My sister was two years older than me, merely twenty when she died. It was just the two of us, so I spent my whole life looking up to her.
When I was in the fifth grade, my sister started junior high, wearing her new uniform. When I was in eighth grade, she was talking about the whole new world that had opened up for her in high school. I could always see the life that lay in store for me two years later in my sister. My sister was like a ship forging ahead of me through the dark ocean.
There were two years between us, but we were almost the same height, which meant people often told us we looked alike. One year when we were kids, we’d gone to relatives’ homes for New Year’s, and everyone we met said the same thing.
“We do not!” my sister had said, looking as baffled as I was.
As far as we were concerned, our faces were totally different. Where was the resemblance? It always puzzled me. Yet on that trip, when I’d been playing with some kids my age on the opposite side of the house from my sister, a passing aunt had looked surprised, saying she was sure she’d just seen me playing somewhere else.
When we were kids, my sister and I had gotten along well, and we’d always played together. She would take my hand and take me along with her to the homes of friends her age.
When had that changed? I couldn’t even remember when I’d last chatted and laughed with my sister.
A few years earlier, a tiny rift had opened between us. It wasn’t anything obvious enough for anyone around us to notice. It might not have even really been big enough to call a rift. But when my sister was talking to me, she often looked slightly annoyed.
One time, I was on the living room sofa, and I pointed at the magazine I was reading, talking about the interesting article I’d just read. That was all I did, but my sister glanced at the magazine, frowned, said something vague, and then left the room. I felt like she was irritated with me and was trying to hide it, but I couldn’t be sure.
Perhaps I had done something that rubbed her the wrong way, or she’d been in the middle of something when I’d spoken up. In this manner, I tried to convince myself that her behavior didn’t have any real reason behind it.
Her irritation that time may have been my imagination, but that wasn’t the only time this kind of behavior had occurred.
For example, another day, when I’d come home from school, she was talking to a friend on the phone, laughing into the cordless receiver. I sat on the sofa, watching TV quietly so as not to disrupt her conversation.
When she finally hung up, the room was suddenly quiet. We were each sitting on different sofas, facing each other, watching TV in silence. I wanted to say something to her, but there was something about her expression that made me hesitate. She had been having so much fun a moment before on the phone, but now that she was alone with me, she was suddenly sullen. The warmth had vanished from her, and invisible walls had gone up between us.
If I approached her and tried to talk to her, she would shut me out, looking angry. Whenever we did speak, her answers were curt, as if she was deliberately trying to end the conversations quickly, far faster than she would conversations with our mother.
I had no idea what was behind this, which scared me. My skin sensed my sister’s foul temper before she even said anything, and I could no longer bear to be around her. Eventually, just passing in front of her or being in the same room became stressful, and I was tense all the time.
“Natsumi, you shouldn’t wear that anymore,” she said abruptly one day six months ago, as I was on my way out the door to buy some study guides at the bookstore. She pointed at the white wool cardigan I often wore when I went out. I’d been wearing it for years—and looking closely at it, there were a number of balls on it. It was getting pretty ragged.
“But I like it,” I said.
She scowled at me. “Fine,” she said, like she didn’t give a damn about me anyway, and then she turned her back on me. I stood there feeling like all the light in the world was suddenly fading away.
The two of us might’ve looked a lot alike like people said, but our interests and personalities were polar opposites.
My sister was outgoing, had a boyfriend, and was always smiling. Her friends adored her, and when the phone rang, it was always for her. She was active, involved in any number of things, and barely ever just sat quietly around the house. Even in my eyes, she sparkled.
On the other hand, I was studying for exams. I spent all my time at my desk, and it felt like I had heard nothing for ages but the sound of the tip of my pencil wearing away. When I did have some free time, I just read historical novels.
Once my sister had started junior high and began leaving the house, spending her time in places I had never been to, with people I had never met, I began spending more and more time alone at home, reading. I had only ever left the house when she’d dragged me, anyway. But that change was only natural, as far as I was concerned, and I still loved my beautiful, outgoing sister.
I often compared my sister dashing around outside with myself sitting in the house like a rock. I didn’t have much of an inferiority complex, though; I was proud to have such a great sister.
However, as far as she was concerned, I may have been an embarrassment. Without my realizing it, the way I lived may have been an issue for her.
She was nice. She never expressed her disappointment in me openly, and I’m sure all her behavior was to avoid doing just that. She never once said she didn’t like me, and she seemed to be trying to disguise her irritation. That might have been why it took me so long to figure it out.
Maybe my sister didn’t love me the way I thought she had …
I had no way of telling if that thought was true, but this depressing explanation was the only one I could think of.
Why? That one word was all I had to ask, but it was too late now. Why had I not worked up the courage to ask her while she was still alive? I might have regretted the answer I’d gotten, but it would have been better than this.
But my sister had lost the chance to speak forever. I was stuck with my question, and it would be with me every time I thought of her.
With my sister gone, the house was quiet, like night waiting for a dawn that never came. It was so different that you could hardly believe it was the same place it had been two months before.
My parents talked less since they had seen my sister’s body. Their faces lacked emotion, and they spent a lot of time watching TV in stony silence. Even if the screen was displaying a comedy, they wouldn’t laugh, wouldn’t even smile happily—they’d just watch quietly. My parents might be like this for the rest of their lives; I thought that every time I looked at them.
They had the faces of people struggling under a burden so great that they would never truly be able to enjoy anything, no matter what happened to them.
My mother still made dinner. She cooked out of habit, as part of her routine, working mechanically.
But when I saw the piles of dust in the corners, it made me want to cry. I felt so sorry for them. My mother had kept the house spick-and-span while my sister was here. But now everything was covered in dust. They never even noticed. They must have been too busy remembering how my sister smiled when she was a child, remembering when they’d first held her in their arms, felt her weight.
In that house of silence, my presence went unnoticed. If I spoke to my father, he would nod absently, meaninglessly. But to anyone else, I must have looked just like my parents. My friends told me I never smiled anymore either.
At night, I sometimes went into my sister’s room, sat on her chair, and thought about things. Her room was next to mine. If I had gone in there without permission when she was alive, she would have been furious.
But now no one used the room, and it was going to seed fast. If I put my hand down on her desk, it came away covered in grime.
When she was alive and sitting here, what had she thought about? I sat on her chair, knees against my chest, looking around at the furniture, wondering. The curtains were open, and the darkness of the night lay beyond.
I could see my sister’s face in the window. For a moment, I thought it was her, but then I realized it was just my reflection. We really must have looked alike if I was mistaking myself for her.
There was a mirror on the shelf. I reached for it to study my face, but I saw a little cylinder lying next to it that looked like lipstick; I picked that up instead of the mirror.
It was red, like blood. There were any number of lipsticks lying around in different shades of pink, but the bloodred one absorbed me.
I didn’t need to look at the mirror. The very act of owning a lipstick like that defined the difference between us. I left the room, clutching the lipstick tightly.
I didn’t know how I would live the rest of my life. And it was in that frame of mind that, one evening in late November, I heard my sister’s voice again.
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ii