My mother insists that we have a family dinner, but I decline. I didn't want to sit around a crowded table, with everyone that was at the funeral yesterday, to celebrate my own birthday. It would probably just lead to a conversation about Anna. So instead, it was just Camilla and mum who celebrated with me. We had a small cake, green tea chiffon with vanilla cream, mum knew it was my favourite.
"So, what are you going to do today?" Camilla jumped with excitement as she finished her cake.
"Oh, I don't know. There isn't much I can do anyway." I was twenty-two years old today. Four years younger than Anna, even though she seemed so much more mature than I was.
After Camilla leaves around noon, I learnt how to burp Elsie and I'm very sure she was glad about that. Elsie was getting more and more used to the world around her, the more days that went by.
I was sitting on the couch reading All the bright places, when mum approached me with a stern look. This was a look I often had to look out for. It meant she was nervous and when my mother is nervous, she doesn't function well. I closed my book.
"Honey, Anna left something for you." I wasn't sure I heard her correctly. My heart lifted itself to a higher place. Before I even had the chance to say anything, my mother left and came back holding a small box. It was about the size of my book. She handed it to me and her hands shook steadily. I smoothed my fingers over the surface of the box. The paper was somewhat grainy. There was an icy blue ribbon wrapped around it and I gently slipped it off the box. I was so nervous as to what might be inside of that box. It looked like it could fit anything at that point. It could have been a gun for all I know. But I knew Anna, and it had to be something more than that.
I gently lifted the lid, at that point my hands were shaking and thinking back, so was my entire body. Inside the box was a piece of paper, and under it was Anna's sweater. It felt soft under my fingertips as I lifted it out of the box. This sweater had cost Anna a fortune when she bought it, I remember her telling me so when she came back from Italy, but the man who was selling it to her looked like he was going to starve on the streets if she left her, so she bought it. She wore it almost everyday for the first few weeks of winter. I slip my arms through the sleeves and pull my head through. It fitted perfectly. It smelt of her.
Then I stared back down at the piece of paper left in the box. It was the sort of paper she probably ripped out of a notebook and it was roughly feld in half. I picked it up and unfeld.
I was speechless. Her writing brought back so many memories. When we were younger, we weren't allowed to speak to each other after bedtime. But we still had so much to say so we would pass endless sums of notes to each other down the hall. I would tell her what adventures I had that day and she would write about how we should have a picnic in the flower field that weekend. Her handwriting looks identical to what it did back then. I never understood how she could write so perfectly without having attended a handwriting academy, I told her that too.
"She loved her baby sister so much." My mother rubs my shoulder but she wasn't crying, she was just smiling, and like I was, remembering when she was here with us.
I remembered the countless days when she used to be obsessed with doing my hair. Once she even got permission to use our hair straightener and ended up burning off some of my hair and the whole room smelt of chemically smoke. I was so angry at her that day that I'd sworn never to talk to her again. I barricaded myself into my room, and at meal times I wouldn't even look at her. My parents tried to get us to speak but that didn't succeed. Then one evening she slid a note under my door. Meet me in the treehouse, A x. My mind was debating this. Would I let down my wall and go and see her or would I simply ignore her like I had for the past few days? But the ignoring was beginning to bore me and I'd had enough. After dinner, I walked down the meadow to the old treehouse and there she was, standing out the front.
I put on my fake pouty-face to let her know that I wasn't forgiving her just yet. But she ignored it and took my hand to the other side. When we got there, I realised that she had prepared a little picnic. The turkish mat laid upon the barley, holding champagne glasses of our homemade lemonade and there was also a cake. It was chocolate flavoured and still tasted a little gooey in the centre so I figured that she had made it herself. I sat there in my dress, trying not to be amazed but I couldn't help it. Any sister that makes a sunset picnic in the middle of a meadow with lemonade and chocolate cake can have my hats off. The sun flashed it's last goodbyes and started to disappear behind the flowered hills and left a sprawl of golden colours in the sky. I laid in Anna's lap and she stroked my hair softly, the burnt bits had been cut off and brushed smooth by my mother. I apologised to her and she said that she was the one supposed to be sorry, not me. I said it again anyway. We've avoided doing any hair straightening after that, we clearly weren't ready. But I did buy her a hair straightener for her twentieth birthday, and that's where she brought up this story again.
I carefully feld her note back in half and tucked it into my draws.
Later that afternoon we had a meeting with the lawyer to discuss Anna's will. His office looks a lot like our grandparents', minus the pot plants and paintings. The chairs are stone cold and as hard as rock. My mother and I take a seat while we wait for the testator to arrive.
When he does eventually, he looks like he didn't get much sleep at all. Welcome to my world. Thanks, Elsie. I smiled to myself. He took both of our hands and sat down in his chair, which, by the way, was massive.
"Ms Miller has stated here, that after her passing, out of her total earnings, two-hundred-thousand dollars shall be passed down onto her sister, Miss Tara Elise." Wait a sec. Rewind. There was no possible way.
I didn't mean to but I blurted out "Are you sure?" He nodded reassuringly. My mum still looked like she was in shock, not from being upset, but for seeing such kindness in her daughter.
