feel along the carving on the gravestone with one finger. I whisper the name.
Angela Robinson.
(My name.)
Beloved Daughter.
(Not me.)
Born 1984. Died 1991.
My sister. She died in 1991. I was born in 1992, eleven months later. Another Angela, to replace the first. I suppose that was the theory. Only it hasn't worked out that way. I'm not a little angel.
I reach out and slap the gravestone angel hard on her perky little nose. She smiles serenely back at me, above re-taliation. I hit her harder, wanting to push her right off her pedestal. A woman tending a nearby grave looks up, star-tled. I blush and pretend to be buffing up the angel's cheeks with the palm of my hand.
I haven't been here for a while. Mum used to bring me week in, week out, every single Sunday when I was little. I brought my Barbie dolls and some scraps of black velvet and played funerals. My prettiest bride Barbie got to be Angela. I sometimes pinned tissue wings on her and made her flap through the air in holy splendor.
One time, I dressed her in a nightie and wrapped her up in a plastic carrier bag and started to dig a little hole, all set to bury her. Mum turned round from tidying Angela's flowers and was appalled.
“You can't dig here. This is a cemetery!” she said.
The cemetery seemed a place purpose-built for digging, though I knew enough not to point this out. Mum was going through a bad patch. Sometimes she seemed normal, like anyone else's mum,
my
mum. Then she'd suddenly burst into tears and start a crying spell.
I was always frightened by her tears. There was nothingdecorous about her grief. Her eyes were bleary and bloodshot, her face damp and greasy, her mouth almost comically square. I'd try putting my arms round her. She didn't ever push me away, but she didn't always gather me up and rock me. Sometimes she scarcely seemed to notice I was there.
She still has crying spells now, even though Angela has been dead for fifteen years. I'll invite Vicky or Sarah home from school and we'll discover Mum crying in the kitchen, head half hidden in the dish towel. Birthdays are bad times too. And Christmas is the worst. Angela died in December. A quick dash … an icy road … a car that couldn't brake in time.
One Christmas, Mum got so crazy she bought two sets of presents. One pile of parcels for me, one for my dead sister. I don't know how Mum thought she was going to give the first Angela her presents. She could hardly lob them right up to heaven. I imagined Angela up on her cloud, playing with her big blue teddy and her Little Mermaid doll and her giant rainbow set of felt-tip pens.
After a few weeks my own teddy's plush was matted, I'd given my Little Mermaid doll an unflattering haircut, and I'd pressed too hard on my favorite purple pen so that it wouldn't color neatly anymore. The first Angela would have looked after her presents.
The first Angela didn't leave the bath tap running so that there was a flood and the kitchen ceiling fell down. The first Angela didn't get into fights at school and pokeout her tongue at the teacher. The first Angela didn't bite her nails, tell fibs or wet the bed.
My grandma would actually tell me to ask Angela for help, as if she'd already acquired saintly status.
“Pray to your sister to help you stop having temper tantrums. Ask Angela for advice on how to stop biting your nails. See if Angela can help you with wetting the bed— your poor mother can't cope with all the extra laundry.”
Dad was furious when he found out, and he and Gran had a big row. Then Mum and Dad argued too, and for a little while Dad wouldn't let me see Grandma anymore. We didn't often see my other gran or any of Dad's family—I think someone had said something tactless about my name way back at my christening and Mum wouldn't speak to them again.
We're still not on very friendly terms with that side of the family—so it was a surprise when the wedding invitation came through the letter box this morning. Mum opened it
Angela Robinson.
(My name.)
Beloved Daughter.
(Not me.)
Born 1984. Died 1991.
My sister. She died in 1991. I was born in 1992, eleven months later. Another Angela, to replace the first. I suppose that was the theory. Only it hasn't worked out that way. I'm not a little angel.
I reach out and slap the gravestone angel hard on her perky little nose. She smiles serenely back at me, above re-taliation. I hit her harder, wanting to push her right off her pedestal. A woman tending a nearby grave looks up, star-tled. I blush and pretend to be buffing up the angel's cheeks with the palm of my hand.
I haven't been here for a while. Mum used to bring me week in, week out, every single Sunday when I was little. I brought my Barbie dolls and some scraps of black velvet and played funerals. My prettiest bride Barbie got to be Angela. I sometimes pinned tissue wings on her and made her flap through the air in holy splendor.
One time, I dressed her in a nightie and wrapped her up in a plastic carrier bag and started to dig a little hole, all set to bury her. Mum turned round from tidying Angela's flowers and was appalled.
“You can't dig here. This is a cemetery!” she said.
The cemetery seemed a place purpose-built for digging, though I knew enough not to point this out. Mum was going through a bad patch. Sometimes she seemed normal, like anyone else's mum,
my
mum. Then she'd suddenly burst into tears and start a crying spell.
I was always frightened by her tears. There was nothingdecorous about her grief. Her eyes were bleary and bloodshot, her face damp and greasy, her mouth almost comically square. I'd try putting my arms round her. She didn't ever push me away, but she didn't always gather me up and rock me. Sometimes she scarcely seemed to notice I was there.
She still has crying spells now, even though Angela has been dead for fifteen years. I'll invite Vicky or Sarah home from school and we'll discover Mum crying in the kitchen, head half hidden in the dish towel. Birthdays are bad times too. And Christmas is the worst. Angela died in December. A quick dash … an icy road … a car that couldn't brake in time.
One Christmas, Mum got so crazy she bought two sets of presents. One pile of parcels for me, one for my dead sister. I don't know how Mum thought she was going to give the first Angela her presents. She could hardly lob them right up to heaven. I imagined Angela up on her cloud, playing with her big blue teddy and her Little Mermaid doll and her giant rainbow set of felt-tip pens.
After a few weeks my own teddy's plush was matted, I'd given my Little Mermaid doll an unflattering haircut, and I'd pressed too hard on my favorite purple pen so that it wouldn't color neatly anymore. The first Angela would have looked after her presents.
The first Angela didn't leave the bath tap running so that there was a flood and the kitchen ceiling fell down. The first Angela didn't get into fights at school and pokeout her tongue at the teacher. The first Angela didn't bite her nails, tell fibs or wet the bed.
My grandma would actually tell me to ask Angela for help, as if she'd already acquired saintly status.
“Pray to your sister to help you stop having temper tantrums. Ask Angela for advice on how to stop biting your nails. See if Angela can help you with wetting the bed— your poor mother can't cope with all the extra laundry.”
Dad was furious when he found out, and he and Gran had a big row. Then Mum and Dad argued too, and for a little while Dad wouldn't let me see Grandma anymore. We didn't often see my other gran or any of Dad's family—I think someone had said something tactless about my name way back at my christening and Mum wouldn't speak to them again.
We're still not on very friendly terms with that side of the family—so it was a surprise when the wedding invitation came through the letter box this morning. Mum opened it
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