"Tell me everything that's going on in your life. I don't care how small it seems to you."
"Nothing's going on, Aunt Zipporah. Nothing's different," I said, and she turned her face into an exaggerated mask of disappointment.
"Can't be. Not at your age."
I shrugged.
"I'm boring," I said.
"That you can never be," she suggested. I saw my grandmother smirking and shaking her head as she prepared our breakfast. "Really, honey? There's no one on the horizon?" she asked, her eyes turning. I couldn't help but laugh. "C'mon."
"No one. I've been too busy," I offered as an excuse.
"With what?"
"My art," I said.
She looked at my grandmother.
"She's not lying about that. She's up in that attic more than sle is anywhere else."
"Oh, Alice. You have to--"
"What?" I asked, waiting. Her face softened. "Take a chance," she said.
"That's what we're all trying to tell her," my grandmother echoed.
"We're all afraid of being hurt, rejected, but even if that happens, you survive it, Alice. It happened a lot to me, believe me," she said.
"I'm not afraid of being rejected," I told her. "In fact, I'm use
d to it."
"Oh, Alice."
She stared at me a moment. Aunt Zipporah didn't resemble her mother as much as I apparently resembled mine She had my grandfather's face, with his narrower cheeks and sharper jaw, but her features were small and I always thought she had perfectly shaped ears. She kept her dark-brown hair very long now, a good two inches below her wing bone. Grandfather Michael called her his personal hippie because she always wore a tie-dyed headband and Indian jewelry, the turquoise necklaces and earrings, bracelets and rings, lots of rings. Usually, she didn't have a bare finger.
From what I understood of her life after my mother, what was sometimes referred to as AK, After Karen, Aunt Zipporah went into a deep depression and then gradually emerged with a different attitude about herself and the world. She was more cynical and for a while was a great worry for my
grandparents. Eventually, she found herself, but that discovery was one that led her to lean more toward the rebels--the oddballs, as Grandfather Michael liked to call them. It was as if she had to carry on my mother's legacy and be as outrageous as she could be. I was told that she almost flunked out of college at one point, but then got hold of herself and ended up doing well.
I knew that her not going on to become a teacher was a great disappointment to my
grandparents, but they had come to like Tyler, a hardworking young businessman who ironically proved to be a stabling influence on Aunt Zipporah. The only mystery I had yet to solve was why they never had any children of their own, or hadn't yet. She was still young enough. Her stock answer to me was, "I'm not ready yet." If she and Tyler had arguments about it, they were well hidden. Never during the times I spent with them did I ever see them have any sort of serious fight. Tyler, if he disagreed with her, would just shake his head and smile as if he knew she would eventually come around to his way of thinking. Most of the time, that was just what she did.
What amused me more was the way she treated-- or, I should say, handled--Rachel. Although it was difficult for most people to read Aunt Zipporah, I had no problem. Just as she had a special
relationship with her mother, she had a similarly special relationship with my father, her brother. Whenever they were together, they were always up and happy, laughing and joking. It was nearly impossible to say or do anything serious when they were together. I knew that bothered Rachel. She was jealous, but no matter what Rachel said to her or how she treated her, Aunt Zipporah was always very pleasant. I would smile to myself because I could see she was humoring her, treating her as if she were the one who needed tender loving care and not me, or Jesse, or herself.
When it came to meeting someone head on, Rachel was surely a formidable opponent. She simply wasn't prepared for gentle, nonviolent reactions and would either retreat or sigh with frustration and go on to something else. I knew my father was amused by it as much as I was at times.
Rachel would be aggressive and say something like, "You really look ridiculous in that dress with so much jewelry, Zipporah, especially at your age."
Aunt Zipporah would nod and smile and reply, "Yes, I know, but most people look ridiculous where I am, so no one really notices or cares, but thanks for worrying about me."
How do you fight someone like that? If only I could be the same way, I thought, but what was in me wanted to come out scratching and kicking like a wildcat and not gentle and pleasant like a female Gandhi.
"Hey!" my father said, coming into the kitchen. They immediately hugged and kissed. "What did you do, leave at the crack of dawn?"