Allily
"Mother," I asked one day, "why is my sister's name Allily, and mine, Marie Chris?" "Well," my mother answered, "it's the combination of my and your father's names." "Ah." I won't go into the second half of my question, for fear of your laughter, but thus began a small grudge towards my sister which only evaporated when we were both adults, and graduated from college. Having forgotten the question momentarily, when I was growing up, I was inseparable from her — and though there are three years between us, there was an entire year where we dressed alike and I went to her school like a lost kitten following a mother cat, sitting in on her classes, being fed answers to teachers' questions, and raising my hand like the overall moron I was. I wasn't old enough to go to school then, but when I was, I would always wait for her so we could go home together. My memory of going home with her was hazy — I didn't really ...