I SHOWED IT TO HER IN THE BATHROOM THAT NIGHT.
She rolled up her bikini top, flashing her brown nipples, her tiny breasts. Then she ducked, knocking the bottle out of my hand.
“Are you insane?” she said to me.
I watched her move into the mirror as though she were in love with it.
“I can make you sprout fingers,” I said.
“Sally, you’re such a geek,” she said.
I swallowed. I stood so hard on the floor I hoped it would begin to tilt and spill Betsy, my family, somewhere.
“I can,” I told her.
I WENT OUTSIDE AND SAT WITH MY FATHER.
“Do you have cancer?”
He shook his head. “No.”
I felt something, full as a balloon, shrink inside of me. “Do you have heart failure?”
“No,” he said.
“Well, then, what?” I said.
He held out his arms. I stood inside them. They did not surround me the way I wanted.
“I get tired after I read these books,” he said. “I get tired after I walk one block.” His voice swelled, as though he were in an argument. He rolled over. “Forget it, Sally. Go play with your sister.”
I didn’t know what to think. My father had just stopped.
My father closed his eyes. He looked like he could just sink into the lawn chair and disappear. It wouldn’t take long for me to follow. I wouldn’t even have to try. I tried to tell one of the boys at the beach to come get me. The one who could be Craig, pushing open the gate and walking right to me, leaning over, knowing how to kiss.
That was the first time in ages that I sat right beside my father.
THAT NIGHT I WOKE UP, BLINKING INTO THE DARK. I MOVED DOWN the long hallway to the kitchen. I stood in the doorway and scanned the utensils. The can opener wasn’t sharp enough. I didn’t know how to put together the Cuisinart. So I took the biggest steak knife, silver and heavy. And I put it against my left hand.
That knife was stubborn. I held it hard, stood there breathing; I thought of all the love I would possibly get. But the knife wouldn’t go down. It wouldn’t move.
I lifted the knife off my skin. I put it in the very last trash can in the garage. I dumped garbage over it — old TV dinners, soda bottles, banana peels — until I was sure no one would know it was there. In bed, my hands went slowly all over my body. My body, still ridiculously complete.
THE NEXT DAY, I TOLD BETSY I WASN’T GOING WITH HER TO THE hill anymore.
“It’s boring,” I said.
She was stepping into that day’s swimsuit; she stopped.
“How?”
“It just is,” I said.
Betsy slapped her arms at her sides. “Fine,” she said. “Be that way.” She whirled around. “What color do I wear?”
“I don’t care.”
“Pink,” she said. “I totally need pink.” She began to hurl shirts and towels. “Fonz Wannabe looks like a fish when he kisses,” she said. “It’s really gross. You have to see.”
“No,” I said.
She zoomed out of the bedroom. I listened. She was running. She was also throwing: magazines, big pillows, chairs.
“Sally,” she yelled.
She was in the kitchen.
“You stole my pink one,” she said.
“I wouldn’t want it,” I said.
“Bitch,” she said. “You know you do.”
She grabbed a spatula lying on a counter. “You know you do,” she yelled, and she went for me with the spatula. I leaped on Betsy. She whacked the spatula everywhere: into my chest, under my armpit, between my legs. I hit her all over; I didn’t want to miss a spot.
She shoved me off and ran to the den. I couldn’t believe it; she ran inside.
“Daddy!” Betsy yelled.
She began to jump all over the den. I did, too. We bounced up and off chairs, the card table. I pretended our father wasn’t sleeping. He wasn’t even there.
Our father opened his eyes. “Girls, out,” he said.
Betsy hoisted herself on top of the entertainment console. On the big square TV under her feet, a contestant touched a new Buick. Betsy was the tallest thing in the room.
Again, she had picked the center of the universe. She had found the best place to be. I wriggled toward Betsy, getting ready to push her off.
Our father was faster. He lifted her off the TV. Betsy started kicking. He was holding her, in the air, kicking. It was the first father thing I saw him do the whole summer. It was the first thing he did that made him look strong.
He gently set Betsy on the floor. I loved him, then, instantly, ridiculously. Now he would talk to us again; now he would tell us what to do.
But our father didn’t say anything. He didn’t even smile. He stepped away from us as though he thought we were ugly.
“Just go out,” he said. “Go.”
I let out a big breath. I wondered how our father felt, watching me and Betsy leave for the beach every day. I couldn’t imagine what it was like, staying in this dark room when outside the sun warmed our shoulders, our arms.
Our father was alone in the den again, and I had no idea how to save him.
Betsy shot out of the room. I followed. When we made it to the bathroom, she began to cry.
She leaned into me, her whole face salty. I wanted to help her stop. I frantically scanned the bathroom. Blow-dryers, lip gloss, a loofah sponge. The bottle of Fern Encourager was beside my toothbrush. I grabbed it and held it out to her.
“Oh, please,” she said.
I poured out some blue on a paper towel and touched her bad hand with it. I knew the Fern Encourager wouldn’t work. I knew she didn’t think it would, either. But it was all I could think of then, in the bathroom.
“Idiot,” she said, softly.
WE DIDN’T TAKE THE BUS THIS TIME; WE RAN THE WHOLE WAY. BETSY dashed up the hill first, sand flying from her feet like white sparks. When we got to the top, we turned to the sun, and I lifted her arm.
She twisted away from me, embarrassed, but I held her arm there, hard. “Higher,” I said. “On your toes.”
The boys at the ditch turned toward us, but they were too far away, I think, to see anything but that she had kissed some of them by the parking lot.
“Hey,” a couple of them began to call. “Hey.”
Betsy was frozen in her salute, and the boys began running, across the sand, toward us. I stood behind her and held her arm so it was closer to the sun.
“Try,” I said. “Push.”
Betsy closed her eyes. It seemed like she was trying to fling her whole self into that hand. I wrapped my arms around her skinny waist and lifted her, kicking, to the sky.
“Push.”
The boys coming up the hill saw me holding Betsy and slowed down. I squeezed my sister, tighter, tighter. I waited for something beautiful to come out of her; I waited for anything at all. Then Betsy started to cough, and we fell, separate, on the sand.
Betsy was still. I took her hand out of the sand. She kept her face down as I shook the sand off. She must have known there was no difference. And, of course, there wasn’t. Because when her hand was out, I could see that it was the same. It was still my sister’s bad hand.
The boys began to rush the hill. And they began calling her by the name she had given them. “Sally.” “Sally.”
When she heard they were still coming, Betsy sat up, yanked her bad hand back.
“Oh, great,” she said. “Give me something.”
“What?”
“Don’t be stupid. Your shirt.”
She snapped up my shirt with her good hand, and then I was on the top of that hill in my bikini top, the wind touching my shoulders. Betsy wrapped my shirt around her bad hand in about half a second, whip-fast after years of practice. The boys were coming for us. They were coming. Betsy pulled me. “Let’s go,” she said. She took my hand with her good one. Her good hand fit into mine perfectly. It had never fit so well.