren’t there to save the day, right buckos? For there would be no story as dead men tell no tales…”

She had a gap between her teeth.

“Just like you!” she would say.

She ran past our mother with her boo-boos,

Holding her scraped elbow,

Her tear-streaked face.

Only I could kiss it better.

Alright let’s try something else. Wanna lose a sister? Try having other sisters that require your attention. Just wait for your mother to announce she’s pregnant. Again. Then again. The upside is pregnancy is the only time she’s clean.

(“Ain’t nobody come to see you Otis…” David Ruffin says this in The Temptations Movie. It’s one of those movies that is Black famous. Ruffin is telling Otis that he ain’t shit, that he ain’t the star, that Ruffin will always be the man, baby. Get a big head around a certain Black person of a certain age and you might hear, “Ain’t nobody come to see you Otis!” Whenever I felt sorry for myself, I would mutter this under my breath.)

I’m 19. My mother has managed to get an apartment in the Wald Projects on the Lower East Side. It’s Christmas time, and the streets are a mix of brown and yellow slush, dark puddles at every corner, sharp winds that slice through cheaply made jackets, too thin for winter. KiYanna and I carry a tree back to the apartment. It was one of the last available, its branches sparse and thin. I have a job at a local supermarket, and I save my last few checks for gifts. They spill out from under the tree, sloppily wrapped, as many things as I can afford. It’s Christmas morning, and as KiYanna and Tyler and Shay are opening their presents, my mother storms in. She’s in a rage—kicking the gifts, screaming: who the fuck do you think you are you high yellow bitch think you so good don’t you bitch buying gifts you fucking bitch I hate you get the fuck out my apartment you—

I now know this to be pain.

(Trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event, and the brain processes emotional pain and physical pain similarly. I have never been shot or stabbed, but it can’t be worse than watching Savannah-Rai’s face in the window as the car pulled away from the curb.)

Maybe if I concentrate on structure and form, this story will get easier.

Let’s try this complicated poem!

That one time we went to the street fair

in Westchester County.

Just us two, three bus transfers, not much money.

We did the swings until we ran out of tickets.

You threw up your pretzel.

Then slept with your head in my lap on the way home.

This isn’t working.

Let’s try friending her on Facebook. You’re in your mid-twenties. Successful, on that model-minority shit. You have your own place (you vow you will never be homeless again, a promise you have yet to renege on), a car, a job, a degree. Look at you go!

Savannah Rai’s father said “I’ll bring her back to see you soon.”

I’m late to social media, but when I finally join, she’s the first person I search for. I know it’s her the moment I see her profile. She looks exactly how my imagination aged her: dimpled but less baby fat, pronounced cheekbones. She’s taller, older, but essentially herself. Most pictures are selfies. She’s holding a fluffy little dog; she’s in her car, the seatbelt dissecting her torso; she’s leaning on a statue in front of her university, an HBCU. There’s a picture of her with her father, another of an older woman captioned “mom.” She accepts my friend request. She knows who I am but admits she doesn’t remember me at all, a hot spike to my stomach. We message for a few days. I tell KiYanna, and they become friends. A few weeks later she’s gone. KiYanna can’t find her either. I use a friend’s page and find her profile intact. She has blocked us. She doesn’t want these relationships.

Whew! This is getting deep. How about some limericks for levity?

She loved Michael Jackson.

I would wrap a pillowcase around her head,

Tie a towel around her neck,

While we danced to Remember the Time.

I try not to think about her every day. Be warned. I struggle here. She will always be there, like the beat of my heart, pulling on my psyche. I get used to telling people I only have three sisters because I can’t stomach telling this story.

So many moments I think of her. (SPOILERS ahead.)

a. Pet Sematary, Stephen King

—when Gage died, when his little body was dragged by that truck and I wept uncontrollably, snot dripping from my nose, and I felt the loss, like my own child sister, there—then gone.

b. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

—when Beth dies of scarlet fever, and this one is so obvious it’s funny, like of course a book about sisters should be a no-no, and I’m not even subtle, just “oh look, a dead sibling, no one will ever see her again, like how I’ll never see Savannah-Rai.”

c. June of 2021

—when KiYanna, Tyler, and Shay came to visit me in VA and we rode around in a rental car, windows down, Destiny’s Child blasting through the speakers, and I looked around, so many shades of brown, and realized we were missing someone, that she would never be a part of this.

d. World War Z

—when Brad Pitt’s character is fighting through a horde of zombies and I’m sure I would do the same, or die trying, but I wouldn’t know if Savannah was the undead, I would have no idea, I could be trekking across the country on foot, part of a group of survivors, learning to navigate a post-apocalyptic landscape, and suddenly there she is, ready to eat my brains.

e. Season 8 finale, Grey’s Anatomy

—when Lexie dies in that plane crash after it took them so long to connect, half-sisters, they had finally become close friends.

f. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold

—the ending, when Susie is looking down at Lindsey, and understands she will exist only in her sister’s memories moving forward.

g. Every scene of Sex and the City

—when Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte have conquered the life lesson of the episode, and link arms and walk fashionably down a New York street, a fan tousling their hair, trash blowing in the gutters (but attractive trash, just some paper, colorful confetti), arms linked, as close as sisters.

h. When I walk my dogs

—and they are so happy to be with their Mommy, and I wonder if Savannah-Rai still has a dog, if she still knows the pleasure of this unconditional love.

i. When I talk to my mother on the phone

—and she asks about my girlfriend, and school, and work, and what I have planned for the summer, and I can hear SavannahSavannahSavannah like a low, steady hum, something we never discuss.

j. When I wake up

k. When I go to sleep

l. Every holiday

m. n. o. p. q. r. s. t. u. v. w. x. y. z…

(There’s a Cambodian language called Khmer that has 74 characters. That still wouldn’t be enough for this exercise.)

I started and stopped this story so many times. I thought about writing it like a fairy tale, but those have happy endings.