I named my baby sister Pearl.
Two years younger than me.
The pretty one.
She grew taller than me.
Long, curly blonde hair.
Blue eyes with impossibly long lashes.
We sat together
in the back seat of the car as kids.
She didn’t need a car seat like I did.
As her big sister,
it was my job to terrorize her.
I told her the moon was a giant monster,
hungry for little sisters.
If the car stopped before we got home,
it would eat her.
Pearl was braver than me.
We went to a pool
with a ten-foot diving board.
We climbed the ladder together,
hand over hand,
higher than I wanted to go.
Pearl walked to the edge,
toes hanging over,
turned to smile at me,
and jumped.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Splash.
I crawled to the edge
while the board trembled beneath me.
Her blonde hair broke the surface.
She yelled for me to jump.
So I did.
We were inseparable.
I was her shadow,
stuck to her like Velcro.
At night, we slept in the same bed,
heads on the same pillow,
face to face.
I told her my secrets.
She always kept them.
I made her pinky promise.
We twisted our pinkies together
in front of our faces,
thumbs touching
the tips of our noses.
Pearl was my sister
and my best friend
until I stopped seeing her
when I was eight.
She died
before she was born.
