Camelot, continued
April 2002

"Whatdya wanna do today?" Tiffany asked her sister as they sat Indian style on their bed one day early in the summer. Rachel was tracing circles on the blanket with her finger. She absently shrugged her shoulders. "You want me to go show you where the snakes are in our backyard?"

Rachel's finger stopped mid-circle and reached up to tuck a straying hair behind her ear. She glanced up in disbelief at her sister, who was coloring her fingernails with a highlighter. "Did Johnny really find some back there? You weren't just telling me and Erika that?"

"No, it's true. Come on!" Tiffany placed the lid on the marker and the two scrambled to their feet and flew outside, still barefoot, with Tiffany leading the way. They ran past the little fire-red bugs crawling all over the cement patio table and past the barbeque with charcoals still in it. Past the skinny elderberry tree that left wine-colored stains on the ground, past the giant oak watchman that loomed above, leaf-cluttered arms outstretched, and past their mother's vegetable garden. Tiffany pointed to a pile of grass clippings, rotting vegetable, and old rabbit food. Next to the pile, several stiff, yellowed newspapers were strewn about. "Here they are."

"In the compost bin? Yuck!"

"No, not in the compost bin, right there next to it. Pick up one of those newspapers, I dare ya'."

Rachel stretched out her skinny arm as far as it would go and carefully lifted the corner of one of the newspapers as two little black snakes quickly slithered under a neighboring newspaper. "Woh, I betcha there's hundreds of 'em under there! We should put one in a jar and keep it as a pet. Think Dad would let us?"

"Rachel, this is Dad we're talking about. He'd probably die if he knew there were snakes back here."

Rachel's smile drooped, knowing that Tiffany was right, and she sadly pushed her hair behind her ear. Dad had gotten them two rabbits, but that was only because Mom was so firm about it teaching the young girls all about responsibility. He didn't like animals, especially the ones that were slimy and slithery and maybe even dangerous. Tiffany thought he worried too much; Rachel kind of liked that about her dad. "Yeah, you're right." And then, even though she knew the answer already, she added, "Think he's let us keep a toad?" Tiffany's bony shoulders shrugged as Rachel let the newspaper fall back into its place. "Let's bike-ride over to the pond. Maybe we can catch some tadpoles; I bet there are tons of giant ones now 'cause it's warm."

Tiffany nodded and then looked up at the canary sun as it lowered to the west. "We gotta hurry though, it's gonna be dark soon. Race ya to the garage! GO!"

The girls yelled and giggled, flailing their arms, stick-straight golden hair whipping against their cheeks. "Daddy, we're going on a bike ride. We'll be back before dark," Rachel called in to her father, who was watching the news in the family room, as she hopped on her banana-seat Schwinn.

Her father jumped to his feet and walked to the kitchen. It was dark in the garage, and though they knew he could see them, the girls could only hear their father. His voice drifted through the kitchen and reached the two sisters in the garage. "Girls, take a sweater. You'll be cold. And put your shoes on. Be safe and come home before dark."

"Dad, we already said we would. And it's not cold--it's summer! Bye," Tiffany climbed on her bike and waved to her father.

"Love ya Dad! Bye!"

Tiffany and Rachel rode into the street, jumping straight off the curb, and peddled in the direction of the pond, once in awhile circling around parked cars that were in their path. Rachel looked down at her bike thoughtfully before yelling to her sister, "Hey Tiff, what's your horse's name? Mine's named Bluebell. See, 'cause my bike's blue? My horse, she's a silver Apaloosa, and she takes me everywhere."

Tiffany looked at her black and pink ten-speed. "Mine's Shadow. He's a black stallion. Wild and free, that's Shadow. Someday we're gonna ride off into the sunset and never come back. Do you ever want to do that, Rayche? Just leave and never come back?"

Rachel looked down at her fingers grasping the handlebars, noticing the veins and the bones and the calluses and the chipped nails, noticing how whethere she liked them or not, they were there, a part of her. "No. Some nights I just pretend that things are how they used to be. I like those nights. Even if it's just in my imagination."

"Well I don't wanna imagine it. I just wanna leave sometimes." Tiffany was not the kind of person who would imagine her fingers glamorous and beautiful even if they weren't. She'd just hate them. "Of course I'd take you with me. I'd die without you. Imagine how it would be, just me and you. I'd go out and pick berries for us to eat. I'd take care of you." A few moments of silence passed and then Rachel and Tiffany were at the pond, parking their bikes against a tree and walking towards the water. "Come here, I'll show you how to skip rocks. You been practicing like I told you to?" Tiffany clasped hands with her younger sister and walked with her to search for rocks and toads until sundown.

That night, they lied in the comfortable darkness of their gold-wallpapered room. Tiffany was four years older than Rachel, but the age difference didn't matter. They were inseparable, and they shared everything. They shared secrets, stories, laughs, dreams, and fears.

"Are you sleeping?" Rachel whispered.

"No," answered Tiffany out of the blackness, "I was just thinking."

"What were you thinking about, Tiff?"

"Mom and Dad."

Rachel sighed. "Oh. Me too. I wish they weren't fighting all the time."

Tiffany snapped back, "I wish I couldn't hear them all the time." She suddenly got out of bed and turned on the radio. Cyndi Lauper's voice drowned out the yelling:

"If you're lost you can look--and you will find me
Time after time
If you fall I will catch you--I'll be waiting
Time after time."

Tiffany spun around herself, swaying her newly developing hips to the soft music, before climbing back under the covers and snuggling up to her little sister. "Hey Raych? If you fall I'll catch you."

"I know."

One day, as the summer was nearing its end, when too much chlorine and too much sun had tinted Rachel's pale hair moss-green and kissed her fair skin with bronze, and when Tiffany's usual pallid complexion had turned pink with sunburn and splashed with freckles... One day, as the summer was nearing its end, when days were shorter and nights came earlier, and when the girls were three months older but felt much more mature... One day, as summer was nearing its end... Rachel noticed that something was changing.

"Hey guys, where're you going?" Rachel asked as Tiffany and Erika raced out the door without looking back.

Tiffany, already outside and halfway down the driveway, called back to Rachel, "Oh, not really anywhere. We'll be back in a little bit."

Rachel kicked at an imaginary rock on the floor of the kitchen and tucked her hair behind her ears. Through the vents in the ceiling she could hear her parents' arguing voices upstairs. Rachel climbed up onto the counter, leaned against the cupboard, and closed her eyes tightly. She began humming a sweet, sad song, imagining the shouting away, imagining herself somewhere else, imagining Tiffany with her. She imagined a meadow next to a stream, running from a waterfall down a gently sloping hillside. She imagined tulips and daisies and roses, growing wildly, and deer nibbling at the velvet petals. She saw fluffy cotton-candy clouds and a giant beach-ball sun, a rainbow arched over the stream, both ends touching the ground. There was happiness and giggling and music, and lots of places to explore with Tiffany.

The sound of the front door slamming shoved Rachel back into her kitchen, alone. She opened her eyes hoping to see Tiffany bouncing back in, but instead she saw out the window her mother's back as it moved farther away and blended slowly with the distant horizon. Her father was pacing the hallway upstairs; she could hear his heavy footsteps. Rachel knew at this moment that he must be wiping the tears away from his eyes, hiding them from only himself. She was gone, her mother was. Rachel knew she was gone and wasn't coming back. She was too much like Tiffany to stay around anymore. Mom didn't like the fighting, and she couldn't pretend it all away. So she left.

Rachel knew that she wouldn't have anyone to sing her to sleep at night anymore, that no one would wrap her up in a towel after bathtime and tell her what a beautiful baby she was. No one would scratch her back when she was scared, and no one would comb her hair with No-More-Tangles the way she liked. But Mom had been gone a long time before she actually walked out the door.

What scared Rachel was that Tiffany was leaving too. The same way Mom had done, leaving more and more every day. Taking away bits and parts of herself until there was nothing left to stay for, and then leaving for real. Leaving Rachel alone with her meadow and streams and waterfalls, alone with her eagle's nests, and alone with her castle, with only the dreams of the kingdom they had once ruled over together.