By Rebecca Tiger

We listened to “Da Do Ron Ron” on your record player so many times we could hear the scratches in the vinyl. Your older sister Samantha came in, picked up the record jacket, looked at the smiling face, the white hat cocked to the side, the feathered dirty blonde hair and feminine smile. “Do you think he’s cute?” she asked with a sneer. 

“Dreamy!” we squealed. 

Samantha disagreed, but she lingered on the edge of your bed, moving her head back and forth, waving her long brown curls and closing her eyes, lids brushed sparkly blue. 

A few weeks earlier, Samantha had a large purple bruise on her right cheek. When I asked her what happened, she made a fist with her hand and punched the air. Your dad got meaner after your mom died. “I’m getting out of this shit hole soon,” Samantha said, and she usually did, for a night at least. She went on a string of dates with different boys, but every night ended with her interrupting our sleepovers, mascara smeared on her cheek, a sour smell on her breath, rebuffing our eager questions with a promise to tell us what happened “when you’re old enough to keep your traps shut.” 

Our disappointed faces must have worn on her conscience because one night she came in and slurred: “I kissed Shaun Cassidy.” Too young to doubt, and eager to believe, we sat silent and wide-eyed as she recounted meeting him at a bar in town, how he came up to her and told her she was the most beautiful girl in the place. He gently held her chin in his hand and softly kissed her, promised to take her to California with him. 

Hands over our mouths, we wanted to cry and scream, but she made us pinky swear not to tell anyone. 

After each recounting we demanded, Samantha revealed new details: he wore a choker made of seashells, his breath was minty from the Wrigley’s he chewed, one piece after another like the cigarettes your dad chain-smoked, his hair was straight but softer than she expected. 

After she went to her room, we stayed up most of the night wondering if we were going to meet him and where—she couldn’t introduce him to your dad who preferred vodka and television to human company. 

We dozed, too drowsy to notice Samantha slipping from her room to the closed two-car garage, to hear the car engine start and purr, to smell the exhaust creeping up through the floorboards into our noses. 

When the men in the thick beige pants and jackets with yellow hats shook us, we barely woke up until they carried our small bodies outside where we gasped for air as the sky turned light with a new day. We could see through blurry eyes neighbors gathered on the street, watching a fireman futilely pump Samantha’s chest. Your father moaned and vomited, held up by two firemen, his skinny legs buckling underneath the weight of his round stomach and barrel chest. 

And all that would remain of Samantha was an imprint of lips painted red, a kiss on the white wall of her bedroom, as if the imagined recipient was a soft mouth open in a gesture of reciprocity.