My sister and I always dreamed of visiting Sicily. When we finally made it happen, our days were spent stopping for stretchy gelato, yelling Basta! at hordes of men trailing us everywhere, and soaking in a sea where only bath-warm water surged between us and Africa.
But in between those bright moments, we bristled. There wasn’t a specific reason for our fighting that I could name, but something had jostled our relationship off course. It was as if the ghosts of our ancestors were waiting all that time for us to arrive so they could hand us an inheritance of unresolved hurt and say, Fix it.
In the hostel room we shared with strangers who snored, she said our sisterhood was broken because it revolved around me, then left to hike in a gorge alone.
She had given me friendship, creativity, a confidant, and a home when ours was gone.
Our bond was my only remaining tether to the parts about myself I liked.
Had I really only handed her pain in return?
We were in Ragusa, the city of two halves. After Mount Etna’s eruption caused an earthquake to strike Southern Sicily in 1669, some residents decided to create a new city higher up on a hill, while others chose to rebuild directly on top of the old city that had been ruined.
Wandering the streets of old town, the part of Ragusa that was rebuilt, I wondered if the problem between my sister and I was similar.
We’d been raised in the same family, then separated by tragedy. And, like the people of Ragusa three hundred and fifty years ago, it wasn’t only what we’d been through that made it hard to find common ground. It was that the paths we’d taken to survive our hardship diverged. We’d become two different people, living on opposite sides of what used to be the same life.
We assumed different schedules and discovered solitary routines, but no matter how hard we tried to avoid one another, you can’t stay lost in a walled-in, hilltop town, and the roads always led us back to the same street, the same room, the same pot of pasta.
After days exploring on our own, my hunger would drive me into the hostel kitchen and I’d find her there over the stove, asking, “Want some?”
I sense that having a sister might be like being in a fifty-year marriage. You are both easily, profoundly enraged by the other, and yet, you can’t help but worry if the other one has been fed.
A few weeks later, when we got to mainland Italy, we were walking a rutted dirt road to the beach when I spotted some money on the ground. I looked around, like anyone would, but there was no one there but my sister a few paces ahead. I picked up the two fifty euro bills and put the money into my pocket.
I thought that if our ancestors had indeed tested us to repair our sisterhood that sweltering summer, then maybe the euros on the ground were a helping hand; the nudge we needed back toward one another.
Lounging on the brown sand that afternoon, clear water frothing around our ankles, we daydreamed of ways to spend the money. A fancy hotel stay, train tickets, wine and gelato, new outfits for both of us. We settled on a cocktail hour slurping mojitos while local boys leapt from cliffs into the ocean, followed by pasta at the fanciest restaurant in town.
After dinner, on slippery rocks exposed at low tide, our friendliness faded with the daylight. Swollen clouds churned overhead, creating a wind that provoked the sea in front of us. We were back where we’d started: arguing, hurt, unable to say what we really meant.
She turned away, but I knew I’d made her cry. “You’re just so different from me.”
I took different to mean not good enough. In cowardice, I tiptoed away while her back was turned.
The ground was jagged, the sky dark, the money spent.
I thought of the night before in the olive grove, the sunset beaming tangerine, how she was everything to me — a renaissance in that golden light.
Then I imagined her walking the road back to our room, the passing cars casting her in ghostly headlights, how she would be alone and in danger because of me.
I considered what it would feel like to be her, abandoned by the only person you knew in a country whose language you didn’t understand.
Why did I always give her the opposite of what I wanted?
Then, as the tide rose and the wind whipped, all the broken parts between us arranged themselves into a pattern I could understand. I realized that this — to be considered — was all she’d ever asked for. Her desire was to be in a sistership where she had equal say and input; a balanced load to carry.
I knew it was not enough to fix us, that maybe our work would never be finished in the same way that Ragusa is still split in two, that we ourselves will always be torn between the lives we want, and the lives we get.
But even if we couldn’t rebuild the same city, this could be a sort of blueprint; a new way of being together that worked for us both.
I turned around and called her name.
More Sunday Drivin’
Help us raise money for our mom, who is battling breast cancer. After facing countless pokes, prods, tests, medicines, and even emergency brain surgery, we’re hoping to take her to Italy in September for her first trip outside the U.S. Everything helps, even just a share.
My review of SPLINTERS, a memoir by one of my all-time favorite authors who I had the chance to meet during a writing workshop two years ago.
My guide to vintage and secondhand stores in Denver, because buying sustainably is one small thing we can do.