The Language of Sisters Read Online Free PDF

knew it was death. I collapsed to the floor, then lay on it, curled in a ball. I wanted to help Valeria, but I couldn’t. My mother shook Valeria’s shoulders. “Valeria! Valeria!” she screamed, then crawled over to me, “Mary, mother of Jesus, help me. Antonia!” She slapped my face, not hard, as I closed my eyes.
    I heard babbling in my head. Baby babbling, the same sounds that Elvira made, but they were scared, panicked. “Elvira,” I whispered. She cried, a weak wail, sadness.
    The black pulled in tight, sucking out my breath, my vision. I felt myself floating upward. My mother shook me, yelled my name as I felt myself spinning. I closed my eyes.
    â€œAntonia!” My mother shook me, screamed again. My vision cleared, I breathed in again, ragged and hoarse, and the spinning stopped. As soon as it had come upon me, the wave of suffocation headed back out. Death’s hand danced away, as forcefully as it had jammed its way in. I exhaled, the blackness gone, the pull gone. I heard Elvira’s cry again in my head, a baby’s sorrowful cry, a sigh, a last breath....
    Valeria stood, wobbled. “Elvira! It’s Elvira. I hear her!”
    â€œWhat?” my mother said, on all fours, trembling. “The baby is not crying.”
    I grabbed my mother’s shoulder to pull myself up, then Valeria and I both ran, stumbling, tripping, to Elvira in her crib. She was blue, tears on her cheeks.
    â€œMy God and Mother Mary have mercy!” My mother picked Elvira up in her arms and whacked her on the back, then turned her over and began CPR. She breathed in, twice, not too hard, then pumped her tiny chest with her fingers. She sank to the floor and laid Elvira out.
    Her hands shaking, my mother breathed and pumped, breathed and pumped.
    Valeria and I kneeled, right by our mother, her tears streaming down her face to Elvira’s, mixing with Elvira’s tears, that blue tint seeming to glow, her body limp, her face sweet, a dying angel.
    I heard nothing in my head. Nothing.
    Valeria glanced at me, her face stricken. “She’s quiet.”
    â€œMother of Christ. Saint Peter. Saint Joseph. Help me,” my mother begged. “Help me.”
    Limp. Blue. Still.
    Breathe. Pump.
    â€œJesus help me. Breathe, Elvira, breathe!”
    Dead angel.
    Breathe. Pump.
    â€œDamn it, God,” my mother begged. “Are you deaf?”
    Breathe. Pump.
    Elvira’s eyes flipped open and her cry, robust, outraged, a scream from heaven entered too early, burst into the room. My mother, now cradling Elvira, fell back into the wall, white as vanilla ice cream, trembling, holding her baby, rocking her back and forth as her screams pierced the room. Within a minute, my mother had calmed her, and I heard the babbling again, the sweet talk of Elvira in my head. I looked, stunned, at Valeria.
    â€œShe’s talking in my head,” she whispered.
    â€œMe too.”
    My mother studied us, exhausted. She’d aged a hundred years doing CPR on her baby angel. “How did you know?”
    â€œElvira was dying, and she gave it to both of us so we would come and get her,” I said.
    â€œShe talked to us and said ‘Help, help,’ ” Valeria said. “Mama, you look bad.”
    â€œYes, Mama,” I said, young and blunt. “Very bad.”
    My mother, reeling from the shock of her life, kissed Elvira, then dragged in air. “You have it then.”
    â€œHave what?”
    She closed her eyes, head back, then opened them, a new light inside. Pride, maybe? “The language of sisters, the language of brothers. I have it with Uncle Leonid. We can hear each other, inside our heads when something is wrong, or when something is especially beautiful. Now and then we can feel each other. It started when we were children. My father had the same language with his sister. My grandfather had it with his brother. My great-grandfather had the gift with three