About Me — A New Sister
I’ve Tried To Be Beautiful
The emotional cost of a sibling
It was the last time I remember my mother calling me beautiful.
It was the last time I felt it.
It was the last day of innocence.
She looked like a cherub, my sister. Soft innocent pink flesh. Chubby munchy arms and legs that begged to be kissed. Rose-tinted cheeks. Snub button nose. Blue eyes the size of the saucers on the old dresser in the kitchen.
She wriggled a lot; she’d kick and cry beneath her soft wool blanket. The one with embroidered rose petals fashioned from fuchsia and green silk that I’d watched my mother crochet in the months that led to this moment.
“She’s beautiful,” I said. I sat as still as my two-year-old body could muster on my mother’s bed in our two-roomed flat in South London in 1966, on a wet November day.
The room was white. White walls. White furniture. White nets at the shabby grey windows. White light emanated from the angel baby in her white coat. White paint hid chipped wood and a charity shop smell. A white nightie covered my mum’s white body. A chewed dummy lay on the thin carpet.
I sat on my hands like I’d been taught to do. Fingers secret scurry on the knarled quilt beneath. My stockinged legs hung over the edge of the bed with their red patent shoes held fast. I wanted so much to be seen and not heard.
I’d been desperate to get into this strange, transformed room. Once a safe space to escape scary dreams. The door had been shut tight to hide the smells and sounds that made no sense. That made me want to cover my ears and shut my eyes tight. That, I was told, was the miracle of new life.
The mum next to me didn’t seem like my own. The effort of crocheting the creature beneath the blanket had done something to her shape. She no longer seemed solid. A dark quiet surrounded her. Auburn curls haloed her drawn face. Pale ringless hands rested in her lap. White furry slippers hid her naked toes. She stared at the babe in the cot as if she couldn’t quite remember how it got there.
Something about her face wasn’t right. Her torpid eyes swam with a faraway sadness, and the corners of her bloodless lips were pulled down toward the bed.
“So are you,” she said. And her gaze of love shone on me, lifted her mouth and my heart on a sunbeam. A sharp squeal snapped her back to the cot.
This second baby wasn’t to be ignored.
Mum patted my leg, already distracted, and reached out to gather the crying babe from the cot. The little creature nuzzled mum’s swollen pink nipple into her gaping mouth. My sister's pink fingers claimed their prize and I was forgotten.
I’ve tried to replicate that moment of love so many times. I’ve tried to be as good as I was then. I’ve tried to be quiet, to sit still, to not breathe, to stay small.
I’ve tried to be beautiful.
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