The Secret Sister Read Online Free

a libation, she would sacrifice to the gods. On the wall hung a soldier’s uniform, a helmet and a sword. The battle would prove deadly. The man would be killed. The woman would die of persistent and protracted sorrow. “Write it down,” she said, “write down that the woman died.” Next to the word “lekythos,” I jotted down the verb “died.”
    Amalia?
    â€œ
Yes, Jonathan?
”
    I wish you could have been with me on those Friday afternoons.
    â€œ
That wasn’t possible, Jonathan, I had my piano lessons and my singing. Friday was my music day, have you forgotten?
”
    Have you any idea how often I hear your voice filling me up inside, like a benevolent sea, like . . . I haven’t the words to say sea, sun, son, song . . . Do you remember your voice, Amalia?
    â€œ
I remember, Jonathan. Your voice is the last thing of yours you forget
.”
    Â 
    The Northern Star
    Will bring clear skies
    But before a sail appears in the sea
    I’ll turn into a wave and fire
    To embrace you, foreign land . . .
    Â 
    Stop, Amalia! It makes me want to cry.
    â€œ
There’s no point in that. Just listen to the voice.
”
    Â 
    And you, lost motherland of mine, so far away
    You’ll become a caress and a wound
    When day breaks in another land . . .
    Â 
    When you cry in flight, the flight attendant comes to see to you.
    â€œExcuse me, sir, is anything wrong? Can I help you?”
    â€œIt’s nothing, I’ll be okay. I just had a curious dream. I’ll be fine in a minute.”
    Â 
    Now I’m flying to life’s celebration
    Now I’m flying to the feast of my joy
    Â 
    My olden moons
    My newfound birds
    Chase away the sun and daylight from the hill
    And watch me go by
    Like lightning across the sky. 2
    Â 
    When she went to City Hall to change her name, our visits to the museum abruptly stopped. My notebook disappeared. When I searched, it was nowhere to be found. This woman is our mother. I was born and raised in New York. I never knew my father’s name, never saw his face. Two years after me, my sister was born. I don’t know who her father is or if we have the same father. Our mother doesn’t tell us truths. She tells us lies, and even more than the lies are the things that are lost in silence.
    The flight attendant is young and pretty. I remember those Fridays, when she too was transformed into an unexpectedly beautiful creature. Attractive? Yes, you could go so far as to call her attractive. There are times when you mistake her for a young woman, but she’s well past fifty. The others died years ago. The three of us live in a big apartment.
    â€œ
‘The three of us’ did you say, Jonathan? Are we back to that again? You said ‘The three of us live.’
”
 
    I will not respond to that, Amalia. I’ll go on. She drinks incessantly. The empty bottles of cranberry and apple juice, vodka and whiskey.
    â€œ
Disheveled and unkempt, she wanders around like a shadow of her shadow.
”
    In her own little world, like we don’t even exist.
    â€œ
Looking for tenderness in the void.
”
    She wasn’t always like this. Do you remember her, Amalia? Do you remember her when she wasn’t like this? Nicely dressed, with freshly shampooed hair, brightly colored scarves around her neck and an elegant fur hand muff for the winter cold. You never said so, but you were afraid you’d take after her.
    â€œ
Yes, I didn’t want to take after her. In anything. I didn’t want to have her voice. I was in the bathroom, singing, the door was closed, Anthoula got confused. ‘What a beautiful song, Mrs. Frosso! Don’t stop!’ ‘No, Anthoula, it’s me.’
”
    Amalia, that woman has nothing of yours. You run and hide when you hear her coming back at night, at some ungodly hour, walking slowly up the stairs and you lock yourself up in your room, afraid to see