Words

The Author Before She Became the Older Sister

Flabby epiglottis, the reason my infant sister choked on food and needed watching. My pre-med-trained father standing over her with a knife ready to do amateur surgery to free her breathing. I was to watch her and find my parents if she ever choked. When I was four and she was two, an older boy in the sandbox pulled her panties down and dumped sand there. I ran with her to the apartment office where my parents were applying for us to live. They hurried to find the boy telling me I hadn’t taken good enough care of my sister. Capable, something it would take a long time for me to believe I was.