Part One,

While my sister was forming in my mother’s belly, my cousin Deborah Anne was dying in her mother’s arms. The two events were unconnected.  My mother never thought to have another child and Deborah Anne had been dying ever since I could remember. She’d been born with wheezy lungs and wasn’t supposed to live past infancy, but she’d managed to hang on for years. Of course, the image of my aunt Doris holding her dying daughter holds more poignancy for me now than it did when I was ten, but it was summer, I was full of myself, and Deborah Anne was a whiny kid. 

            So, on that summer morning when Mother told me my cousin was dying, I might have said something smart like “You sure about that?” or “Again?” while trying not to grin. I didn’t like Deborah Anne. None of us cousins did. She had a stick body and an over- large head. Her expression was sanctimonious, as if death were a treat she’d taste first because she was good and we were bad. Both of her names always had to be said, and if any of us kids skipped a syllable, Aunt Doris would cut a switch, even using it on Marty, who played lineman at the middle school. De-bo-rah Anne. Each syllable pronounced distinctly, chiseled by teeth and tongue, followed by the hush of a middle name. 

            John Hawkins Hoop was the best thing about Deborah Anne. John Hawkins was also my cousin and Deborah Anne’s older brother. He was thirteen to my ten, and everything in his house revolved around Deborah Anne.  For seven glorious years, John Hawkins had had little to no adult supervision. His clothes were clean, he was well-fed ( My mother and her sisters were Whitehalls! They took excellent care of their kids! ), but John Hawkins had long had the glorious freedom of dressing however he wanted, eating when and what he wanted, bathing when it suited him,  and riding his bike at night on the sidewalks around town.  

            I adored him. 

            And the best thing about Deborah Anne’s turn for the worse was that I’d be seeing more of him. John Hawkins was spending the summer at Grandma’s. That’s where I was headed that morning, to a huge white house a block and a half away with a wide front porch and swing.  I knew he’d be waiting for me, and I’d rushed to dress, clad in pair of cut-offs and a cotton blouse left from last year. I was shoeless because we were making forts and tunnels on the hill and yesterday’s clay had left my tennis shoes so stained Mother said it would take a bottle of bleach to get them white again. 

“Harshbarger Mills” all material copyright by Joan Spilman, 2023