Dessert was butterscotch ice cream with corn syrup, or bananas cut up in brown sugar and evaporated milk.
We said “please” when we asked for a condiment and “thank you” when it was passed. We sat with paper serviettes unfolded on our laps and rested our forearms — and never our elbows — on the edge of the table. Our mouths were closed while we chewed and no part of my body was allowed to touch any part of my brother’s or vice versa. No kicking the chair or drinking while eating or slurping or playing with food or interrupting. Sam talked about his clients and Sylvia talked about how she’d made the meal and, if it was new, where she’d got the recipe and what changes she’d made. She told about whatever project she was working on too, the teak beads she’d found for the macramé owl hanging, the scratching technique she’d learned in pottery class, the lamp base she’d wired out of shellacked driftwood.
There were math games with Sam asking Sylvia for an equation then competing with us to find the answer fastest without writing anything down. Sylvia smiled close-mouthed while the three of us clamoured to shout the right answer first, the numbers often tripping over our tongues and coming out incomplete or backward in our haste. Sam loved the language of geometry — hypotenuse, vertex, congruent, isosceles — and had a particular fondness for the Pythagorean Theorem. He started us off — “The square of the hypotenuse…” — and we raced to see who could finish reciting it first: “…of a right-angled triangle equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides!” Cards roused a similar fierceness: cribbage or rummy with Sam was a madcap contest to add points for runs and pairs and sets and fifteens. It was rare that Nicky or I was swifter than Sam but we were neck and neck with each other. Sylvia always claimed she’d figured the answer before us but didn’t need to bother with shouting it out.
On Sundays Sylvia walked Nicky and I down the hill to the United Church. She dressed me in homemade jumpers fastened with wooden buttons over white blouses and white leotards with two-toned brown shoes we’d found at the Salvation Army store. I tied my hair in braids with matching yarn ribbons. Nicky wore an orange shirt tucked into stretchy plaid pants with a paisley clip-on tie and desert boots. We stayed for the first part of the service, through two hymns from the choir and announcements, until Reverend Green called all the children forth to sit at his feet for a Jesus story then sent us down to the basement for Sunday school.
There were three others in my Sunday school class: Susan Baker from up on the highway near Vi, Jenny Taylor from the bottom of the hill and a boy named Duncan Matheson, who lived on Back Street and wanted a different one of us to marry him each week. Susan Baker was his favourite. I told Duncan I wouldn’t marry him unless it was upstairs in the proper church. Our teacher was Lucy Stevens, a teenager from a church family who lived next to the ballpark where we sat on bleachers for Friday night regular games and at weekend tournaments to watch Sam catch pop flies in centre field. Duncan’s family was a church family too because his father came to service and his grandfather was an elder who carried a wooden plate around to collect the offering. Sam sang in the choir at Christmas but only because they needed deep men’s voices not because he belonged. We weren’t really United, Sylvia told us, we weren’t anything, but one church was as good as another and this church was so close and worship was important.
Sylvia was most rigid about swearing, offended when as much as a damn or a shit came out of Nicky or me. Sam coached us on the alternatives — darn, shoot, heck— but I got caught saying the F-word and had to be dragged then shoved, into the bathroom where Sylvia held a pink bar of Dove under warm water until it was sudsy then rubbed it on my tongue. She let me spit after and rinse with Listerine but my mouth smarted and swallowing was hard, even with water. Nicky swore too but managed to avoid getting his mouth washed out.
For me the rules were stricter than for Nicky, but I never complained. The more exact the rules, the more able I was to perform them to the letter. My appearance had to be precise: T-shirt tucked in, pants belted, socks pulled up, not a hair out of place. Each morning I came to Sylvia with a hairbrush and a jar full of barrettes, ribbons, bobby pins and toggles. I leaned into her thighs as she brushed my tatted hair up into bunches which she fingered into two long ringlets and sprayed with Final Net. My room was spotless too: floor swept, rag rug lined up with the floorboards, all surfaces dusted, windows clear, socks rolled in pairs, sweaters folded with the arms crossed, panties in balls. It wasn’t that I liked cleaning; I loathed it and spent hours hanging my head off my bed agonizing over whether to do it in the first place: how much was plenty and how much was too much and had I gone overboard enough? The rules themselves concerned me, not the cleaning. Sylvia’s love depended on me not only obeying but excelling at those rules. It was unclear whether the rules were Sylvia’s or my own.
That spring, when Sylvia took to the couch, Nicky and I forgot to bathe. It was Sam who noticed the grimy cuffs on our necks, wrists and ankles. He grabbed a hank of my sticky hair as I sat down for dinner and held it as if weighing it or testing it for ripeness. A close, feral scent rose up and I. glanced at Nicky. Our eyes met. After a few seconds, Sam let the hair drop, and searched for somewhere to wipe his palm.
Sam pulled a pressback chair from the kitchen to the bottom of the stairs. He sat with the newspaper folded open to the crossword puzzle and pointed up.
“March,” he said, and we did.
At ten and eleven, Nicky and I hadn’t taken a bath together for a long time. Usually Sylvia stood over us one at a time, arms crossed, big hands cupping hipbones, ensuring that every crack and crevice was sufficiently scrubbed. This time Sylvia was in bed already and Nicky let the water run until it covered the drainage holes. In our bedrooms, we stripped down to the long white undervests that made us indistinguishable. Then we met in the hallway.
“You’re not marching right. Raise your knees higher,” I commanded.
Nicky tried, but his feet were so dirty they stuck to the floor.
We took turns sliding down the sloped end of the claw foot tub and splashing water onto the mirror. It became a contest to make the most noise so Sam would know we were taking a bath.
When I slid, my bum stuck to the porcelain and squeaked. It felt like a pinch and I squealed, causing Nicky to let out a loud fake laugh.
It was a long time before I realized that contrary to what Sylvia had told me, everything between my legs wasn’t called my bum.
My bum held great interest — a place where I put marbles and pushed them around with my fingertips, savouring their glassy coolness, imagining an eye staring inside me. I’d take the marble out and hold it under my nose, compelled by the salty, slightly sour odour. Sometimes I tasted it. When I was eight, Jenny Watson had held out her finger and said, “Smell this.” I had wrinkled my nose, but even then I was attracted. The between-my-legs smell. The smell of my underpants before bed.
After drying off, we fought over the square white container of baby powder, shaking it wildly, some of the powder sprinkling our bodies, the rest scattering across the bathroom, leaving spots on the mirror. Giggling, we whacked each other’s bottoms and backs with flat hands, marking the sheer powdered skin. Then we tripped down the hall.
I broke free of Nicky’s slapping hands and tramped white barefoot prints across my wooden floor and rag rug. I grabbed my red nightie from under my pillow and pulled it on, kicking my legs and arms out in a crazy dance so Nicky couldn’t touch me.
He stopped.
Our eyes met for an instant. I turned and pulled the gilt scoop handles on the top drawer of my white dresser. I selected another nightgown, a seersucker baby doll with green and purple flowers, and turned to Nicky.
“Come here.”
He did.
“Lift
