We Became Like a Hand A Story of Five Sisters

FADE IN, FADE OUT It is mid-April in northern New Jersey, magnolia time. Every year Dad cuts a few sprigs of magnolias and paints a portrait of them with the view of the river as background. While he paints and our mother sits, three of my sisters and I spend as much time as we can in the arms of our beloved "Maggie," the graceful, venerable magnolia tree that grows in the middle of what we call the castle woods. Our house adorns the top of the cliff, five hundred yards or so above an actual castle that was built during World War I by a German spy named Knoche. I have many questions about this spy named Knoche: It takes a long time to build a castle; why didn't anyone figure out that he was a spy during the time the castle was being built? How was it finally discovered that he was a spy? What did he look like? Did he live by himself? Did he have friends? Did he have children? The fact that he existed at all and probably walked the very woods where my sisters and I now carry out our adventures gives the castle woods a vibrant sense of foreboding, as if old spy Knoche could materialize at any moment and scare the wits out of us. Maggie, sleek and bright, rises up out of this mythical thicket, urging us to do one thing: climb. And she is perfect for climbing, each branch placed almost steplike for our experienced climbing legs. I reach one of the top branches quickly. Surrounding me are the freshest blooms, the tasseled centers hurling their scents toward my nose. I shut my eyes and plant my face in the nearest blossom. My arms and legs are totally familiar with Maggie's branches; if they weren't, I would certainly sway from magnolia swooning and fall out of her. I've already fallen out of a tree once, and I am determined not to let it happen again. The scent of magnolias enters my bones hypnotically, and I remain in this state for a good five minutes, the scent taking me to past lives, to dreams, out of my body right into the flower. I know my sisters would agree. I peek up over the petals to find Kate, Shari, and Danielle face-first in a blossom, eyes closed, smiles shimmering. There is a game we play here among the earliest spring blossoms: "the shoe game." Since I am the one perched at the highest point, one of my shoes is designated as "the shoe." I remove my right shoe and get ready to throw it down to Danielle, who remains on the ground for this round. Although barely three years old and not always able to negotiate the knobby and rocky earth of our cliff domain, she is old enough to play the shoe game as the "groundy." Our climbing training starts early here on the cliffs, and usually it begins at the rock slide over in the evil woods below Mr. Thompson's garden, out of which we steal rhubarb every spring. Our rock slide, frequently at the center of our games, becomes a waterfall or a tunnel or a great stream of volcanic lava. Danielle can already scamper up the face of the rock slide without any help from Shari, Kate, or me; she's obviously a natural climber. Michele, only one year old, is still too young for her initiation onto cliff rock. But soon. She's inside today, with Mom. In the back of my mind, I keep track of the position of the sun and the length of the shadows. Dad has been asking me to keep a check-in schedule going for Michele on the days that he goes to work at the university. We can't leave Michele alone for too long with Mom because Mom hasn't shown any interest in taking care of her at all. Mom was so attentive with Danielle when she was a baby, but she isn't the same with Michele. What we'll probably find when we get home is either Michele in the playpen, sucking on a bottle that has been placed on that small rubber bottle holder shaped like a chopped-down tree, or Michele playing quietly with aOrtlip, Carol A. is the author of 'We Became Like a Hand A Story of Five Sisters' with ISBN 9780345443427 and ISBN 034544342X.