Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Page B

I’ve been too busy or too thoughtless to notice. Or maybe it’s just that she’s always been good at hiding what she doesn’t want us to see. Her face is pale, and her skin, usually a warm brown, looks mottled, like a frostbitten flower. I remember how she’d stayed up very late all of last week because there had been a crisis at work. What it was I didn’t know; she liked to keep these matters to herself. Looking at her tired face, I feel ashamed of all the times when I’d wondered why she couldn’t do better with the business. I want to hold her and tell her it’s okay, neither Sudha nor I want expensive things, she doesn’t have to drive herself so hard. Times have changed. A dowry isn’t going to be as necessary for us. After all, we’re both going to college. And as soon as I’m a little older, I’ll start helping her in the store.
    But Mother’s next words change all my sympathy to fury.
    “At some point,” she says, “Sudha’s bound to start comparing herself with you and feeling some envy.”
    “How can you say that?” I say fiercely. “You know Sudha’s not like that. She doesn’t have a jealous breath in her—”
    “And it’ll make Aunt Nalini more discontented—”
    “Aunt Nalini’s always discontented about something or other. Anyway, I’m not going to show these to her. Only to Sudha.” And before my mother can say anything else, I hurry out.

    I find Sudha up on the terrace, which surprises me. Aunt N doesn’t like her to be up here in the daytime because she says all that sun will make her dark, and Sudha’s usually so obedient. And ever since the time she ruined all those mangoes, she’s tended to avoid the terrace. She won’t even come up here with me in the evening, after Ramur Ma washes down the bricks, and the cool breeze brings up the smell of jasmine. I miss that. It used to be our private time, when we could talk without fear of eavesdroppers.
    Sudha’s leaning against the balustrade, staring out at nothing, dejection clear in every curve of her slumped body. When I call her name she jumps, and when I show her the earrings she gives a wan smile and says they’re nice.
    “Don’t you want to try them on? Don’t you even want to hold them in your hand?”
    She shakes her head, a gesture that tries to be nonchalant but ends up only being sad.
    “What else did you get for your birthday?” I ask, but inside I’m wondering if Aunt N’s said something to upset her. Aunt has a tamarind-and-chile tongue and isn’t shy about using it on my cousin.
    Sudha tells me that Aunt N gave her a bedspread with anelaborate design traced on it, and a boxful of silk embroidery thread with which to fill it in.
    “Don’t tell me—it’s to be part of your trousseau, just like these are part of mine, right?”
    Usually when I say things like this, Sudha rolls her eyes and bursts into conspiratorial giggles. But today she merely looks at me. Then she says, “Anju, don’t compare us all the time. We’re not the same.”
    Her voice is so emotionless it sends a shiver through me. “Why d’you say that?” I ask. “What’s wrong? No, don’t say nothing .”
    Sudha’s silent for such a long time that I begin to wonder if Mother’s right. Maybe things, objects , have indeed come between us.
    “Sudha,” I say, grasping her hand. “Look, will you do something for me? Take these, okay?” I put the earrings in her palm and close it up. “I want to give them to you for our birthday.” I’m not sure what I’ll tell Mother, how angry she’ll be. I’ll worry about that later. Right now I have to take care of Sudha. Because her eyes look as if she’s drowning, as if in a minute she’ll be deep underwater, beyond my reach.
    I think Sudha’s going to throw her arms around me, like she always does when I give her a gift, but she says, in a cold, newly adult voice, “I don’t want your gifts. Or your pity. My mother and I might not have a lot, but at least we have