That is art, truly amazing...perhaps the most amazing i've read on this site so far, keep the fire, you're talented...really talented, the story was just beautiful
z
It rained the morning you were born.
I was six, and furious with our parents for daring to have another child. They had our older brother—the golden-haired, athletic son any parents would be proud to have—and they had me—the brunette musician with a flair for the dramatic.
We were lovely children—why did they need you? Luke’s hair wound itself into tight ringlets in the evening after his bath that softened to gentler waves by morning. My hair was straight, and I always insisted on wearing it parted on the side, with a matching barrette to hold it out of my face.
Eight-year old Luke wore his racecar pajamas that morning. He lay on his stomach beside the Christmas tree and indolently flicked at the ornaments on the lowest branches.
“Mommy hates it when you do that,” I informed him from my seat at the piano. We had an adjustable piano stool, which allowed me to reach the keys with ease, but my feet dangled far above the floor.
“Mind your own business,” he said. He flicked another ornament, then sighed and rolled over on his back. He yelled the babysitter’s name, and asked if he could go outside and play.
“No, you can’t,” I said. “Because—“
“I know, I know,” he cut me off. “Because it’s raining. I can see out the window just as good as you.”
“But it’s not just raining. It’s pouring. It’s raining cats and dogs. It’s a monsoon, it’s a flood, it’s a disaster!” I hopped off the piano bench and padded quickly across the floor to sit beside him. “It will rain for days—days and days and days—and we will wonder if there was ever a time when it wasn’t raining.”
Luke had been scowling at me at first, but when he realized that I had begun one of my stories, he smiled a little, and rolled back over onto his stomach, looking up at me.
Delighted at holding my big brother’s attention, I continued. “We’ll have to leave this house, and find higher ground. It will be someplace far, far away from here, and we will probably never be able to return. It will be a great tragedy for our city—probably the whole state. And if the rain doesn’t let up, the whole world! Not very many people will survive.”
Luke rolled over onto his back again, tapping an ornament with one finger, watching it swing back and forth. Outside, it rained harder.
“But our whole family will make it to a safe place, and we’ll build a new house. Probably not as big as this one, or as nice, but it will be safe, and it will be ours, and that will be enough.”
Rain striking the window made an angry, percussive noise, and my words trailed off into nothingness. Moments later, the phone rang.
The peaceful moment shattered as Luke bolted from his place on the floor and dashed to the phone. “I GOT IT, I GOT IT!” he screamed, and picked up before the babysitter could.
He listened intently, then his face fell. “Oh. Cool.” He handed the receiver to the babysitter and shuffled away. “It’s a girl,” he said.
“I guess they’ll name her Susanna, like they wanted to.”
“Guess so.”
I sighed. “Even her name is better than mine.”
“Do you think they’ll call her Susie for short?” Luke asked, without much interest.
The gloomy expression on my face matched his. “Our lives are over,” I said solemnly.
“I wanted it to be a boy,” he said petulantly.
“Why are you so mad? At least you’re still the only son. Now I’m the horrible older sister. They’ll lock me away in a tower, with nothing to eat but crumbs! They’ll raise her like she’s a princess, and she’ll wake every morning to beautiful music and I’ll waste away to nothing.” I moaned and hid my face in my hands. My lot was really most tragic.
“Oh, they’ll give you more than crumbs,” Luke said.
“That is not the point.”
“Well...”
I looked up at him and flung my hands out in desperation. “Well what?”
“I’ll bring you a grilled cheese.”
I stared at him. “You can’t.”
“How come?”
“My tower will be far away from here, and very dangerous to travel to.”
Luke shrugged. “So what? I can take a plane or something.”
“But it will be heavily guarded, with poison thorns all around the bottom, and a mile high. You won’t even be able to see the top of it from the ground.”
“I can climb it,” Luke said confidently.
I fingered one of the little bows on my nightgown. “You’d do that?” I asked him.
“Yeah. It’ll be easy.”
I sniffled. “I don’t want to go to the tower.”
“Hey.” He put his arm around my shoulders. “Don’t worry about it. If you have to go to the tower I’ll come see you every day, and I’ll always bring a grilled cheese.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
They brought you home the next day, around lunchtime. The roads were icy those few days before Christmas, so we didn’t go see you in the hospital. I was angry with you, because I had decided that it was your fault I hadn’t seen my mother for days. I don’t remember much about our first meeting, except that I thought you thoroughly ordinary, and I pitied you for being born third, when Mommy and Daddy already had two wonderful children to compare you to.
At first, Luke and I did all we could to ignore you. But Luke was always intrigued by novelty, and within the first few hours of your arrival, he had already turned into another one of your minions, bowing and scraping and running about, serving your every whim. By the end of the day, he loved you, and I was sick with envy at no longer holding the exclusive rights to his affection.
You cried every night the first week you were home. Luke never woke up, but I heard it—those irritating, piteous cries that lasted for hours—and I hated you even more.
At first I tried ignoring you, but that soon proved impossible. By being born, you had earned a place in the hearts of every member of my family. I didn’t understand. All you did was coo and cry and scream and poop and spit and sleep and kick your fat legs. Anyone could do that.
I resented you for the next two years. Without ever trying, you were everybody’s favorite. I didn’t even care that my name was your first word.
“Marta,” you said, and smiled up at me.
“My name,” I informed you coolly, “is Martha.”
“Marta,” you repeated, waving your fists.
Everyone was so excited about your first word that they all started calling me Marta. The name doesn’t bother me anymore, but at the time, it was infuriating. It wasn’t my real name, but all the adults in my life were making fools of myself by indulging a baby who didn’t know or care that she’d gotten her way.
My real reason for hating you, though, sprang from the fact that our family and friends had every reason to adore you. You were perfect.
It was as if our parents had taken all the good things about me, and all the good things about Luke, and watered down our bad qualities, and put them in this third child. The result was a harmonious mixing of hot and cold, light and dark.
Your hair, in contrast to Luke’s blonde ringlets and my flat, dark hair, was a lovely, light shade of brown that framed your round little face in wispy waves. We all had dark brown eyes, but yours were loveliest of all—framed by thick, dark lashes that were captivating. You were never as dramatic as me, but you were always animated, and people were drawn to you. You had Luke’s natural athleticism, but at only two years old already wanted to learn to read and write. You were curious, charming, adorable, delightful. In short, completely nauseating.
And that is why, dear, sweet Susie, I can never forgive myself. I’m sorry—so, so sorry. I can never say it enough, because on that clear morning in April, I committed the greatest sin of all.
We were going to the library to study together, then out for lunch, then manicures, then a movie. It was going to be our day. I was seventeen, due to graduate from high school the next month, and you had agreed eagerly to this sisters’ outing. I’d stopped hating you long ago, once you really got started talking, and I realized how funny you were. We had been friends for eight years, since you were three, and even though the age difference was significant, I think I loved you more than the rest of your admirers, because you weren’t just my little sister—you were my friend.
“I think you should get a haircut too, while we’re out,” you said.
“Why?”
“Something short and sassy. To transition you from high school to college.”
I laughed. “I don’t think a haircut is going to make much of a difference.”
“No, it will. If the layers are done properly they’ll frame your face beautifully and you will appear much older, which will be great for all those college parties.” You were eleven and loved the beauty tips in the teen magazines I brought home every now and then. I usually ignored them, because they all sounded the same and rarely had anything interesting to say, but you devoured them, and always informed me if there was something you thought I needed to know.
“I don’t think I’ll be going to many parties,” I told you dryly, but you just shook your head.
“Nope, sorry, you’re wrong. You’ll be so popular it will make all the sorority girls sick with envy. And you’ll have a different date every weekend.”
“Right,” I said. “Because I’ve had so many of those in high school.”
“The boys here are losers,” you said with a disdainful little sniff. “In college, they will appreciate you.”
I doubted it, but you seemed to have your heart set on it. “All right,” I agreed. “I’ll cut my hair.” I glanced over at you. “If you want.”
“I do,” you said, with a decisive nod. There was a pause. I was thinking about leaving home, thinking about how much was going to change.
“Should I cut my hair?”
I looked over at you. Your soft, brown hair hung in waves on your shoulders, but it had always been manageable at any length.
“I think you’ll look great no matter how your hair is cut.”
You beamed at me, and I turned down the radio so I could focus on you more easily. The traffic was unusually heavy for this time of morning, especially en route to the library, of all places.
I grinned. “Hey...you want to get matching haircuts?”
“Yes!” Your smile turned a little sheepish. “If you don’t think it’s too cheesy.”
I shook my head. “Nope. I think it’ll be great. And it’ll make me feel closer to you when I leave.” I paused. “I’m really going to miss you, Suz.”
“Me too, Marta,” you said softly.
Without taking my eyes from the road, I reached over and took your hand. It was slender and pale, just like mine, and I thought of all the piano duets we had played together since you’d started your lessons.
You knew was I was thinking, and squeezed my hand. “We can play duets over the phone, right?”
My eyes filled. “Yeah, of course,” I said. “Of course we will.”
You sighed and leaned against the window without letting go of my hand. “Okay.” There was another pause, and I had just managed to get a hold on my emotions when you said, “I love you.”
I looked over at you. “I love you too,” I said.
I didn’t see it. Neither of us did—that huge, silver truck barreling out of nowhere.
Maybe that’s not true. I did see it, but only for a millisecond before it hit the side of the car. It smashed into the window where you were resting your head, and the glass shattered and the car dented in so far it nearly folded in half and we went spinning across the pavement, ricocheting off other cars before we rolled—once, twice, three times—into the ditch.
I screamed and screamed and shut my eyes, but those moments when we were upside down seemed to stretch into eternity. We landed upright. I couldn’t hear anything. I was dizzy and my arm had been so thoroughly crushed that I was certain it couldn’t be saved. They were going to amputate my arm, and I’d be a freak. Forget the haircut, what I needed was a prosthetic arm.
“Susie...” I moaned.
You didn’t answer. I opened my eyes, managing to turn my head just enough to look at you, then wished I hadn’t.
I stared at you, even though it wasn’t really you anymore. You were gone, and only your body—your perfect hair and your beautiful eyes and your charming smile—was left behind. I didn’t see the blood, didn’t see the horrible thing that had happened to you. I just saw the empty shell that was once my little sister, and I couldn’t breathe.
When they pulled me out of the car they had to pry my hand from yours; we had still been holding hands when the truck hit. My arm, two ribs, and my shoulder were broken, but the most painful part of my removal from the car was when they peeled our fingers apart. I started crying then, and calling your name. Susie, sweetheart, wake up. Please, Susie, say something. Susie, Susie, please, please don’t go.
They laid me onto the stretcher and I stared up into the sky. I looked straight into the sun without blinking, and my hair tickled my face as the soft, spring breeze brushed it across my face. We had landed in an azalea bush, and the fuchsia flowers were scattered on the ground.
A battered azalea had somehow found its way onto my stomach, and I cried harder as I watched it sway when they lifted me up into the ambulance.
After your funeral I knelt down in front of your grave. As the dew seeped into my black skirt, I carefully laid a lock of my dark hair onto your grave, beside a pair of fuchsia azaleas—one big, one small.
It rained the morning you were born, but Susie—sweet, beautiful, baby sister—the morning you died, the weather was perfect.
That is art, truly amazing...perhaps the most amazing i've read on this site so far, keep the fire, you're talented...really talented, the story was just beautiful
Chills. I rarely ever get chills, but you've just succeeded.
The only thing I would add is the clarification that they were in the car while they were talking. That wasn't completely clear at first. I had to read that part twice just to get that. Not that I minded
Beautiful.
Write On!
Lette
Wow, this was absolutely beautiful. Almost had me in tears, as it apparently did a lot of other people, too.
“Me too, Marta,” you said softly.
Whoa.
This story was captivating from beginning to end.
There are no adjectives descriptive enough to explain how amazing this story is.
So good.
-gabbs
This was a fantastic piece- probably one of the best I've read on the site. I would consider, though, making the transition from talking to "you" (meaning Susie) to talking about your brother in the beginning. At first, I thought you had switched your point of view, and were talking about the same person, and it was quite confusing. Otherwise, I think that you wrote this wonderfully. There are simple things throughout the piece that really make it great- the way you describe the childhood jealousies, and the way you smoothly transitioned from time to time, person to person, place to place. Excellent altogether.
I can't but be jealous of your abilities.
Great write.
-Coral-
Hi! Okay, so first off, this is amazing. I'm gonna take all the previous comments on just how awesome and well-written this is and combine them all in one huge INCREDIBLEMEGASWEETSADBUTAMAZING word. 'Kay?
Just one thing; I read this a while ago, and wasn't there a part where they were gardening together? Because I remember that scene. It was vital to the azaleas thing. And reading through it, I didn't see it. Just, what happened to it? 'Cause that totally switched the whole love/hate thing around.
I almost cry when I finished this story of yours. It is well written, and it's very beautiful. I can't say much, but this is the best work I've ever reviewed here.
It's touching, your story. It was perfect, from the opening sentence, to the tragic ending. I love it.
That was beautiful. I'm not the kind of person to cry (only in movies, when I get hurt very badly, and TV shows, but rarely) and my nose keeps running.
It's beauftiful and sweet. i loved the beginning and end and I read it twice. It's simple and clean (I love the song) and it was magnificent.
Well done!
Ciao! :elephants:
I'm sorry I don't have time for a real review, but I just wanted to say two things. One, this was great. I absolutely loved it
Two, why is this in romantic fiction? After I read it, it just kind of seemed like it would be better suited in Other fiction, or something like that. I don't know. Think about it though. Other than that, though, great job!
Oh My God. You made me cry!!!! It Was perfect just perfect and very sad. At first i thought "What? Did she kill her?" but then it said that she stopped hating her. I knew that she wa gonna die-and since it said the the MC stopped hating her i was wondering "A car crash?" then it happened. Shocking! Perfect weather on death sad weather at birth-i was like a sign that said "Even though she lives-she will die soon" but she had a great life till then. PERFECT> Keep writing PLEASE!
Nike
hey there!!
first off i'm going to say that this was a very beautiful story. gosh, i can remember feeling that way when my little brother was born and i was like around 6 yrs old. seriously, i used to really hate my brother cause i thought he was always better than me, but now he is like the person that i'm closest to after my best friend. so i liked the way you described it and i can easily imagine what you were writing about in my mind. i mean all i can say is very nice. please keep writing more like this!!
-budding writer
Thank you so much for reading and leaving a comment, GenShawklan! You sent me to Word just now to double-check the spelling, but it's actually fuchsia. Weird word, right?!
Thank you again for your kind comment and the nice PM. I hope you're enjoying YWS so far! It's really a great place.
Oh. My. Gosh.
That was AWESOME!!! I love it! Great job!
The only thing I found was that I believe it's spelled 'fuschia.'
~GenShawklan
Wow! Not sure what brought this up again, but thank you all so much for reading and then taking the time to leave your comments!
I posted this in December of '07, which was before we had the different formatting options, so that's why the paragraphs looked so funky. Hopefully they're better now - thanks for pointing that out, yuriiko!
Wow. That was amazing. I'm sorry about putting up yet another one of those, 'I have no review or critique here but I'm gonna say ZOMG about your writing anyways because I'm such a loser at it'...but that's the way the ball bounces. *likes*
I haven't read a short story on here that has really interested me yet, but out of them all this one sparked my attention the most. It had a consistent beat to it which played thoughout the entire story. I was left feeling a bit empty by the end of it. That last sentence lays frozen in time. I really loved this. It was great.
This was absolutely, positively beautiful.
I have no nitpicks to point out.
Great job!
Please please please KEEP WRITING!
-Jane
Oh no! Why is Suzie dying? *eyes filling*
It's so sad! But what a beautiful writing!
I just have to say, wow. Five trillion times wow. This literally made me cry, thats how moving it was.
I've got two younger sisters, but I remember when the first one was born. I was so angry at them for having another baby. This just struck a cord in me. Pulled ALL of my heartstrings, if you will.
God, you're good, I loved it.
~Shaard
Wow, that was incredibly beautiful! I loved the tone, and its consistency throughout the story. You really have a great way of getting readers hooked.
Hello there!
Great piece.
I was going to nitpick or critique this but then I noticed... hmm... there are no grammar mistakes or anything that needs to be corrected. The spellings and tenses are perfect. I love your characters and how you portray them really looks realistic, especially Martha. Her envy and love towards her sister is totally believable. It didn't actually made me teary in the end but I felt sad and sorry for Susie because of that tragedy, which is kind-of nice by the way, that we readers can feel too the emotions of the narrator. One thing, maybe try to lessen the spaces bet. paragraphs. Overall, I really like this!
Peace out!
This was beautiful. I especially loved how you used the word "you". It made me think that Martha was standing by Susie's grave as she talked to her.
Fall_Into_The_Sky wrote:See you never know how much something really means to you untill you lose it.
One word Beautiful.
This story sent a shiverd own my spine , literally, when the car hit them.
See you never know how much something really means to you untill you lose it.
It rained the morning you were born.
Eight-year old Luke wore his racecar pajamas that morning.
We all had dark brown eyes, but yours were loveliest of all—framed by thick, dark lashes that were captivating.
I like criticizing...but I like it even more when I don't have to criticize. I thought that the story was very beautiful. At the end, it went from being a happy little story to having a sad ending. You're very good, I'm impressed. Keep on writing! ^^
Mary - Thank you so much for reading, sweetheart! Your encouragement is always appreciated.
'Melia! Thank you so much for all your suggestions! They were all very helpful. The weather thing really doesn't have any particular significance. It was more a of a unifying image than anything else, something to tie it together. Just one of those things that hit me at random, you know?
Thank you for reading, 'Rina. I will work on my transitions, but not hold my breath for you to like it any better.
Starry - Thank you for reading and commenting!
Joe - Thank you for your comments! I alwyas appreciate it when specific things are pointed out to me, so I know what was liked or disliked in particular, so thanks for taking the time to do that!
author - Thank you very much. It's always a compliment to me when my readers can connect with the story and its emotion.
Oh Lord, Ari! That was wonderful. Really, well done. Beautiful story, beautifully written. Toward the end I actually started to cry!
Areida wrote: You were curious, charming, adorable, delightful. In short, completely nauseating.
Areida wrote: It rained the morning you were born, but Susie—sweet, beautiful, baby sister—the morning you died, the weather was perfect.
Wow, that's all I can say! It was beautiful and the MC is just a delight to read. I could feel her fury with every line and her mannerisms reminded me of myself before my sister as born!
I could relate to the hyperbole about being locked up in a tower w/ nothing but crumbs to eat! It was such a creative way of saying: my little sister is going to get all the attention.
All in all, It was a pleasant and I love your word choice + style. Keep it up!!
--starry
This is kind of embarrassing. You aren't supposed to make me feel little tears coming to my eyes.
Anyway, it was sweet. And short. So I cringe when I say I want you to make it longer.
Right now, the transitions are a little underdeveloped. More specifically, I'm thinking that transition that goes between her hating her sister and her loving her sister. It just needs to be a paragraph longer or so, I think.
And, no offense because I love you and everything but OMG. Ex deus machina for the ending, anyone? I mean, it WORKED, because otherwise I wouldn't feel tears coming into my eyes, but... if I read this a second or a third or a billionth time, then maybe I would cringe because of the set-up.
In this way, I like your "Hail Mary" story better because at least you saw what was coming and the reason why you were crying was not because of the tear jerker ending but because it felt so hopeless that what else could you do? And maybe I am slightly biased to those sorts of endings, but... yeah.
No, but seriously, good story. I did enjoy(?) it though that might not be the best word to describe it. You do good family stories.
I loved the first line. It's the kind of thing that, given the rest of a paragraph to read, would make me do a head/desk and say "Just get to the point already!" but the fact that it's on its own line, stated so simply that you know something's coming next, and it's going to be good. [/babble] ^_^
The second paragraph seems like it's only half a thought; like 'our parents had this and this BUT...' I mean, the next part continues it, I guess, but not in the same way. It felt incomplete.
On the other hand, the part about the piano stool seems like there's too much attention called to it. You could just as easily say that her feet didn't reach the floor without going into the kind of stool it was and how it allowed her to reach the keys, etc.
I love the hyperbole about the rain, but I wish there had been some more action interspersed with the dialogue; not just Luke but the MC too. I imagined her to be pacing, for some reason, arms thrown up in the air, etc.
MC is perfectly dramatic. Not overdone, not overstated. Nice ^_^
My real reason for hating you, though, sprang from the fact that our family and friends had every reason to adore you. You were perfect.
Points: 257
Reviews: 38
Donate