mountain to check on me, “Are you okay?” “Are you sure you’re okay?” At night, after dinner, my sister asks the waiter for two fat-free hot fudge sundaes to take back to our room, where she will simultaneously watch a video and return nine calls from patients who can’t live without her. Then “What happened?” my sister asks about the movie, and I have to break the spell to fill her in. Then she makes a few more calls, and she’s ready to turn out the light. Then she wants to talk. Then she wants to sing Patience & Prudence’s “Tonight You Belong to Me” in the dark. (I’m melody. She’s harmony.) Finally the Volk Girls are ready to sleep.
“Good night,
really.
” We laugh, and that’s when I hear it. It’s the sound my sister has always made at night, a sound nobody else makes, a hard swallow that ends with a push of air out her nose.
Something opens. Something closes. Something opens again.
I used to time my breaths to hers. Open, close, open. The sound of her breathing is the sound I fell asleep to the first twelve years of my life in the blue room we shared with organza drapes that met like bosomy aunts bending over to kiss us, the room I still dream of, the room I still long for, separated by a night table, one arm’s length from the person Siamesed to my soul—my sister, my half, my beloved Jo Ann.
Friday night at Great-grandma’s. Back row (left to right): Jerry Lieban, Herman Morgen, Jenny Geiger Lieban, Dad, Albert Wolko. Front row (left to right): Gertrude June Lieban Shultz, Polly Ann Lieban Morgen, Dr. E. Alan Lieban, Mom, Louis Lieban, Ruth Helen Lieban Wolko (Note: The three sisters have the same hairdo.)
LAPSANG SOUCHONG
I loved my family because they were family, separate from their behavior in the world or how they treated me. They were mine, I was lucky to have them. Their stories were my history, and their histories were spoken of with reverence. In 1888 a paternal great-grandfather brought pastrami to the New World. In 1916 a grandmother took home the trophy for “Best Legs in Atlantic City.” My grandfather won the land for his house in a card game with Jimmy Walker and was eulogized in
The New Yorker
by E. B. White. My father invented the first Hydraulic-powered Double-sided Garbage Can Brush, the Double-sided Cigarette Lighter so you never have to worry about which side is up when you go to light, the first Illuminated Lucite Single-shaft Fender Guide, which clamped to your fender and facilitated nighttime parking by showing you where your fender ended, the first See-thru Wristwatch, and the Six-color Retractable Pen and Pencil Set. (He was sold out by his partner, the mention of whose name in our family is still followed by spitting.) Dad opened the first frozen-food store in Greenwich Village, Penguin Foods. With a war going on, he figured working women would buy frozen food so they wouldn’t need to market every day. My mother was president of the Junior League for Child Care. Everyone was a star in the family galaxy, even Aunt Gertie, whose husband gambled away her money, then died, forcing her to sell dresses at Sachs, not Saks. Aunt Gertie had perfect posture.
I loved my family because they were Morgens or Liebans or Volks. We were part of each other. So I loved Uncle Al, even though he cheated on his wife. Uncle Al sat back and watched while his sisters scurried to please him. He wove his forearms over his chest, puffing his pipe like a chieftain while they kept his glass filled. Uncle Al was emotionally immune. He tolerated us. If he could say it the hard way, he did. This passed for genius.
An endodontist, Uncle Al was our family’s only “professional.” In that capacity he was our liaison to the medical world. When anyone had a health problem, even if it had nothing to do with teeth, they called Uncle Al for a referral. He knew the best rheumatologist, the best chiropodist, the best lung man. Uncle Al was famous in our family for two other things as
“Good night,
really.
” We laugh, and that’s when I hear it. It’s the sound my sister has always made at night, a sound nobody else makes, a hard swallow that ends with a push of air out her nose.
Something opens. Something closes. Something opens again.
I used to time my breaths to hers. Open, close, open. The sound of her breathing is the sound I fell asleep to the first twelve years of my life in the blue room we shared with organza drapes that met like bosomy aunts bending over to kiss us, the room I still dream of, the room I still long for, separated by a night table, one arm’s length from the person Siamesed to my soul—my sister, my half, my beloved Jo Ann.
Friday night at Great-grandma’s. Back row (left to right): Jerry Lieban, Herman Morgen, Jenny Geiger Lieban, Dad, Albert Wolko. Front row (left to right): Gertrude June Lieban Shultz, Polly Ann Lieban Morgen, Dr. E. Alan Lieban, Mom, Louis Lieban, Ruth Helen Lieban Wolko (Note: The three sisters have the same hairdo.)
LAPSANG SOUCHONG
I loved my family because they were family, separate from their behavior in the world or how they treated me. They were mine, I was lucky to have them. Their stories were my history, and their histories were spoken of with reverence. In 1888 a paternal great-grandfather brought pastrami to the New World. In 1916 a grandmother took home the trophy for “Best Legs in Atlantic City.” My grandfather won the land for his house in a card game with Jimmy Walker and was eulogized in
The New Yorker
by E. B. White. My father invented the first Hydraulic-powered Double-sided Garbage Can Brush, the Double-sided Cigarette Lighter so you never have to worry about which side is up when you go to light, the first Illuminated Lucite Single-shaft Fender Guide, which clamped to your fender and facilitated nighttime parking by showing you where your fender ended, the first See-thru Wristwatch, and the Six-color Retractable Pen and Pencil Set. (He was sold out by his partner, the mention of whose name in our family is still followed by spitting.) Dad opened the first frozen-food store in Greenwich Village, Penguin Foods. With a war going on, he figured working women would buy frozen food so they wouldn’t need to market every day. My mother was president of the Junior League for Child Care. Everyone was a star in the family galaxy, even Aunt Gertie, whose husband gambled away her money, then died, forcing her to sell dresses at Sachs, not Saks. Aunt Gertie had perfect posture.
I loved my family because they were Morgens or Liebans or Volks. We were part of each other. So I loved Uncle Al, even though he cheated on his wife. Uncle Al sat back and watched while his sisters scurried to please him. He wove his forearms over his chest, puffing his pipe like a chieftain while they kept his glass filled. Uncle Al was emotionally immune. He tolerated us. If he could say it the hard way, he did. This passed for genius.
An endodontist, Uncle Al was our family’s only “professional.” In that capacity he was our liaison to the medical world. When anyone had a health problem, even if it had nothing to do with teeth, they called Uncle Al for a referral. He knew the best rheumatologist, the best chiropodist, the best lung man. Uncle Al was famous in our family for two other things as
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