What My Sister Remembered Read Online Free PDF Page A

She just bent over, reached underneath, and pulled out the trundle bed. Then she looked around the room again. “It is a very small room,” she said.
    “I don’t think it’s small,” I said angrily. “Maybe it’s not as big as your room, but it was plenty big enough for both of the boys, and it would have been big enough for ... for ... ”
    Beth suddenly dropped down on my bed. Not the trundle bed but my bed, right on top of my beautiful, frilly, pink spread.
    “You’ve got your shoes on my spread,” I yelled.
    She kicked them off and stretched herself. “I used to sleep here,” she said, “on this bed. I used to sleep here.”
    “When did you ever sleep here?” I demanded.
    “Then,” she said. “Before the accident. I slept on this bed, and you slept on the trundle bed.”
    “I don’t remember.”
    “Lie down,” she ordered. “Go ahead. Lie down.”
    “No.”
    She sat up and looked at me with a different kind of look. “Please, Molly, lie down. Please.”
    “Okay, okay,” I grumbled. I lay down on the trundle bed. It was narrower than my bed but it was okay. “There’s nothing wrong with the trundle bed,” I said. “My friends sleep over all the time . ”
    “Good for them.”
    I looked over at my pretty pink curtains. “I love pink,” I said.
    "I hate it.”
    “You keep saying you hate everything,” I told her angrily. “What do you like? Is there anything you like?”
    “I like plenty of things,” she said. “But you have to be stupid to like everything the way you do.”
    “I don’t like everything.”
    “Okay—tell me what you don’t like.”
    You, I wanted to say, you. But I held back, thinking, and while I did, Beth said, looking up at the ceiling, “There used to be another fixture on that light.”
    “Yes,” I agreed, “a big, ugly one.”
    “It looked like a saucer. I was just a little kid then but I remember it looked like a saucer, and I used to wonder what was inside it.”
    “I picked this one out when we painted.”
    She wasn’t listening. “I didn’t want to come today,” she said. “! never wanted to come back, even though my mom thought I should. But I can remember how we used to sleep over sometimes when our parents had a night out, and I used to love it then. The boys were so sweet—especially Jeff.”
    “They still are. Alex is sweet too, but Lisa is a real crab, and—."
    “And Uncle Walter was nice even though he was so big and had such a deep voice, and even she ... even she was okay. I remember she bought me a doll once ... I liked her a lot then.”
    “So why aren’t you nicer to her now?” I demanded. “You were the one who made her feel bad when you went away with the Lattimores. Why are you so mean to her? Why are you so nasty? Don’t you know you make her feel bad? Don’t you know she loves you a lot, and if you had decided to stay, she would have done anything for you?”
    Beth didn’t answer. She was asleep.
     
    Chapter 4
     
    “She’s asleep,” I told them. The grown-ups were still sitting around the table, my parents drinking Cokes and Aunt Helene sipping a glass of ice water.
    “Sleeping!” Aunt Helene stood up. “She’s really exhausted. We probably should have come another day, but you’re so close to the airport, and we ... we were looking forward to seeing you.”
    “Why don’t you let her nap for a while?” my father suggested.
    “No, I’d better wake her. Once she falls asleep, she’ll sleep through the whole night. Where’s the bedroom?”
    My mother led her down the hall, and I followed along behind them.
    “Well, isn’t this a pretty room.” Aunt Helene stood in the doorway, looking in.
    “I picked out the spread and the curtains and the wallpaper.”
    “A real girl’s room.” Aunt Helene smiled at me. “Such pretty shades of pink!” She moved over to the bed. Beth was lying on her side, facing the wall, the way I slept. It felt funny seeing her on my bed, sleeping the way I always slept.