Delia Ephron - Sister Mother Husband Dog (Etc.)

sister

mother

husband

dog

(etc.)

Also by Delia Ephron

Novels

The Lion Is In

Hanging Up

Big City Eyes

Nonfiction & Humor

How to Eat Like a Child

Teenage Romance

Funny Sauce

Do I Have to Say Hello? Aunt Delias Manners Quiz

Movies

(with Nora Ephron)

Youve Got Mail

This Is My Life

Mixed Nuts

Bewitched

(with Nora Ephron, Pete Dexter, and Jim Quinlan)

Michael

(with Elizabeth Chandler)

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Plays

(with Nora Ephron)

Love, Loss, and What I Wore

(with Judith Kahan and John Forster, music and lyrics)

How to Eat Like a Child

Young Adult

Frannie in Pieces

The Girl with the Mermaid Hair

Children

The Girl Who Changed the World

Santa and Alex

My Life and Nobody Elses

Craft Books

(with Lorraine Bodger)

The Adventurous Crocheter

Gladrags

First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2013

A CBS COMPANY

Copyright 2013 by Delia Ephron

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.

The right of Delia Ephron to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

what if a much of a which of a wind: Copyright 1944, 1972, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust, from Complete Poems: 1904-1962 by E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.

Book Design by Amanda Dewey

Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1st Floor
222 Grays Inn Road
London WC1X 8HB

www.simonandschuster.co.uk

Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Hardback ISBN: 978-1-47113-185-1
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-47113-244-5
ebook ISBN: 978-1-47113-187-5

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

what if a much of a which of a wind

gives the truth to summers lie;

bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun

and yanks immortal stars awry?

e. e. cummings

sister

mother

husband

dog

(etc.)

T wo weeks after my sister died, I took my dog to the doggie dermatologist. It was a hot daynearly every day that summer of 2012 was drippingly, tropically humidand I wasnt sure I should bother to do this because I was exhausted and spacey from loss, but there had been a six-week wait to get an appointment, and, as all my own doctors do, the office had called two days in advance to confirm the appointment. Id confirmed, so I felt obligated.

Honey was eating her paw. I wasnt sure what paw-eating had to do with dermatology, although my regular vet had suggested it might be connected.

I hadnt been paying much attention to Honey, a small fluffy white Havanese, except to be grateful for her joyful greetingsyelps that sound like happy weeping and a dash for her squeaky toy gorilla that she paraded around with, waiting for me to applaud, which I did. All my energies had been focused on Nora. But in the middle of one night, I woke up with a start and the realization of what Id seen but not registered: Honey eating her paw again. Rather obsessively.

Months before, Id had her paw treated. Actually, I dont know if it was months beforethe recent past had managed to wipe out my memory of the less recent past. At some point shed received a steroid shot from our vet. It hadnt cured her, nor had dipping her paw in some diluted blue liquid.

Until that middle-of-the-night panic attack about Honey, Id been uncharacteristically calm. Sleeping without assistance (no Tylenol PM or Valium, not even a glass of wine), dropping off to sleep easily, no nightmares or any dreams at all after marathon hours of anxiety in the hospital. This both confused and upset me. If I loved Nora as much as I knew I did, how could I sleep?

Was I aspiring to that fierce will she had, a refusal to show weakness? With Nora, was it more than a refusal? Was it a hatred of weakness, a distaste for it, a pride in not showing it, an unwillingness to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing it? Perhaps all of those. Nora set the bar high in the stiff-upper-lip department. Denial was a talent she greatly admired. She could have been Gentile, except, of course, she wasnt.

Her point of view about me was that I was a hysteric, a worrier. Was I trying to disprove her before it was too late?

When parents die, the dream dies, toothe dream that they will see you for who you really are (and, I suppose, the dream that they will ever be the parents you wish for). With sisters is it similar? Did I want Nora to acknowledge, to realize that I was as tough as she was by trying to match her, to function on all cylinders and be absolutely present during this terrifying time?

I had always been amazed at her discipline. I dont mean as a writer. All four of us sistersthe Ephron girls, as we were known as children (Nora, Delia, Hallie, and Amy)are disciplined. When it comes to writing, to our careers, we are our mothers daughters: disciplined and driven. But Nora maintained her laser focus even now, confronting a deadly leukemia. My brain scrambles when Im scared, but she could still ask doctors the tough questions and write down the answers in her graceful, confident penmanship while I could only scribble unintelligible bits in the corners of paper. (Is there nothing sisters dont know about each other, nothing they dont compare, even penmanship or notetaking abilities?) Did a tiny piece of me still need to disprove her view of me as a hysteric that I always felt wasnt fair and yet was probably, at least compared to her, accurate?

With sisters, is the competition always marching side by side with devotion? Does it get to be pure love when one of them is dying, or is the beast always hidden somewhere?

Our relationship was so firmly fixed that every day when I went to the hospital I would think, Ill eat when I get there. Thats what I always thought when we wrote together at her apartment. Nora had a great refrigerator. There was often half a turkey in it or fried chicken in baggies. Nora will have something for me to eat. Sick with cancer and from chemo was not computing, the odds against her facing death, and still I was expecting to be fed, and usually there were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that Nick (her husband, Nick Pileggi) had made that she didnt eat and I did.

Everyone involved was steadfast. Everyone was devoted and remarkable. This woman for whom four were better than two, eight better than four, twelve better than six, the more the merrierthis woman for whom entertaining was joy, art, obsession, and religionwas reduced to the same small rotating cast all struggling to make her happy, all praying (except none of us pray) for healthy white blood cells to sprout, for the marrow to be fertile.

Nora thanked me by sending me rosestwo dozen gorgeous plump peach roses in full bloomthe sister in the hospital sending flowers to the one who was not.

I have thought a lot about this. More than anything, I think about this.

There are things a person does that you could talk about forever. They are the key. They reveal character, they unlock secrets. I think Noras sending me flowers was that.