Afterlife - Julia Alvarez Page 0,54
in their family, that holdout has been she.
Antonia tries to reason with her sister. All you have to do is meet with this woman. A version of Izzy’s All it would take.
I’m not meeting with her! I’m not fucking bipolar!
Antonia decides to back off before Izzy goes into another of her rants. Hell has no fury like the eldest being subordinated by younger siblings she is used to bossing around. Ya, ya, she soothes Izzy. Let’s see what love can do, she soothes herself.
She strokes Izzy’s thin arms—a body she knows well from having one so similar. They are the two sisters who look the most alike. In childhood photos, it’s hard to distinguish between them. It didn’t help that their mother—the soul of efficiency—dressed them in identical outfits in different colors—Izzy’s, yellow, and Antonia’s, pink, a cliché girlie-girl color Antonia rejected in her rebellious adolescent years, though as a child she had gloated over having gotten the best color. Her crowing, though, woke up no envy in Izzy. Yellow was the absolute best all-around color, the color of the sun, without which, where would the earth be? In their hippie teens, she couldn’t resist pointing out to Antonia: Why do you think the Beatles chose a yellow submarine? Even now, in her sixties, Antonia doesn’t own a single piece of yellow clothing. Her big sister might come charging into the Town Hall Theatre or grocery store and rip off her yellow scarf or jacket, crying out, Thief! It’d be right up Izzy’s alley—making a scene.
What most moves her now is the birthmark airplane on Izzy’s left wrist. It seems like a lifetime since Antonia last saw it. An omen, Izzy had reported one of her many santera guides had told her. Was Izzy’s pursuit of santeras, her belief in omens and portents, going way back to when they were kids, were all of these proclivities already signs of a mental disorder? Antonia knows what her sister would say to that. Izzy once led the charge in her profession on the First World tendency of psychologists to pathologize the emotive and belief systems of countries and cultures like their own DR, demeaning them with terms such as underdeveloped, Third World, impoverished. Instead of the old conquistadors and missionaries, the rescuers are now well-meaning NGOs, Peace Corps volunteers, and development workers who come in with aid and answers. Another kind of conquest. Izzy can be razor-sharp in her dissections of systemic injustice, corporate greed, B.S. in general. There was a time, Antonia recalls, when Izzy was a hotshot in the field, invited to lecture to medical students at Harvard on culturally sensitive and respectful treatment of their “Third World patients.” Izzy would jab the air with her air quotes.
Izzy’s face suddenly softens. Gone is the wild look of the manic sister. How’s your little friend? she asks, her voice as composed as if all the drama has been just that, a production in which she had to play her part.
What little friend?
Izzy closes her eyes and expels a breath—the world disappointing her again. How can her own sister not know immediately what she, Izzy, is thinking? It’s a great effrontery to discover other people aren’t you. Here we go again, Antonia can’t help noticing: the same issue as with Sam. God made only one mistake, she’d challenge him. He didn’t make me you! That shut him right up. Ha! Finally, she got the last word.
The girl you told me about, Izzy reminds Antonia. She was about to have a baby.
Even in her worst crisis, Izzy has these moments when her heart opens and makes room for someone else. If only Antonia could hold her there “forever,” to borrow Izzy’s air quotes.
Antonia recounts the latest Estela news, including the sheriff’s visit, the imminent raid.
So where is she now?
One of Sam’s colleagues took her in for a few days while I’m down here. The boyfriend won’t have anything to do with her. And, no, Antonia has no idea what will become of the girl and her baby. She, Antonia, certainly can’t take this on right now.
She can almost hear her words landing on the soft ground of her sister’s heart. What, as young women, they used to call “the real me.” The Buddha in me bowing to the Buddha in you.
I’ll take her in, Izzy offers, pushing aside the covers and sitting up. It’s the most energized she has been since the conversation started. The llamas. The eighty-three orchids. The migrant artist revolution.