Chicken Soup for the Soul Celebrates Sisters Read Online Free Page B

mother moved from Seattle to my grandparents’ farm, I grew up hearing Finnish spoken, with a wreath of candles in my curls on St. Lucia Day. Mummi, my Finnish grandmother, and I spent all December at the kitchen table cutting out nissu, cookies in the shape of pigs and six-point stars from the almond-scented dough. Before baking, we painted them with tiny brushes, like the ones Mummi used for tinting family photographs. Sheet after sheet of cookies emerged from the oven transformed, the egg paint set in a deep satiny glaze.
    Each night Old Pappa, my Swedish grandfather, and I built snow lanterns in the yard for the tonttu, farm sprites, and I imagined that we were conductors on the Underground Railroad, lighting the way for runaway slaves.
    I spent my childhood at the window waiting for Anansi the Spider and Loki the Half-Giant, tricksters from my African folktales and Norse legends, to come scuttling over the purple mountains that ringed the farm. They would say, “Welcome, sister!” in a special language that only we understood. But no one ever came. No one has ever looked like me. Until now.
    In true African fashion, my new parents and I move slowly, circuitously, as if conversation were a tribal praise song with instrumental flourishes and digressive harmonies. Eventually my father calls, “Emeka, Okechukwu, Adanna! Come and greet your sister!”
    Even before the words leave his mouth, the three are quivering in the center of the parlor. Grins split their faces. The eldest boy, Emeka, is already languid with teenage charisma. Behind him stoops a lanky boy with yellow skin and glittering, feverish eyes: Okechukwu. Pressed close to his side is twelve-year-old Adanna. She is me, fourteen years ago.
    â€œOkay,” our father says, the Igbo chieftain making clan policy, “this is your older sister from America. She’s come to visit. You love her.” With one sentence, I go from being the sole daughter, niece, grandchild to being the eldest of four, the one with the responsibility for love.
    Adanna reaches me first. She is exquisite—luminous skin the color of Dutch cocoa; heart-shaped face with high, rounded cheekbones, slimmer than mine; a mouth that flowers above a delicate pointed chin. We come face-to-face, and the rest of the family gasps, steps back, and makes way for us. I can see myself for the first time—we are exquisite.
    â€œI’ve missed you,” I tell her. She gleams.
    Later, during the brief calm before the arrival of relatives, she will lie with her head in my lap and stare at me: Elder sister. One who spoils. Exotic American. Passport to what lies ahead, whom she will become. And I will stare back at her: Younger sister. One who adores. Exotic African. Passport back home, to what I have always been.
    Faith Adiele



BENEATH THE STARS
    Under our tent of blankets and clothes—pinned to the line,
    my sister and I believed we were miles away from home
    though we were only in the backyard.
    Holding hands we watched the tree shadows
    create wild images and marveled that we were
    sleeping outside instead of in our crowded bed.
    The dogs peeked their heads inside our tent
    while the neighbors played their accordions and guitars,
    serenading us to sleep beneath the silent stars.
    Diane Payne



ET, TU, MY PERFECT SISTER
    I ’ve got one of those sisters—you know the type—she’s “perfect.” A perfect size 8 who always had her bed perfectly made, her hair perfectly coifed, and always got perfect test scores in grade school. As a child, I could spot that look in my teachers’ eyes when they came across my name on the attendance sheet and realized I was the younger sister of their former, beloved,“perfect” student, Michele. I also knew how quickly that gleam of contentment would fade to one of squinting disappointment once my educational achievements (or lack thereof) would come to light.
    â€œYou know Jodi, your sister,