To Catch a Frog

My sister's green eyes stare back at me through a bronze frame. Her awkwardly long teenage bangs are split in the middle, tucked behind ears that bear a strong resemblance to mine. I’m sitting in the grass beside her, a popsicle in my mouth leaving my lips and hands stained orange. I’m gazing up at my big sister as the sun beams upon us.

I remember the day vaguely. We had been catching frogs in the forest and making little houses for them out of twigs and moss. We named the woodland amphibians after flavours of ice cream. Neapolitan, Rocky Road, Strawberry. I remember Mint Chip the most. He was light green with brown speckles on his back. We would stalk them like cats, backs arched, armed with nets and ready to pounce upon our next victim. Avery was ten years older than me, but never refused to engage in my childhood escapades. 

As we both grew, so did the distance between us. My sister moved to Vancouver at twenty-one as an aspiring novelist. She said there was nothing left for her in our small town, except for me of course.

She would send me post cards with little sketches of stick people. One would be of me, and one of her. She once drew herself in the middle of two sharpie skyscrapers, towering over her like gargantuan columns. I was drawn on the opposite side of the postcard, a big smile on my face and a rainbow over my head, a field of grass surrounding my stick feet. All she wrote was "The city is big and I feel small. I never thought I'd miss the prairie skies that went on forever. Love Avery."

I have since lost the postcard, but I remember it in vivid detail. The rainbow was coloured with pink and blue highlighter, and the image on the front was a herd of sunbathing, fat sea lions. 

Avery came home to visit for the holidays when I was nine. I was performing at my school's annual Christmas concert. She sat in the back row with our parents and was hunched over, fanning herself with the concert program. She told us it was the stomach flu. She was sick for the rest of her visit, running to the washroom after meals and going out late to the drugstore for medicine. She fought through her illness and went to the mall with me to take photos with Santa. I still have the photograph; her eyes are puffy and a soft smile forces itself through her pierced lip. She wore a white cable-knit sweater and jeans. I wore an atrocious scarf patterned with red cardinals. 

Avery didn't visit for three years, but neither did we. Our parents didn't travel, and Mom was too busy painting murals and illustrating children's books. I still received the occasional letter, phone call, or burnt CD, but that was the extent of our relationship. Life moves slowly when you're twelve. My elation was long overdue when Avery announced that she'd be coming to visit the next Christmas.

I waited at the airport with my dad. It was past midnight and I watched with giddiness as the computerized list of arrivals updated with more suspense than a New Year’s countdown. Avery made her way through the gate. Although her hair was shorter and darker, and my head then reached her shoulders instead of her torso, she was still the same to me. We drove home and she gave me her iPod to listen to a new band she thought I’d enjoy. I remember her saying that everything back here was so much smaller. Everything but me. 

The day before Christmas Eve, we went to the mall. We sat in the food court, underneath a thousand cascading white lights that hung from the ceiling. I sat next to Avery and our parents sat across from us. I don’t remember much of the conversation leading up to what Avery was about to say, but I do remember my dad biting into a cinnamon bun too quickly and burning his tongue.

“I’m a heroin addict,” were the words I do recall.

I didn’t understand it then. I didn’t know why my parents were so upset. I didn’t know why they left the table. My sister said it was too loud. 

“What is?” I asked.

“This place is too loud. Every voice is deafening. I’m sorry Mick.” 

Avery reached in her coat and pulled out her iPod. She gave me an earbud and put the other in her own ear. 

“Is this the same album you showed me in the car?” I asked.

“Yes.” 

“They’re good. I like them,” 

I asked her to turn it up so we could soften the noise of everything else. 

I still listen to the same album when the world becomes too loud. 

My sister was in and out of rehab clinics for the remainder of my teenage years. My parents extracted themselves from a relationship with her while I tried to fill an empty void through teenage degeneracy. As I reached my sister’s age, the town she so long ago escaped begun to feel too ordinary. I longed for sharpie skyscrapers and limitless distractions. Avery said she was clean, and that I should come visit. It had been ten years since I’d seen her. As we reunited in the airport, I stood a foot taller than her. Her hair was buzzed an inch from her scalp. Somehow, she was still the same to me. 

We had a great visit. We went to the ocean and I walked as far as I had ever been West. The water reached my chin and my skin smelt of salt for three days. She showed me the pier where she lived, and the Asian grocery mart that sold bird’s feet. She showed me a statue of the World’s Largest Tin Man. It’s not as impressive as you’d think. 

She showed me the box of postcards and letters I’d sent her over the years. I laughed as I read the words of an innocent child. I slept on her futon on the seventeenth floor and it made me feel small. The white noise of sirens and trains put me to sleep. I cried on the flight home. 

It was a a month later when I heard the news. A Tuesday to be exact. Overdose. The word sounded just as foreign as when I first heard the word “heroin” in the mall food court. Everything became silent. I longed for noise; the chatter of people, a siren, a dog barking, anything. It took me several minutes to hear the sounds of my own wailing. 

It didn’t make sense then, and it doesn’t now. I stare at the photograph of us on my mantle and wonder if our fates are predetermined by something godly. I still hunt for frogs, but I no longer catch them. I watch them frisk and disappear into the trees, ribbiting with delight.