Comfort & Joy

“Thanks,” I say, meaning it.

As a group, they leave, and we are left alone, Stacey and I.

Neither one of us speaks. We obviously don’t know what to say, how to start.

It’s up to me; I know that. She has already made her move—she invited me to her wedding. It’s why I’m lying here, hooked up to machines and held together by a metal pin.

I sit up, reposition the pillows. The minute I’m up here

, I know it’s a mistake. There’s no way to avoid seeing Stacey’s stomach. She has gained a few pounds already.

She notices where I’m looking. “I’m surprised you haven’t thrown me out,” she says, softly. I can hear the longing in her voice, the missing of me, and it reminds me of a dozen memories of our youth.

“At your current weight, I’d need some kind of catapult. ”

She wants to smile at my lame joke; I can see the desire. But she doesn’t. Probably she can’t. Neither can I. “I haven’t gained that much. ”

“If I had two good legs, I’d kick your ass, though. ”

“Stop,” Stacey says. “You always make jokes when you’re hurting. ”

And there it is: the core of everything. We’re sisters. We know each other intimately. Our pasts, our secrets, our fears. It is a precious gift that we tried to throw away but can’t really let go of.

Stacey bites her lower lip. It’s what she’s done her whole life when she’s scared. “I’m sorry, Joy. I don’t know how it happened. I didn’t mean . . . ”

I hold up my hand. Of all the things we could say now, the hows and whys of what happened are at the bottom of my list. But I make my move too late; her words get through, make me angry . . . and hurt me. “You make it sound like you slipped on a banana peel and fell on my husband. ”

“So what do we do?”

The soft tenor of her voice, the trembling of her lip, the regret in her eyes; I see it all, and in seeing it, seeing her, I lose that spark of anger, just let it go. When the plane was going down, it was Stacey whom I thought about. That’s what I need to always remember now. “We find a way to get past it. That’s all. ”

“Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”

“Now who’s trying to be funny?”

Stacey stares down at me with a combination of awe and gratitude. “Two weeks ago you hated me. ”

“I never hated you, Stace,” I say the words softly, realizing almost before I’ve finished that they’re not enough. What I want to say, need to say, now before I lose my nerve is what I learned in the rainforest: “We’re sisters. ”

At that, Stacey starts to cry.

I wait for her to say something, but she remains quiet. Maybe, like me, she’s wondering how exactly we move forward from here. “It won’t be easy,” I say.

She wipes her eyes. “What is?” Taking a small step closer, she looks down at me, pushes a strand of hair from my eyes. “I am sorry, you know. ”

“I know. ” I sigh. “When I was in the rainforest,” I stop abruptly, realizing what I was about to say.

“What rainforest?”

I try to smile and fail. “If I told you, you’d think I was brain damaged. Or crazy. ”

“You’re the most level-headed person I know. ”

I look at her closely, trying to gauge how much to say. “On television, I heard you tell the reporters you were hoping I’d come back to you. ”

Stacey frowns. “How—?”

“Just answer me. Did you say that?”