Lulu's Sister

LULU’S OLDER SISTER

LULU’S OLDER SISTER, Lucy, was killed in an automobile on one of the many Tuesdays that she, Lulu, was sixteen years old. The family, of course, was devastated.
On Thursday, the day before the funeral, Lulu’s younger sister, Lacy, was killed in a freak accident on the vacant lot out by the school. Again, the family was devastated. Lucy’s funeral was postponed, and a joint service was scheduled the following Monday for the two tragic sisters.
Then, the day after the funeral, Lulu’s older brother was struck and killed by a stray bullet as he sat alone at the breakfast table eating lunch.
All of this was more than the family could bear. Nothing made any sense anymore. The thought of yet another funeral in the same week was just too much for the battered family. And so, in an act that everyone--from the funeral director to the priest to even close friends–-thought bizarre, Lou’s funeral was delayed a full six months--until the immediate family thought that they would be better able to handle the grief.
Lulu’s parents lived another 36 years--until she, Lulu, was 52 years old. During that time no other family members passed away. But with the deaths of the two parents, a week apart from each other (her mother of cancer, her father in another automobile), the painful memories of a decades-old absurdity returned. Lulu was beside herself.
Columbus helped, and Molly helped, and her husband Ray helped too; and Joe did what he could. But Lulu, out of a growing sense that something even more terrible was about to happen, began making little wishes to herself: that she could disappear; that she could live forever; that little ponies might one day rule the world; that she could somehow make sense of the senseless. These wishes, in turn, became a kind of hidden reality for her, a place where she could go when there was no other place to go.
She asked for--and got--time off from work.
She went away for a year. By herself. No one worried about her because she had asked that no one worry about her. And when she returned, she said nothing about her year alone: where she had been or what she had done. But her eyes, which had been green her entire life, were now dull and dim, and turned indistinct. There were new wrinkles too, of course; and something had happened to her hair, something she could not put a finger on. No one asked her about any of these changes, and that upset her--although, in those moments when she was honest with herself, she had to admit that she would have been equally upset if anyone had asked.
She got her old job back, but when she returned, she noticed a whole new turn of employees. She introduced herself, and sometimes the new employees came up and introduced themselves to her. None of them asked about her eyes or the wrinkles or the hair. But then, why would they? They didn’t know her and how she had been before. They knew nothing about Lulu, just as Lulu knew nothing about them. And besides, it wouldn’t be polite. And besides, what’s the point? And besides that, what difference would it make, anyway?