"Are you happy?" he finally said to me. He slammed a fist on the counter and walked out.
By the time I managed to stand up, the house was silent. My mother was back in her bedroom suite, my father was in his office, and I was alone in the rest of the stretching square footage.
My mother was not shocked that Sienna had taken her own life. That idea blinked in my brain like the starting cursor of a video game. Was there some sign I had missed? Was there something I could have done?
My legs were heavy as I dragged myself up the stairs to Sienna's room. It had to be my fault. We weren't close, but we were sisters, and I should have known if she was feeling so desperate.
Her room was as neat and tidy as always. The Tiffany blue walls and white furniture glowed in the sunset light. Instead of an old-fashioned four-poster bed like mine, Sienna had a queen-size bed with a white satin tufted headboard. The comforter was an intricate swirl of pastel paisley. I sat on the edge of her bed, careful not to crease it.
I needed her there. Sienna never sat around helpless. I could see her marching into her room and scolding me. She would have gone straight to her computer and researched the reasons, both psychological and physical, behind suicide.
I wondered if she had researched it before she did it. I should have looked on her computer in her dorm room. Sienna probably looked up a dozen case studies the moment the thought of suicide crossed her mind.
And still, she did it. The thought made me dizzy, and I let myself slip to the floor.
I leaned back against her bed and felt the sharp edge of something stick me in the back. Reaching under her bed, I pulled out a photograph album she had made her senior year of high school. I opened it up, welcoming the sweet relief that happy memories brought.
The first picture was Sienna leading the cheerleader charge onto the football field. Except it was not her red-lipped smile or glowing golden hair that caught my attention. In the far background was a tall blond boy leaning on the fence next to a gangly girl with long wavy hair.
Owen Redd liked to watch the football games from the sidelines instead of the stands. He liked chatting with people more than yelling silly epithets at the field. One time, Sienna had begged me to bring her a different pair of shoes, and I had bumped into Owen at the fence.
Instead of football scores and finals, we talked about Halo and Assassin's Creed. He didn't laugh when I asked questions about strategy. Instead, he explained in detail the successful maneuvers he had done.
Sienna laughed when she found us. "Aren't you two the perfect pair? Too bad Redd looks better on me."
She knew. Sienna knew that night at the football game that I had the most helpless crush on Owen. I could still feel the thrill of his hand accidentally brushing mine as he described good sequences.
I never understood why they were together. Sienna was more annoyed than enamored by most things that Owen loved. He mocked her cheerleading. And I remembered when she got him voted prom king, he was so irritated that he brought her home and left without saying goodbye.
At the thought of goodbye, I slammed the photograph album shut. How could I say goodbye to my sister?
#
It was easy to pretend I was still in high school. The house was quiet when I emerged from Sienna's room. It could have been any one of hundreds of nights when our mother had retreated to her room, my father had shut himself in his office, and Sienna was out. She was always busy, always doing something.
The only one that was ever around was our cook. I found her in the kitchen looking the same as she had for decades: a white shirt, black pants, and a red apron. Her riotous black curly hair was secured in a prim bun, and her blue eyes sparkled as she sang.
"No one told you," I said, the weight pushing me back onto a stool.
"I sing when I'm sad, too," the cook told me. "It helps. Wanna try?"
"You know I can't carry a tune. Sienna is – was the singer."
The cook put down her red spatula and propped her fists on her hips. "You know you never have to refer to her in the past tense, don't you? Sienna’s memory is just as alive as anyone else outside this room if we talk about her."
"I don't feel like talking, Charlotte," I said.
"And you don't feel like singing. How about baking?" Charlotte asked.
I smiled. I loved to bake. It did not hurt that it was the one thing I did better than Sienna.
Sienna had come home from a cheerleading meeting one year and announced an impressive list of things she was going to personally bake for their fundraiser. After two minutes of baking, in which flour got in her hair, she crushed a raw egg in her hands, and the top fell off the ground cinnamon, she declared that baking was a waste of time.
That night, Charlotte taught me to bake the easiest, silkiest, and best buttery sugar cookies. We decorated them with a light lemon frosting and glittery sprinkles. Of course, Sienna took all the credit and they sold out in minutes.
"We're going to need a good dessert table for the, ah, for the guests," Charlotte said.
I nodded, my voice gone again. She meant we needed desserts for the reception that would invariably follow the funeral. Still, Charlotte's practicality was comforting as I settled into the regular routine of the sugar cookie recipe.