Peter Johnson

Sibling Rivalry

I have no older sister, so I’m surprised when she shows up at my birthday party. A gorgeous creature, my sister. Despite the tiny tattoo of a spider twitching on her forehead as she toothpicks tabouli from her teeth. She’s here to say I got the genes for cancer and premature gray hair. A real study in undifferentiated anger, my sister. “Live simply so others may simply live,” she hisses, then heads for the potato chips. Easy for her to say. She was father’s favorite, slept in a pink, canopied bed next to a large drinking dish reserved for endangered species. The kind of sister who could have changed my life, but she doesn’t show up until now, her Little Miss Western Civilization banner draped across her breasts. That’s just like my sister, the one I never had, the one I can’t remember.