Sibling rivalry

It's been twenty years since I was first forced to share my only child pedestal with a mewling pink interloper, and my vestigial disenchantment with the fact that she did not immediately avail herself of my obvious superiority has still not dissipated. "Clearly," my six-year old brain mused, as I regarded the very loud bundle of blankets my father was holding, "We've been had. I wonder if my parents know."

I stared up at my father, who was making cooing sounds at the new mammal he clutched to his chest. The poor man was obviously deranged. This creature was performing some kind of mind control on him, mind control that diverted the normal scheme of his paying attention to me, his firstborn genius of the highest order.

I tugged on a pantleg. My father glanced down.

"Well, Sarah?" he asked, crouching. "What do you think of your new sister?"

Had I known at the time that this would be the last moment my father would ever remember my name on the first try, I probably would have savoured it much more carefully. From this point forward, my father's addled brain would refuse his accurately connecting his children's names and faces, a characteristic that would lead to us being variously and repeatedly identified not only as each other, but as anyone he had ever seen, met or heard about. My sister's emergence into the world caused something to snap in our father's head that governed proper nouns, making the names of his offspring interchangeable with any and all who entered his life, including his sisters, childhood pets, former secretaries and Gina Lolabrigida.

But I didn't know any of this then. What I did know what that this unpleasant-looking pink thing, so highly anticipated, was finally here. And she was in my spot.

For the previous nine months, I'd resigned myself to the fact that as my mother got larger, she was unable to carry me around the way she'd used to.

"I'm sorry, Sarah," she said. "You're too big, and I'm already carrying the baby. You can sit on my lap instead." But as my mother increased in mass, her lap disappeared too. Not only was I ousted from her arms, but the most comfortable sitting, climbing and sleeping space likewise evaporated, replaced instead with a hard round bump that occasionally tried to kick me if I touched it.

"Oh, isn't that sweet," my mother would croon. "The baby wants to say 'Hi' to you."

"Like hell it does," I thought. "It wants to kill me."

So as my father stood there with his latest offspring in his arms, six-year-old Sarah plotted revenge. Here I was, standing on my own two legs like a sucker, when this newbie was being carried.

But what kind of revenge would it be? From the way he was holding it, it was clear that the baby was in the fragile order of things I'd be forbidden to touch, like the ceramic figurines in grandma's china cabinet or my father's cigarette lighter. I'd never be able to get close enough to it to do any real damage, and even in utero, it was pretty clear that the thing would put up a decent fight.

And then fate played right into my hands.

"What do you think we should name her?" asked my father. "Since you're the big sister, you get to decide what her name should be."

Oh, this would be sweet.

Immediately, a thousand perfect words sprung to mind. I rejected "poophead," as being too obvious, "bugger" because it'd get my mouth washed out with soap again, and "yucky" because it was too juvenile. Clearly, I needed to be more subtle. I needed a ruse of some kind.

"Courtney's a nice name," said my father. "Isn't Courtney nice?"

"I need to think," I said. "Show her to me again."

As my father bent down, the baby opened a scrunched up eye, and regarded me insolently.  Oh that was it. War.

Because I could talk and she couldn't, I knew that I would have to make the first strike stick. It needed to be good, because I wasn't going to get another chance like this. Soon she'd learn to talk and object and answer back, and I'd never get a word in. But right now, I had an edge. I had to act fast.

And then I knew what to do: I would give her a boy's name. My parents would never see that one coming, as long as the name wasn't too obviously boyish. My sister would endure the wrath of schoolchildren's teasing for eternity, as she struggled to live down the fact that she was named after a boy. But what boy?

I thought of my favourite television show, The Littles, and immediately became inspired: I would name her after the villain, the evil cousin who traps birds and sells them to the zoo. It was subtle, devious, and perfect.

And that's how, twenty years ago, Ashley got her name.

Happy birthday, sis.  Looks like the joke's on me.

Comments

[Desiree]

Sarah,
I thouroughly enjoyed your sibling rivalry piece. I alerted your father the fact and told him that he will enjoy it too. Has Ashley read this?