How to Be a Sister

sent a prayer to the Universe to help everything be okay. I prayed for optimism and grace. I wished I could have a drink, but it wasn’t even noon yet. Instead, I opened the door and got out of the car.

2.
lunch date
Eating in fast food restaurants seldom requires more than everyday good manners.
 
—On Dining Out, EMILY POST’S ETIQUETTE
AS AN ADULT with severe autism, my sister has had her share of struggles. Thankfully, I recalled as I stood next to the car, housing is no longer one of them. Margaret lives in an old Craftsman-style house near Gonzaga University in Spokane. My parents bought and renovated the house when it became clear that the crappy public housing apartments available to Margaret weren’t going to cut it. She kept getting kicked out. “Too noisy,” the landlords always said. Well, duh! I always thought. Anyone who has ever lived in one of those shaky, 1970s-era cardboard constructions will tell you that you can hear someone opening a box of Kleenex three doors down. So imagine what might happen if you lived next door to someone who weighed 180 pounds and was in the habit of throwing herself against the walls and floors during occasional periods of frustration. Too noisy.
So Margaret’s house became a group home for adults with disabilities expressly because the landlords, my parents, would never kick Margaret out. It has been home to Margaret and her three housemates for many years. A twenty-four-hour staff supports the four of them in living as independently as they can. I painted the house one summer right before Margaret moved in, and I loved every corner. It’s the kind of house everyone should have—a big porch and a nice yard, lots of windows to let in the sunshine. The neighborhood sidewalks end in rounded curbs, and the streets—wide enough to drive a circus through—are lined with lovely old trees.
From where I was standing at the curb now, I could see groups of college students heading to campus in their cargo shorts and backpacks. On the way there I’d driven past a herd of toddlers being shepherded along by a couple of middle-aged women. The air was full of chattering little voices and a rainbow of T-shirts as bright as the summer flowers. It made me happy to see the “neighborhoodiness” of Margaret’s neighborhood, especially when I remembered that some of the neighbors in the other nice, big houses initially weren’t too keen on the idea of having a group home in their midst.
I looked at Margaret’s front door, knowing I was right on time. Punctuality is a family affliction. We are the people who are eight and half minutes early when the rest of America is running fifteen minutes late. I also knew that Margaret had probably been waiting restlessly for hours, possibly because she was excited to see me but mostly because she was just anxious. We are indeed an anxious people; we like to stick to the schedule, get on with the show. Margaret’s disorder seems to amplify that characteristic. From the curb, I could see her standing at the picture window in the living room watching me. Even so, she actually let me come up the walkway instead of running out the door, pulling her coat on. She let me climb the stairs and knock on the door like a normal person, which was fun for me.
Normally she might just charge out the door when she saw the car coming down the street, and I’d miss out on practicing the normalcy of it all—the walkway, the knock, the door, the greeting, the introductions and small talk, the leave-taking. Even now, as an adult, I loved the distinct phases of events that I had missed out on in my youth, the almost invisible transitions in social situations. I even loved the moments of awkwardness when nobody knew what to do next. I had spent so many years under the steamroller of autism that these bumps and breaks still held a great deal of appeal for me. These adult days followed a childhood during which greetings and partings meant chasing my mother, who was chasing my sister, who was running through a crowd at some church or school function, and I would wave hello or good-bye at people who gaped at us as we sprinted past.
Now, when I knocked, Margaret yanked the door open. “Hi, Eileen!” she said, waving at me from just two feet away and holding the door open. It was almost like we were regular people. Uninvited, because Margaret wouldn’t think to invite someone in, I stepped across the threshold to greet my sister. Here is Margaret, in my arms, the real person. She allowed me a brief hug and then scurried off to get her things. I turned to greet the staff member who’d come in from the living room. Two of Margaret’s housemates crowded into the foyer to see who was at the door, and I said hello to them, too.
Sarah is the resident busybody at the house. My parents tell me that she makes it her job to keep tabs on Margaret, Ken, Gerald, and the staff—their comings and goings, as well as their smallest tragedies and victories. It’s nearly impossible to keep a secret when Sarah is around, as she is so diligent in her information gathering. “Where you goin’?” she now demanded of me, and I began to understand where she got her reputation. I told her we were going out to lunch. In exchange for this piece of information she offered me some from her own stash: Margaret had gone to my parents’ house a few days earlier. Then my mother brought Margaret home. And her boots were in the closet, too. She told me all of this rapidly and ended with a satisfied nod. Ken didn’t say anything. He just fluttered his hand at me when I asked him how he was doing and grimaced