Sister, Staircase

If I had a sister, I think she’d be a chimney.

I don’t believe that a staircase’s sister should be another staircase. Why should that be the…

Well, the case?

Pardon me, I deplore repetition. My steps may look identical, but they’re each unique. I have names for all of them, but I change the names everyday just to keep things interesting. Houses can sit empty for years at a time. It’s vital to keep things interesting. One year I got so desperate I almost named the windows. Luckily, someone moved in the next week. That wasn’t the sisters. That was an old man who lived here for only three weeks before he passed away. I don’t really have an opinion about him. He loved shows about complicated doctors. I like shows where a woman gets divorced and then learns that life can be better when you’re strapped to a man who doesn’t love you, but I don’t control the television.

I never have.

The sisters moved in after the man died. They were of no relation to the man, but after he died, he liked to help them down the stairs. They were aged four and six. They would wait at the top of the stairs, and he would pick them up and carry them down when their mother wasn’t looking. Their father worked at an office where he would sit at a desk and eat scotch tape. He’d eat a roll or two, and then his boss would take him out for lunch and talk about divorcing her husband. The father of the girls would always encourage his boss to follow her spiritual path, but he’d be giving this advice while digesting adhesive, so I doubt it was sound. When he’d return home from work, the girls would tell him about the nice old man who helps them down the stairs, but he’d simply pat them on the head and ask what was for dinner. Their mother never made dinner. She’d order something from a local restaurant and then scoop it onto plates that she’d set down in the living room before exclaiming “Bon Appetite!” and everyone knew exactly what she was doing, but nobody said anything, because this was a family built on etiquette.

When the girls weren’t being brought downstairs by spirits who enjoy medical dramas, they would sit on the bottom step (“Harry”) and write numbers on each other’s stomachs. The numbers were of no significance, but the girls felt compelled to choose a number at bedtime the night prior, and then write that number on their sister’s tummy. When their mother found them doing this, she assumed it was a pagan ritual they’d learned from an adult television show they weren’t allowed to watch, but when she questioned the girls, they told her they didn’t like television, and that was the truth. They hadn’t learned it from anywhere. Children sometimes feel the urge to do things that make no sense, and most of the time it’s perfectly harmless. One night, one of the sisters came up with the idea of drawing the letter “V” on her sister’s stomach the next day, which is technically a letter since “V” is a Roman numeral. She never got around to writing it, because her sister caught a terrible cold and was bedridden for days. Her mother ordered soup from a restaurant nearby and placed it lovingly in a bowl on a tray and brought it to the little girl.

“Bon Appetite,” she whispered, as the little girl slipped in and out of a feverish state.

When her daughter recovered, the mother forbade the two girls from sitting so close to each other on the same step. Now, one would sit on the third step (“Mimi”) and the other would sit on the fifth step (“Splendid”). They would speak to each other, but they would never draw numbers on again. When the six-year-old turned seven, she invited a friend over and told the friend about the old man who carries children down the stairs. The friend believed her, and she jumped from the top stair, but the old man didn’t catch her, because he was not some party trick, and anyway, the mother had left the television on in her bedroom and “Dr. Smoke” was on, which meant the old man was in the bedroom when the little friend went sailing down all my steps. I would have caught her, but I don’t have hands. I have a railing. The little girl broke her arm, but she didn’t die. We have to be thankful for that I suppose.

The mother and father decided to split up one night when both their daughters were asleep. They sat on the eighth step (“Diane”) and discussed it rationally like people who don’t eat tape or pass off Vinny and Sons as homecooking. The father did cry a little, but the mother asked him to stop and so he did. He didn’t cry loud enough to wake the girls. That’s all that matters. The father moved out the following Tuesday, but the mother and the sisters stayed behind. One turned seventeen and got on a bus and never came back. The other became a psychologist and two of her patients were doctors who were very complicated, but neither one was on a television show. One sister would call the other once a week, and they would talk about their father who had moved on from eating tape to eating styrofoam cups. One of his daughters wanted to help him, but he wasn’t allowed to be her patient, because it was a conflict of interest. The other was more worried about their mother, who was still living in their childhood home complaining about noises coming from under the stairs.

Nothing is under me. I can promise you that. The woman just needs something to complain about when her daughters call, because she doesn’t want them to worry more about their father than they do about her. I wish she wouldn’t drag me into it, but I don’t have a say in the matter.

And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell her not to lie. I understand that some people need to lie to get people to care about them. If I had to guess, I would assume it’s the most dismal thing about being human.

I really can’t imagine anything worse.