Rachel Kuhnle

Sisters


Janet was peeing frequently now and always, at Elaine's request, with the bathroom door wide open.  Elaine would walk by
to see her sister bent over her lap, dress hiked up, pissing audibly.  She would then inspect the pee before Janet was
allowed to flush.

It was late in the pregnancy, but Elaine still looked for spotting.

At the kitchen table, the sisters discussed Janet's diet.  Her arms were pale and thin as they rested on the swell of her
stomach.

"Six more weeks," she said as her finger circled the bump of her belly button.

The cornflower blue sundress hugged her tight.  Her hair was unkempt but her cheeks had a glow.  Her eyes were a bit
sunken, but still had a sparkle that rivaled the tiny diamond on her finger.

It had been a necessary thing, the wedding, as Janet's body spoke.

"I can't eat anything but sweets lately, it's all I want to eat, it's all I have a taste for right now."

Elaine was making one of her many lists, a prenatal care book open on her lap. The pages were dog-eared and yellow with
highlighter.

"Try to eat something else, sugar'll make you stink."

"Make me stink?"

Elaine closed the book.  "Sugar'll make your pussy stink, you'll traumatize the baby."

Janet threw her head back with a peal of laughter.

"Nuh-uh, babies don't smell!  Babies don't think, they don't know smells!"

After a pause, Janet pushed her chair back and lowered herself to the table.  She looked like a child with her big blue eyes
and curled lashes.  Dimples gathered at the corners of her mouth as she pursed her lips.  "My pussy smells good," she
said.  "My pussy always smells good."

She sat up again, ("Pussy, pussy, pussy, good, good, good,") bracing her knees against the table legs letting her hips
stress the confines of Cornflower Blue.

For a second, Elaine imagined the stubby fingers of her brother-in-law holding those hips, his mouth on the nape of Janet's
slender neck.  With his breath hot and hard, his sausage fingers move down.

Janet smiled sweetly but dumbly.  Her hands were back on her belly.

Janet's husband Wade was large and freckled.  He had a yellow whip of hair, broad shoulders, and cauliflower ears from his
high school days as a varsity wrestler.  Many times Elaine and Janet had seen him wrestle.  Any exertion turned him red all
over his body.  Janet left white handprints on his back when they made love.

He had the kind of body that could crush a pelvis.

Seventeen and pregnant, Janet was lucky to have him to love her.

Elaine knew this.

When Janet told Wade she was pregnant he scooped her into his arms and nuzzled his face in her hair.  She tells the story
different each time, sometimes saying it happened under a starry sky, other times during a gentle rain.  Neither was true.  
Almost nine months later, the two of them were renting an old farmhouse three miles from where Elaine lived with her
parents.

"So what do I eat to make it smell... good... down there?" Janet giggled.

"Drink water and eat fruit."

"But don't fruit have sugar in it?"

Elaine raised her head slowly.

"... No."

Smiling big, Janet teased in a sing-speak voice, "Good, I wanna get it tonight... !"  She trailed off, playfully bit her tongue.

Elaine winced.  "You shouldn't have sex, dummy, you could crush the baby or poke it or something... "

Janet glared.  "That's just a myth that you can poke a baby or crush a baby or... anything like that.  Jesus... "

Elaine turned to the book.  There was nothing in it about poking a baby but she flipped through the pages just the same.  
After a moment, she cleared her throat.  "Janet, I know something of what I'm talking about, you need to be careful, more
careful than you have been-- "

"We were using cond'ams."

Elaine closed the book.  "I come over here to look after you. Is it so much to ask you to be careful for once in your
goddamn life?"

Elaine could feel heat in her face and thought again of Wade's red body on top of her sister.  Red body that could crush a
pelvis.

Elaine never spoke to Wade.  On purpose.  She made a decision at the beginning of all of this that Wade was some kind of
enemy, though his dim wit was hardly threatening.

Janet came back into focus.  "Are you ok, Elaine?"

The air was hot and hard.

"I'm supposed to be looking after you!"

"I'm doing good, I'm doing fine."

"I don't need you here, you don't tell me anything, and I'm sick of you watching me pee!"

Always having to deal with Janet, Elaine was.  Stupid arrogance of youth and beauty and not knowin' nothin' bout --

"Don't be a brat, Janet, don't and don't talk about things you know nothing about either."

"But I've been pregnant for eight months, you treat me like... Well, it's a sorry excuse for the way you treat me!"

"Well then stop being so careless or -- !"

Janet slammed the table with her fist nearly stopping Elaine's heart.

"It's a sorry excuse!"

"You think my baby's why you come over here everyday?  You think that's why you don't do anything anymore is cause'a
me and my baby?  Well, it's a sorry excuse!"

Janet was unmoving, her jaw set.  The fire had gone from her cheeks and she was pale all over.

"It's cause'a your baby, Elaine!  It's 'cause everyone's afraid you're gonna fucking kill yourself!"

Janet's entire body was shaking and it was Elaine's turn to be unmoving.  More than just unmoving, Elaine was still.  Like
death.  Still and quiet and sad.

Like birth.

Janet was a sheet and sweat had begun to bead at her hairline.  She groped for Elaine to support her.  Elaine took her tiny
hand, with the tiny diamond ring.

"I'm so sorry," Janet cried.  "I think I'm just hormonal."