A Mother to Spare

“What an asshole!” my sister intones upon the completion of my story, her tone an appropriate level of incredulous indignation on my behalf.

“I know, right?” I say, vindicated.

“Completely!” she says. “Unbelievable!”

I bask in our mutual outrage.

“But?” she asks, gentler now, “Isn’t it possible….” and she lays out a new theory. One where I am not the hapless victim, and my nemesis of the day, not the complete scum I painted in my story. A more centered version of events, if you will. More sane.

“Hmm…” I hedge. Not yet ready to let go of my moral certitude. “I guess, that’s possible…”

“Yes, and then it would make more sense if we think about it like this….” she continues, walking me back from the edge one reluctant inch at a time.

Always walking me back from the edge.

She is 4 years younger, which meant a lot more when I was 14 and she was 10. When I was wise and she was a baby. It doesn’t hold the same water now at 43 and 39. She is no longer amazed by my knowledge on sex and calculus. (Maybe she has found out, as all adults must, that neither plays as vital a role in your later life as you are led to believe it would as a teen.)

We have a relationship forged in adversity. It’s the best kind: children of immigrants, learning a new language, adopting to a new culture, creating a new identity, together. You can’t break bonds like that. Time and distance have no effect on bonds like that. She could live in Mars, we could not speak for years, and she would still know from the timbre of my voice that something is wrong. As it is, she lives in Arkansas and we speak daily. She doesn’t even need to hear my voice. She can tell that something is wrong because I have called her too early in the day. Or too late.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing…”

“Tell me!”

“It’s nothing.”

“What’s nothing?”

She always gets it out of me in the end. Whatever anxiety I have built up in my mind. Whatever demon I cannot seem to shake. Upon hearing the story, she agrees with my take. Always. First and foremost, she agrees. I am always right. She is always on my side. But she goes past that. She reorders my truth into a more palatable version of events. She chops downs my demons into a smaller size. Nothing I cannot handle. Nothing at all.

A few months back, during our annual family ski trip, my little 8 year old boy got quite sick. My poor baby, tossing and turning, wheezing to take a normal breath. Every intake, painful. Every breath out, a cry. I’m at wits end. I go and wake up my sister, sleeping with her babies in the next room. It’s 2 am.

“What’s wrong?”

She is up and moving even before she has a chance to shake the sleep from her eyes. We sneak back to my bedroom, to my sick boy. She brings along her ouch pouch. We listen together to his breathing, labored and painful. We listen to his heart, beating like the wings of a frightened little bird. We are both on google, searching for answers. We debate whether to take him into the ER. We administer drugs, clean up vomit, keep him warm. In the midst of the chaos, I realize a powerful truth: I am calm. More calm than an anxiety-ridden mom has a right to be in this type of situation. Why?

It’s because of her. My sister, my strength. It’s because I know that together, we are more. We are better.

A few hours later, the medications finally start to work. My boy is sleeping calm for the first time.

“Do you want me to stay?”

I nod wordlessly. Of course, I want her to stay. Who would ever willingly give up their courage?

I nudge my son over to the center of the king bed. My sister sleeps on a sliver to his left. I am on his right. We join hands over his beating heart, a human EKG.

At that moment, she is just as much his mother as I am.

It’s a comforting thought, that my children will always have this. That, they will always have her. Mothers worry, you know. I worry more than most. It lifts a weight knowing that my children have a mother to spare, should anything happen to me.

The remaining hours of the night pass quickly, and by morning, my boy is right as rain, bouncing down the stairs to breakfast. The horrors of the night quickly forgotten.

Except by me. Never by me.