All words have stories: to worry meant to strangle

Zoe is released from the hospital on Amy’s ninth birthday

It is September 24, 1990. Amy’s party, held at their grandparents’ house, is attended by all the relatives and extended relatives from all over Oklahoma. Even their cousins who live in Oklahoma City come. At first Amy and Zoe hold hands because Zoe is very weak and not used to walking, but then people come and crowd around Zoe, and Amy is jostled away. Gradually Amy drifts over to the doorway and keeps an eye on Zoe, silent.

Now when they go anywhere everyone stares at Zoe. They try putting different types of hats on her, but she hates them all. She insists on wearing her cowgirl boots regardless of whether or not they are appropriate. They are slightly too big for her, but if she wears two or three pairs of socks, they are fine.

Sometimes now the girls go and hide in the hall closet not because there might be a tornado but just because. Their parents say that they will homeschool them from now on because their dad is a college teacher anyway, and their mom knows a lot about a lot of things because she was the salutatorian of her high school class and would have been the valedictorian except for one of her teachers who was a jerk, so it will actually be better than school. This is fine with them. The only people they want to see are each other anyway.

Amy starts taking pictures again, but only occasionally, and almost always of Zoe.

When they go in for Zoe’s checkups they get to go to LaFortune Park afterwards and look at the ducks. One time they see one of the ducklings get snapped up by a snapping turtle, leaving only bubbles on the surface of the pond. They stand there looking for a little while, finding it hard to believe. Their mom says that’s the way the world works, but they don’t care: they don’t want to go anymore. So then their mom says fine, pretend, and they go straight to their grandparents’ house after checkups instead. Amy sits very quiet beside her sister almost like she is her sister and her own body’s just an empty ghost.

A lot of times their grandparents play Scrabble while they watch TV. Their grandparents always get into arguments over whether words are words or not, but their grandma is always the scorekeeper, so she always wins. They argue fondly, and the girls enjoy it, although their grandpa claims that sometimes their grandma stabs him with her pencil, and he does have big blue marks on the backs of his hands, but they have never seen her do it in all their time there, so they’re not sure. Their grandpa also told them one time when they went to Camp Waluhili that he would fax them some cookies, but then they found out you couldn’t fax cookies, and they began to view him as a jokester, an unreliable source.

Amy takes a picture of Zoe on the couch with the dog and the octopus with big huge eyes

The octopus is a gift from their grandparents for Amy’s birthday. They each got one. It’s the size of a baby but with eight purple arms. For the picture Zoe sets it on top of the dog’s head like a funny hat. She is blurred because she is laughing, but you can still make out the dimples in her cheeks, and in back of them the hollows.