The Wrong Sister

When I first looked into Stacey’s eyes that day in the hospital, I was at a loss for words. I never expected to open my eyes and see her hovering above me. She had come to know me well and understood my desperation. She knew I had lost my will to go on, and if it wasn’t for her urging me to give her a chance by allowing her to take me to live with her in the small town of Auburn, thirty miles east of Sacramento, I wouldn’t be alive to write this story. Because I had come to have a bit of a crush on her, I was naturally curious as to what life with her would be like. It was then that I learned that she, too, had lost her husband a few years earlier to cancer. Their son, Noah, was in college and living with his roommate in town. Stacey gave me all the verbal and emotional support she could give me and encouraged me to take a chance on staying with her, promising that other solutions I found acceptable could be discussed if I wasn’t happy with her. I was in a tug-of-war with myself at this point. I missed Henry like crazy, and I felt terrible over the loss of our house and belongings. I literally had nothing to remember him by but my memories, although I did have some pictures of us online. I wasn’t sure I could go on missing him the way I knew I would, but I also didn’t see how I could be unhappy living with someone like Stacey. And so it was with mixed emotions that I agreed to go home with her once I was released. Fortunately, my leg received just a tiny hairline fracture, and I didn’t have to stay in the hospital for long. They put a cast on it, gave me a pair of crutches, and then I was free to go once they felt confident I was with someone who would look after me. During my first week with Stacey, I was very quiet and sort of in a zombie-like state. I just stared at nothing and sat in silence. Part of that was the pain medication talking. It really left me feeling pretty out of it. Stacey took some time off, and I really appreciated her for caring enough to make time for me, but I also felt bad for putting her out, even though she assured me that I wasn’t putting her out or making her do anything she didn’t want to do. Very slowly, little by little, I began to perk up. I tried to stay focused more on building a future with Stacey instead of all that I had lost in the past. We got to know each other more, and even though she hated rodents, she insisted I get a pet rat to keep me company when she wasn’t around, knowing that they were my favorite animals. I had lost four of them the day I lost my husband and home. Stacey’s house had three bedrooms, and the rat and I lived in one of them. The other one was a combination guest and storage room. I had to see a handful of doctors as well as another therapist, since Stacey could no longer officially be my counselor. I lost thirty pounds, and my light brown hair was now just below my waist. Although I felt guilty for it at first, despite knowing that Henry would want me to move on, I began to notice Stacey more and more, and things eventually became intimate. I began to sleep in her bed every night. The sex was good. Not oh-my-God fantastic kind of good, but good. Satisfying. Because I couldn’t walk well in the beginning, I stayed with Stacey’s sister, Bennie, who also lived in town, while Stacey was seeing patients. I was usually bored out of my mind when I hung with Bennie. Bennie wasn’t mean in any way, but she wasn’t friendly either. Sometimes I wonder if, deep down, she felt I was a burden to her, though she didn’t seem to have anything against my relationship with Stacey, and I had a feeling that the family knew what was going on. They knew I was a former patient of hers and that I had become a little more than just a houseguest. Bennie worked at home while her husband worked outside the house. She was a website manager who managed content, security, and a host of other things for various companies. I was under the impression that while she “babysat” me—although I can’t deny that it was better than being alone all day—I would help her out in exchange. I cleaned her house once a week as soon as I was physically able to do so, but otherwise all I really did was sit in another room with my new laptop. It was then that I began to write my story and return to my days of blogging. I wrote about my past experiences, my present life, and my hopes for the future, even if I wasn’t exactly sure what that last one was. Stacey had family all over the country, but where most had been in the northeast, starting in Maryland, most were now in the west. Her family moved to California from Texas many years ago. Most had remained in NorCal, but some ended up in Florida and the Bay Area. I began to meet more of them who would either visit us or whom we would go to visit. Stacey’s parents lived in Newcastle. They were very old and very quiet. Stacey had no brothers, but she had two other sisters, Marcy and Lisa. Marcy was a pediatrician who also lived in Newcastle, and Lisa lived in the Bay Area. I didn’t meet Lisa until three months after leaving the hospital. Stacey decided to drive us down to San Francisco one day in late September, stopping to visit her parents along the way. San Francisco was as obnoxiously hilly as I expected it would be. I couldn’t imagine living there, and I didn’t care how many gays were there. Lisa quickly came to be my favorite of Stacey’s sisters because she was the friendliest. Just like I hadn’t paid much attention to Stacey’s appearance when we first met, I didn’t really notice much about Lisa other than her kindness. She was the only one who didn’t ignore me and act as if I were an outsider intruding upon the family. “Oh, how adorable she is!” she exclaimed when Stacey introduced us after we pulled into her driveway. “It’s very nice to meet you.” She shook my hand, and I felt an immediate sense of comfort with her. Lisa had a two-bedroom, two-story condo that was practically right on the beach. Because of the slope of the shoreline, the ocean was hard to see from downstairs, but you could see it off in the not-too-far distance from the guestroom upstairs. Where Stacey was five feet one, two inches taller than me, Lisa was about three inches taller than Stacey. Their faces looked almost identical, only Lisa’s looked younger and smoother because she was forty-two, just two years older than me, whereas her sister was forty-seven. Lisa was slender, though not as skinny as Stacey, who was almost too thin. She had the same dark brown eyes and hair, only her hair was a few inches below her shoulders. It was very wavy, almost curly. Just like her sister, she had a lovely, even smile that I could tell was natural. Although Lisa spoke with Stacey more than she spoke with me, she still made a point of including me in conversations and not letting me feel left out like the others tended to do. We stayed with her for two nights, spending most of the time on the beach and browsing through stores. “Shaylin?” Lisa asked me one day while I was searching for shells along the shore, while she and Stacey sat nearby chatting on the chilly and nearly deserted beach. I looked up at her. “Yeah?” “Would you ever want to live here?” I shook my head. Stacey laughed. I loved her laugh. It was almost like a musical giggle. “I didn’t think she would,” Stacey said. “She doesn’t like living attached to others.” “These hills would drive me crazy, too.” Both sisters laughed. I asked if the weather was like NorCal, and Lisa told me it was a little warmer in winters and a little cooler in the summer, with more rain overall. I shrugged and said, “I’d take the warmer winters.” “You don’t like the cold?” “I hate the cold.” Again, the sisters laughed as if it were the funniest thing they’d heard. I guess it was the way I said it or something. Either way, laughter was always a good thing. On our second night there, Lisa treated us to dinner at a Chinese restaurant, while on our first night, she had a home-cooked spaghetti dinner waiting for us that we all enjoyed. As we were enjoying the chocolate cake she had baked for dessert that night, I commented on the fact that she didn’t have any pets and asked her if it was because of allergies or something like that. “No, just busy,” she told me. “The ER must take up a lot of your time,” I said. The instant I said this, Stacey gave a quick snort of amusement while Lisa frowned with confusion. “Why would I be at the ER?” she asked. “Aren’t you an ER nurse?” Lisa shook her head and started to talk, but her cell rang right at that moment, cutting her off. At the same instant, Stacey got up to use the bathroom, and I didn’t press the issue. I just wasn’t that curious about why Lisa didn’t have pets. Stacey and I snuggled up together on the couch in front of the TV that night, just like we usually did at home. Lisa sat in the plush chair next to the couch. Eventually, Stacey noticed I was falling asleep sooner than expected and said something like, “The old Hashimoto’s is kicking in and wearing you down, huh, girl?” I nodded, and Lisa’s brows knit together in confusion. “What?” she asked. “She’s got thyroid issues, same as I do, only a little worse.” “Oh.” “Do you want to turn in early?” Stacey asked me. “Yeah, I think so.” “You can feel free to head on up to bed if you’d like, honey,” said Lisa. “Thanks. I think I will.” I rose with a yawn. “Don’t forget your other pill,” Stacey reminded me. “I won’t.” “What other pill?” I heard Lisa softly ask Stacey curiously as I headed upstairs. “She takes a cholesterol pill at night and a thyroid pill in the morning.” I peed, brushed my teeth, and took my pill before getting into the full-sized bed in the guestroom. I was at that fine line between sleep and wakefulness when Stacey slid into bed next to me and wrapped her arms around me sometime later on. On our last night at Lisa’s, I had trouble sleeping, which was unfortunate since we had to get up early to begin the drive home. Stacey went down on me that night, and it helped me to relax a bit. I thought of how much my life had changed in just a matter of months as I drifted off that night. The pain of losing Henry, our pets, and our home lessened over time, but it was still there, and I knew it always would be. Meanwhile, I was beyond grateful that someone cared enough to take me in and provide the things I needed.