oset or in a think, words not even to be whispered, thoughts to be driven away like pesky bugs. Now. Brenda was opening the closets, opening the trunks. The thing was. I was tempted to throw my hands over my ears and scream. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! I don't want to hear any of this!
"I was never with any other girl before Celia," she continued. "I knew I had feelings that made me different. but I buried myself in my sports and ignored them as much as I could. When I was younger. I tried to deny them. I went out on dates, as you know, and I can't say they were all with losers. Some of the boys-- most of them, in fact-- were very nice. Don't think I wasn't upset with myself for not wanting to continue a relationship, but for me, it was always taking a journey on a street that turned out to be a dead end.
"When I came to college. I didn't expect it would be any different. Celia believes it's kismet that we met, especially at this particular time of our lives. She had doubts about herself and went through an adolescence not unlike my own. She had similar questions about herself. We certainly didn't expect what happened to happen.
"The truth is. April. that I chose to room with Celia as soon as I set eyes on her, and not because I fell in love with her. Oh, no. I thought just looking at her that she was completely opposite from me and being with her might change me somehow. Imagine my surprise when I discovered who she really was and what she really felt.
"I know what you're thinking," she said, pausing to turn to me. "you are thinking, I wish the things my sister is saying she was doing about some handsome college boy."
I didn't say yes; I didn't say no. I felt too numb to speak and also afraid that my words would be wrong, that I might ruin this precious golden moment between us, a moment in which I sensed we were finally becoming real sisters.
She continued to walk.
"Maybe a part of me wishes the same thing. I don't know. I know with Celia. however. I don't feel any of the old guilt. I don't avoid looking at myself. I don't feel bad about feeling good.
"Do you know," she said, pausing again. "that when Daddy was being so hard on us all. I thought he was being especially hard on me because he knew who I was before I did, and he was taking it out on you and Mama as well? Maybe he was taking it out on himself, blaming himself for permitting me to do what some old-fashioned people would call tomboy activities, encouraging me, in fact.
"And then, when he ran off. I was convinced I was the sole cause of it. Do you know how many sleepless nights I spent thinking that? I hate to admit it to anyone. but I had a sense of relief when we discovered the real reason for his deserting us, as terrible as that reason was. At least it wasn't my fault. Do you understand?"
I nodded.
"Anyway," she continued, walking again, "after his death. I had this feeling that chains had been lifted from me. I wasn't willing to go wild or anything. I had simply stopped all the denial. I looked at myself in the mirror one day afterward and said. Brenda, this is who you are. Take it or leave it, and get on with your life."
"What does Mama know?" I asked.
She didn't answer for a long moment, and then she stopped.
"You know, April. I can't say for sure. Sometimes. I would catch her looking at me with so much pity in her face I nearly cried, and sometimes, I saw her looking at me with admiration. Whatever. I think it's time I was as honest with her as I am with you. It's something I have to do, something I have to find the strength to do,"
"Mama thinks you're so strong. So does Celia, and so do I," I added.
"I put on a good facade," she said. "Someone once wrote that you should be careful of whom you pretend to be, because that's who you'll be. Maybe it's very true for me. I don't know. When I first learned that you were coming here yourself, I was both angry and happy about it," she revealed.
"How could it be both?"
"I thought if you came with Mama, you two would be away from us enough to remain in some dark place when it came to me and my identity and that the facade, the denial, could continue. It was comfortable and easier not to have to admit to anything. But there was and is a part of me that wants to be honest. April. and I thought to myself, maybe, just maybe, this was the time to reveal myself to you. I was afraid. That's why I was so angry for a while. Celia continued to prod me to deal with it, with you. Of course, she was and is right. I didn't handle it well. We didn't. I can understand why you got so upset back there. I'm sorry."
She reached out and brushed my hair back the way Mama always did.
"Am I going to be like you. Brenda?"
She held her smile. Is that what troubles you the most now?"
"In a way. yes.," I said.
"I don't know. April. It would be very convenient or simple to say no, but I didn't know about myself, so how can I predict what's in store for you? You'll have to examine and come to understand your own feelings. I don't believe you have to be like me because of some inherited thing, but I don't know."
I nodded. "I guess I really was behaving like a child back there. I'm sorry."
"Not at all," she said.
She put her arm around me, and we walked along for quite a while without saying a word. I felt she wasn't simply embracing me with her arm but was wrapping her heart around me as well. She had trusted me with her innermost feelings and revelations. She had bared herself in a way she hadn't in all our lives together. We were never closer as sisters than we were at this moment, and yet I felt we were also farther apart in a different sort of way. I had a chasm of mis-understandings about myself and about her to cross before we could truly say we accepted each other. That would take time, and maybe, maybe, it would never happen.
Celia was waiting for us outside the dormitory. "Hey," she called. "What happened to you two? I was starting to worry."
"We took a little detour," Brenda explained. Celia nodded and turned to me.
"I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable in any way back there," she said.