The Secret Sister

underneath. I was the brave one who checked under the bed for monsters or shut the closet door when it creaked open in a draught, and I was Birdie’s protector when Dennis slept most of the afternoon after a long shift at work and left us alone to roam the streets for hours on end, way beyond our junk heap of a yard. Birdie believed the world was an enchanted kingdom waiting to be explored. But I knew that just outside the gate and down the street were burned-down houses with rotten floorboards, wild dogs straining at rusty chains, and scary strangers lurking in darkened alleyways.
We ate fake food. Noodles – chicken, beef, oriental or mac and cheese. And those foil envelopes of juice. Starch, sugar and salt. Filler food that left us shaky and hungry. Longing for more.
Birdie laid noodles out on colored paper plates and called them royal feasts. Made me drink juice from a cracked teacup, holding her pinkie finger upwards because that’s how the Queen of England did it.
We got by all right until Dennis couldn’t do it any more.
One bitter January day when we were eight, we couldn’t go to school because we’d grown out of our jackets and the wind chill was -40. Birdie cried because Dennis wouldn’t let her go out with her bedspread tied around her like a cloak, which meant she’d miss the rehearsal for the winter concert where she was supposed to wear a snowflake costume and sing ‘The Icicle Ball’ solo. She cried herself into such a state her throat swelled, then lost her voice so she wouldn’t have been able to sing anyway.
Dennis had an important delivery to make so he left us alone in the house.
The front door was tied shut with rope and the laundry piled so high in the window I could only glimpse a ribbon of cold winter sky. The house was full of noises. Floorboards creaked, radiators hissed, hot water pipes clanked until I was sure they’d all explode and bring the house crashing down around us. Birdie fell asleep then woke up, her face damp with sweat and her skinny ribs shuddering with fever. I sat by her bed ladling fruit punch into her mouth, which she promptly threw up in a bright, red stream.
Dennis wept when the lady from Children’s Protection Services showed up to sweep us away in her clunky Ford Taurus, our few possessions stuffed into garbage bags. He crouched on his knees and said he loved us more than any other girls in the world and he’d come as soon as he could to get us back. Once he was on his feet again and found a decent place where we could all live together. I hugged him, afraid to let go for fear I’d never see him again, but Birdie curled herself into a tight ball in the corner of the couch, her fists pressed against her eyes.
The social worker lady had a puffy red parka and a soft voice but she couldn’t get Birdie to move. Her face became sweaty and red like her parka when she tried to drag Birdie out. She’d flopped to the floor and twisted her body around the legs of the kitchen table. Dennis tried to sweet talk her but she kicked at him with boot-clad feet. He backed away from her, tears running down his cheeks. I lay on the rug and pressed my face against Birdie’s hot cheek. Made those babbling, whispering sounds until she uncurled herself and plastered her body against mine. I limped and dragged her to the car while the social worker lady lugged the garbage bags and mumbled under her breath.
We heard from Dennis a couple of times after that. Postcards from Alaska and the Yukon with mountain backdrops and frosty pine forests. The last one promised he’d never forget his two sweet girls. I still believed him, but Birdie was done. Never forgave him.
Never ever mentioned his name again.
Later, in my university years I grew my hair long and wild, and dabbed patchouli oil on my hair and body in honor of Dennis. Something about that spicy, nutty smell kept him close. I even got a tattoo behind my left knee. A small “D” for Dennis and Dad. A reminder of the man who’d tried so hard to love us. Big, gruff, grizzly Dennis who let me sit in the cab of his truck and turn the steering wheel. Who’d given me the gift of reading. He read to me every night and every day when he wasn’t working. Read anything and everything.
All words are worth saying aloud whether they’re on a cereal box or in the world’s greatest literature he’d say. And so we read old Superman comics, Harlequin romances, car engine manuals, the Farmers’ Almanac and my favorites, the Narnia stories.
But Birdie wasn’t interested. She preferred playing with dolls. Said reading gave her a headache and all she wanted was to be pretty first, then an actress, dancer and singer so she could make more people happy.
Too bad she hadn’t focused more on her own happiness.
She might still be with me now.

4
On our third date, Guy discovered the “D” tattoo and instantly wanted to know all about it. I shrugged it off. Lied and told him it was in memory of my first dog, Dmitri.
I never had a dog. Ever. For years, Birdie wanted one desperately. When we were still with Dennis, Birdie made a lumpy little fake dog out of ripped up sheets tied together to make a head and body. She painted eyes and a snout on it and called it Prince. Then she dragged it around the garden on a piece of string until it was black and shredded. We buried the bundle of rags under a tree and said prayers for the poor thing’s soul.
But I was determined not to open any part of my childhood to Guy. I muttered something about how my parents died in