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  “Not many guys know what to make of me,” I said.

  “You’re lovely,” she said. “Anyone can see that.”

  I didn’t feel like explaining the full dating logistics because she was my mother. The extra skin made sex problematic—I had to be on top, and my partner had to watch his elbows and knees. Part of me was afraid of having children. I worried they would have flaps, too. I couldn’t explain the fear to my mother, since she thought the flaps were great. At least that’s what she told me.

  My teacher friends admired the flaps, but it was hard for anyone to understand what it was like to live with them every day. Sometimes I dreamed of myself without flaps. I saw them hanging in my living room like two big canvases, covered with tattoos of winged dragons and seraphim and parrots. I dreamed myself wearing normal clothes, having normal sex, shelving high books without that constant pull on my arms. I woke up after the terrible dream-realisation that I was grounded.

  When I visited home I showed my mother the latest tattoos. I added a peacock by my right ankle, a lovebird by my left, and a Pegasus next to my right wrist. My mother fingered the tattoos carefully, smiled and nodded, said I had good taste.

  “You’ve made your skin so beautiful,” she said.

  “The flaps decide a lot of things for me,” I said, grazing the peacock with my fingertips.

  My mother chose to ignore this comment.

  She drove to the store to buy groceries for dinner. I went out my old bedroom window to sit on the roof, smell cut grass and clover. The field behind the house was purple with them. I thought about my father, wondered what he was doing, if he ever thought of me and felt sorry. My mother said the flaps weren’t the reason he left, but I didn’t believe her. Since he divorced my mother when I was five, I found myself trapped in self-centred childhood logic. Of course I was to blame for the divorce. Of course it was my fault.

  I felt the wind catch under my flaps, the slight ballooning of skin. My attitude about my flaps changed from day to day. Sometimes they were the most fun things in the world. Sometimes I hated them. But even then I knew that if I got them cut off it would be an impulsive act, one I didn’t let myself consider too hard.

  My mother came home before I expected her, marched outside with her hands on her hips. For a moment she looked exactly like she did when I was twelve.

  “Hey you,” my mother yelled. “That’s dangerous. Go back through the window.”

  “Mama,” I called down, “I’m fine. I’ve done this a million times.”

  “And scared me every time,” said my mother. “Someday you’re going to land wrong on your ankle and then you won’t be fine.”

  “I’m careful,” I yelled.

  “That‘s what Auntie Bernice said before she got pregnant with Doug,” said my mother.

  I jumped, spread my arms, and spent five midair seconds watching my mother gape. I landed a little hard and twisted my ankle, walked back inside without wincing but took a glass of ice water to my room while my mother read in the living room. I dumped the water in the upstairs bathroom sink and put the ice in a washcloth to make a cold pack for my ankle.

  At dinner my mother asked how my ankle was doing.

  “They’re both fine,” I said.

  “Uh-huh,” said my mother, smiling slightly.

  That night she checked her blood sugar and frowned at the reading on the meter.

  “Too high?” I said.

  “I’m fine,” said my mother.

  She had a folder crammed with pamphlets about the effects of diabetes, ways the body could deteriorate. She could lose her sight to retinopathy. Lose her feet to poor circulation. Have tiny heart attacks she might not feel because of nerve damage in her chest. My mother didn’t like having to be careful about what she ate, railed about her numerous medications.

  “I’m obeying the rules because I want to be alive to see my grandchildren,” she muttered.

  I didn’t know if I wanted to have children, especially because I had thirty new ones in my classroom every year. When I got home I only wanted to speak with another adult, if I talked to anyone at all. But it was easier to nod at my mother’s comment than say anything in response. I wanted her to stay healthy.

  When my mother turned sixty-six she retired from being an elementary school principal and moved to an assisted living facility because of her diabetes. The disease aged her too quickly. Her doctor whispered to me that she hadn’t been checking her blood sugar carefully. She was getting neuropathy and sometimes her hands and feet felt numb, made her afraid of falling.

  After the move my mother and I sat in her new kitchen, drank coffee and ate whole wheat crackers.

  “I was getting lonely anyway,” she said. “This is better.”

  “I want to get the flaps taken off,” I said, mostly because I wanted to see her reaction.

  “I’ll write you out of the will,” she said. My mother took another sip of coffee. For a moment I thought she was joking. Then I wasn’t sure.

  Six months later my mother called to say she might be developing retinopathy of diabetes in her left eye, losing her sight.

  “I’ll need to have surgery,” said my mother.

  “Oh Lord,” I said.

  “It’s not a big deal,” she said. “Fairly routine. That’s what the doctor told me.”

  “Make sure the rest of you stays healthy.”

  “I wish my body would cooperate,” said my mother.

  “I’ll visit this weekend,” I said.

  I couldn’t concentrate at school. What if my mother couldn’t see me anymore? She refused to admit she had the disease, ignored the diabetes so it was killing her faster. What if she’d already had a couple of little heart attacks that she wasn’t able to feel? What if she had a big one?

  I told my students a story about a butterfly woman who worked in a sideshow. Her act was to jump from ladder to ladder fifteen feet up, leap to the next as the first came crashing down. She didn’t have flaps of skin, just an airy costume and a lot of balance. I said the sideshow butterfly woman was magic, and children should never try to jump off a ladder. My students asked if I was magic, too. I told them no.

  That evening before I left for my mother’s apartment, my period started. I grumbled and yanked on a pair of baggy underwear that confined my flaps and made it difficult to drive because of the pull on my arms. When my mother reached out to hug me, I wrapped my flaps around her body so tight the skin hurt more.

  We drank tea in the kitchen. She discussed the dining room set and the good china and how much they should be worth because they were antiques.

  “You might want to keep them and see if they gain value after I’m gone,” said my mother. “Or you could sell them if you need the money.”

  “Are you dying?” I said.

  “These are things we’ll have to discuss eventually.”

  “I can’t keep the flaps after you go.”

  “Don’t be silly,” said my mother. “It shouldn’t matter if I’m here or not. They’re yours. Now the pitcher and basin set on the dresser over there is at least one hundred and fifty years old so it should be worth a fair amount of money.”

  “This is all you’re really going to leave me,” I said, grabbing the edge of my left flap and shaking it. “Wings. You wanted me to keep the flaps and you’ve never wanted me to fly. What the hell am I supposed to do with them?”

  “They’re beautiful,” my mother yelled back. “I want you to keep them. But I don’t want you to get hurt because of them. And I don’t want you to lose them when I’m gone.”

  I stood up so fast my chair fell back on the floor. I stomped down the hall to the bathroom but tripped on a throw rug and twisted my ankle which was already temperamental from too many hard landings. The fall pulled hard at my flaps, stretched them, and I was
sure the skin was torn. I sat on the floor and cried until my head stopped hurting.

  I peered into my sleeves. No blood. I padded back to the kitchen, limping slightly. My mother sat at the table, pinching the skin between her fingers, pulling it tight.

  Markings

  Breakfast with my sister is a disaster. She wants to make muffins, but I have to crack the eggs and measure spices and hold the bowl while she stirs. She can only use her right hand since the stroke, and the work I can do versus the work she can do leaves her frowning. I’m wearing a short-sleeved shirt so my tattoos show, which further annoys her. She doesn't like being reminded of them. When my sister spreads jam on her muffin, the knife slips and falls onto her white pants. I help her change. She grumps around afterwards, but there’s not much either of us can do.

  I need to get out of the house and suggest a walk to the park. My sister slumps on the couch and crosses her arms.

  “Once you get outside you’ll feel better,” I say as I sit beside her and ready her socks and shoes. “Now give me your foot.”

  She refuses to move, so I bend down and grab her ankle and rest it on my lap. I tug her sock over her toes, then slide on her shoe. She knows my fingers ache in the morning, but she’s decided that if I’m going to torture her, she’s going to torture me back.

  “I’m not trying upset you,” I say, though she’d accuse me of that if she could talk. I can see it in her eyes and hear it in the voice she used to have.

  “I know what you’re saying so you don’t have to look at me so loud,” I say as I pull the second sock over her foot.

  My sister grimaces. She thinks I’m making fun, but I’m being honest. All her gestures come with words. Sometimes we talk through raised eyebrows, finger-points, and nods.

  I think about saying something to her about assisted living facilities. There’s a nice one on the other end of town. I called them yesterday to inquire about rates, but I don’t want her to accuse me of making threats. In the past week, putting my sister in an assisted living facility has become more of a serious consideration. I hate to say that I’m getting too old for this, but I am.

  Once her feet have been properly attired, I drag my sister out the door to the park.

  “The sun will do us both good,” I say.

  My sister glances back and forth as we walk the two blocks. She doesn’t like being with me in public places because of my short-sleeved shirts and short skirts.

  “Really,” I mutter. “What good are those lovely pictures if they’re hidden?”

  On my right arm is Aphrodite. There’s a snake curling around my left arm, ending on an apple at my wrist. A female angel wields a sword on my right leg, and on my left leg Eve demurely covers her intimate areas with her hands. I like that my tattoos have been distorted by cellulite—Eve and the angel have gained weight and wrinkled along with me. They are meant to be seen. I am meant to be seen. And I am old enough not to care what other people think.

  At the park my sister eases down on a bench. It’s been a year since her stroke. When she was released from the hospital I moved in to care for her. She didn’t want to go to a facility. Too expensive, she wrote on the pad of paper that had become her mouth. She wanted to stay in her apartment. But I know that all day long she thinks intelligent things that she can’t say. It drives her crazy. She was a teacher after all, is used to giving instructions and being obeyed.

  While I am sympathetic, I get frustrated with her moods. If she had an assisted living apartment, she’d have her own bed, her own space, and wear a little alert device with a button she could press if she needed help. The nurses and other residents would probably be more patient with her than me. But my sister doesn’t want to move. The process is more complicated since she has her wits about her. It’s easier to put family members in a home when they don’t know what’s going on.

  A fat woman puffing by on a morning jog stares at us.

  I smile and wave. My sister glances over to me and bites her lip.

  When we were children we lived above our mother’s tattoo shop. Mother wore skirts that covered her ankles and blouses with sleeves to the wrist, but everyone in town knew that her skin, save her hands and feet and face, sang with colour. Mother tattooed soldiers from a nearby military base during the day, but at night women came wrapped in shawls and darkness. They wanted roses on the small of their backs, said their husbands found the markings erotic.

  When we walked to the bank or grocery store my sister strode several paces ahead of us, pretending she wasn’t related. Later, when she was in high school, we couldn’t get her to accompany us on any outing. She said she had to stay home to study. Even then she was planning her escape. Mother must have known. But she also knew we were always being watched. That was why she walked with the light grace of a dancer, and made sure my sister and I were angels in public. If we acted out she’d spank us so hard we couldn’t sit down all evening.

  In the tattoo shop I sat beside Mother as she drew designs on arms and legs and backs with a template. She stretched the skin tight and switched on the tattooing machine, sponged away ink and blood as she worked. My sister curled herself tight as a cat in a living room chair and shut out the din of the tattoo needle. She went to college. I studied tattooing with Mother. She started inking my skin when I was fifteen, and I continued working on myself when I was old enough to learn the art.

  After she’d moved out of Mother's apartment, my sister turned and walked in the other direction when she saw Mother and me on the street. Mother was demure, didn’t say anything about my sister’s rebuffs, but at home while listening to her usual radio programs she kept a handkerchief at the ready. I hated to see her mourn the person my sister had become, but she’d always worried about appearances.

  “They’re not staring at you,” I whisper to her in the park.

  My sister looks normally old. There’s nothing odd about her at first glance, though she spends long minutes in front of the bathroom mirror, turning her head this way and that, trying to push wrinkles off her face with her good hand. Sitting beside me makes her even less conspicuous. She doesn’t believe me when I say this, and slides to the other side of the bench. I shrug and chat with passers-by, particularly the older gentlemen. Wilson pauses to say hello.

  “You’re looking fresh as spring daisies,” he says to us.

  I thank him. My sister looks away.

  Wilson and I talk about his dog and his grandchildren and the pleasant weather.

  “We need to get coffee together,” he says. “Make a date of it.”

  I say that would be lovely. My sister hunches lower on the bench. Wilson tips his ball cap and wishes us both a good day.

  “Who else is going to flirt with old men except for waitresses who want bigger tips?” I mutter to my sister after Wilson leaves. “They deserve a good flirt with no strings attached.”

  My sister never believed in flirting. When she could talk, she said it was disingenuous.

  “I’m not going to bring someone home,” I say. “We’re just playing.”

  My sister sighs and crosses her good arm over the limp one. She once dated a man for two years before she discovered he was married, so she’s very concerned about who’s genuine and who’s not. While I understand that, I won't deny myself an enjoyable experience because of silly fears. I’ve had men friends, shared a bed with a few of them, and wouldn’t mind doing it again, but my sister would never agree to such a thing in our apartment. I try to be considerate of her needs, though she doesn't appreciate how my life changed when I moved in with her. No more boyfriends. No more nights with guests. No more casual chatter over meals.

  My sister glances from side to side and then down at her stomach.

  “What’s the matter?” I say. I have learned to be keen to her movements. “Hungry? You didn’t have much breakfast.”

  She g
lances sideways at me, shrugs.

  “I’ll get us some ice cream,” I say as I stand and stretch.

  As I walk to a vendor the tattooed snake twists lazily around my arm and Eve’s hips jiggle. I love my whole body except for my hands. They’re wrinkled and knobbed and never stop aching. Sometimes I want to be a starfish, chop off my fingers and grow new ones. I forgot to take my pain medication after the muffin debacle because my sister was weeping.

  When I come back with the ice cream cones, my sister holds out her good hand but looks nervous, like she wishes she hadn’t admitted she was hungry. She has a hard time keeping up with ice cream drips, gets one down the front of her lavender blouse and starts sniffling.

  “Don’t worry,” I say, daubing her with a napkin and tucking another one into her collar.

  She cringes, hates bibs, but it’s the best way to catch the ice cream drips.

  I eat my ice cream and enjoy the sun for a few minutes.

  My sister tugs on my arm. She’s dropped her ice cream on the sidewalk (intentionally) and wants to leave.

  “Honey,” I say, “we cleaned the ice cream off your blouse.”

  She tugs my arm again.

  “We haven’t even been here twenty minutes,” I say. “I’m not ready to leave. Relax. Close your eyes. Breathe the air. Feel the sun.”

  She whimpers, stands up and pulls my arm again. She wants to say how embarrassed she is. I wrest free of her grasp and stand beside her.

  “Sit.” I push down on her shoulder. She never wants to be in the park very long. It’s irritating. “I’m sick of making allowances for you. For once we’re going to stay when I want to.”

  My sister pouts. She’s gotten very good at that in the past year. In desperate moments I wish she’d have another stroke. It wouldn’t be a great shame if she lost her capacity for pride. Being old embarrasses her. Old people embarrass her.

  I finish my ice cream. My sister is stone still. Fuming. I don’t want to treat her like she’s seven, but she acts that age when she doesn’t get her way. I resent that she resents me. It’s not easy to care for someone who does not want care. I worry that if I put her in assisted living she’ll despise me, but if I don’t put her in assisted living we’ll hate each other even more.