Summer 2024 - Vol. 21, Issue 1

8:15 AM. She wakes up and gets ready for the day.

Annie dreams in shades of vivid colours: fiery and passionate reds, calm and tranquil blues, and sharp and envious greens. Her palette and appreciation for these colours have grown over the years. It disappoints her when she wakes up to darkness and shades of grey. Annie wiggles her fingers and stubs to make sure that she is not still dreaming. The ends of her toes are ghosts that still haunt her. They burn and sting with every movement. She sighs heavily and decides that yes, she is, in fact, awake. She pulls her leg up to her chest to rub the nubs to remind her body of the missing pieces.

She cannot tell whether or not she is more disappointed that she dreamt in monochrome or that she wakes up to pitch black. She pulls herself up onto the soles and fumbles around for her white cane. Her hand grasps it-- this one in particular feels unfamiliar and too slick for her tastes. It was a present from her aide, but she does not know if she could consider it a present seeing as she received it the day her husband passed away. She walks over to her dresser and opens it, trying to find socks to cover her scarred and calloused feet. They have done a lot of walking over the years, and they have seen a lot of places. Despite this, she still, to this day, has not been able to dig her toes in the sand. Even when Scott took her and the children to the Bahamas-- all she could do was bury her nubs in the sand and pretend to know what it was like to wiggle them through the wet sludge and feel the rough granules and shells pressed underneath her toes.

9:00 AM. Her aide helps her get dressed and eat breakfast.

The scent is the first thing that hits her. It is a heaping plate of scrambled eggs and bacon. Annie’s tastes have become simpler over the years. She starts thinking about when she was twenty and how she would have probably thrown a fit and insisted on something more complex: eggs benedict smothered in hollandaise made painstakingly from scratch, or a beautiful savoury quiche. She remembers Ellie’s Sunday Brunch spread very fondly. When Annie and Charlie turned twenty-one, Ellie created the most beautiful brunch spread for them. She fixed them up a pitcher of mimosas with fresh-squeezed orange juice straight from their garden in the backyard. For Annie’s twenty-first, Annie announced to the entire household that she was going to become a pescetarian. In suit, Ellie built a platter of an assortment of bagels, lox, capers and cream cheeses in several different flavours-- the lox intricately folded up into perfectly pink miniature rosettes. An impressive feast, but one that Annie could not fully appreciate in suit because of her jealousy. Annie has since made peace with her sisters and with her former pescetarianism. She has simpler tastes now.

“Ma’am, how are you this morning?” she hears a voice ask. Annie acknowledges her aide’s presence with a nod and a gesture with her long cane towards the general vicinity of her dressers and drawers. After living in such close quarters for the past year, Annie has become acutely aware of her surroundings. She mentally mapped the room, and in any given spot, can know where certain things are placed and other things belong. Annie wonders if this is part of her innate condition and paranoia of being blind, or if in recent years, she has developed a sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder to keep things safe in a shared space. Annie’s mind snaps back to the present, and her aide announces that it is time for Annie to change her clothes.

Other than socks, Annie doesn’t dress herself anymore. She stopped getting dressed on her own in the first two months she moved here. Her children and their children had noticed that “Grandma Annie does not look right,” and summarily made note of it and mentioned it to the staff. She was haphazardly mismatched, a five-year-old given the freedom to dress herself for the first time. She wonders if Charlie and Ellie were treated similarly when it all went to hell. Or maybe Annie was the only one out of them to be exiled.

11:00 AM. She goes to her support group.

Annie loves her children, but they make it very hard for her to feel like she has lived a fulfilled life. They may be right, she thinks as her stubs scoot sadly across the floor. She feels the vibrations of other people and objects through her long cane as she makes her way to her seat. She does not see the purpose of the support group (nor can she see them,) and cannot seem bothered to pinpoint what exactly the therapist is trying to get at. It was originally a “Bereavement of Loved Ones” support group, but along the way, lost track and slipped into something a little more Freudian.

Sometimes she finds it funny when newcomers enter the group, because she will have to introduce herself again, and then the questions come crashing into her like a tidal wave. And in the fight of Annie v. Tidal Wave, she drowns. It reminds her of her old Stepsisters Anonymous meetings but with a lot more judgment and conviction. A new person is sitting in the group session today, and while Annie cannot see her, she can already feel the poison in her tone when the new person spits out, ‘Oh you’re that stepsister?’ Annie feels like she is on trial, and often repeats the Stepsisters Anonymous mantras in her head to calm her down.

Today, the new person provokes her. Annie inhales deeply and mentally recites Treat others the way you want to be treated-- you are a living reminder of this before she decides to speak, ‘You wouldn’t understand. You are young, things were much different back then.’ In response to this, her ghost piggies take revenge and inflict her with a sharp pain so she keels over slightly. ‘A mother’s influence puts a strain on the dynamic between sisters’, Annie recites from memory. Her monologue at Stepsisters Anonymous was heavily based on subjects she had been more knowledgeable in when she was younger. She has no time for activism or explanations now. The past is the past, it should remain there. Annie pauses, debating whether or not to continue Stepsister Manifesto or just leave it be. She follows up with, ‘That leads to a lot of evil, especially when you believe your mother is the one with the best intentions. Sometimes you are not aware of what you are doing until your eyes are gouged out and your feet are sawed off.’ Annie’s hands gesture towards her feet and her face. Her feet are covered in socks, but when she removes them, they look like two splintered oars, only the splinters are the scarred baby lumps where her toes once were. Her face is another story, a living testament to greed, envy and just being plain old mean to your sister. Those two always seem to be the closer.

The new member apologizes and the group goes on. She figures that yes, maybe this group is giving her some closure with everything. Though she certainly has those issues with her mother to solve, Annie prides herself on at least knowing the origin. Of course, Ellie rubs it in her face every time she comes in to visit. But it is all a little harmless sister love, Annie assumes.

12:35 PM. She eats lunch and reads a letter from his sister.

After the meeting, Annie wants to slump back to her bedroom and lie there. With every step, the ghost pigs squeal and burn, and Annie tries to wiggle them to remind them of their lot in life, but it is difficult when she is mobile. It is now lunchtime. Annie rotates between what she wants to eat every single day for lunch, even though she decides she wants to be more adventurous. The only problem is that certain foods trigger her anxiety. Her sense of taste and smell has become impeccable over the years, and she has a knack for being able to tell what certain foods are just by the way they smell. She cannot eat small poultry: it only reminds her of the so-called accident. In the same respect, the so-called accident reflects all of her daily choices: she prefers to eat and drink out of not-glass. She is constantly afraid that the material will splinter and break into a million tiny little pieces. Annie inhales heavily, and decides to go the safe route: a grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It reminds her of her childhood before her mother married Ellie’s father and they moved in. She is not that hungry anyway, the sandwich is enough to satisfy her appetite.

When she finishes up her meal, she shuffles back to her bedroom with the help of her aide. ‘We can read this letter you got in the mail,’ her aide informs her. It is probably from Ellie. Charlie prefers to correspond through phone calls so they can hear each other’s voices. Sometimes the emotion is so overwhelming that they sit there in silence and weep, but the tears don’t run anymore. After the accident, their physicians explained that the birds poked out so much of their eyes that their nasolacrimal ducts may have been damaged in the process. Crying dry tears has become a normality after fifty or sixty years. They drycry over the night of the ball, they drycry over their dresses, they drycry over their missing toes and they drycry over their accidents in the weeks and months following. Stepsisters Anonymous helped them through their accidents, provided them with some therapy, and helped them cope and build a strong bond with the sister they wronged. Annie admitted that even now, Stepsisters Anonymous had been incredibly helpful, and asks the aide, ‘Could you please read it to me?’

The letter was from Ellie. She never sent her letters in Braille, so her aide must always read them out loud to her:

Dearest Anastasia,

The publishing company should be sending you a check soon. I appreciate you letting us use your likeness in the memoir. I promise that this one is kinder than the previous ones. Your story is told, I assure you. I’m not entirely sure how the company is going to market it: but I’m told it will do you justice. It was the least I could do after writing all of those scathing tell-alls about our story and our lives together. I obviously cannot write that off as little school-girl cruelty, but when (Step)Mother’s mind went to hell, I began to understand how she could treat me, and let you treat me, so unkindly. I am reminded of everything that happened when I look at those glass slippers. They are still as shiny as ever.

I hope things have been you at home. Sometimes I cannot believe the kids stuck you in there. I hope to never follow a similar fate, I would go crazy in a home. I am sure Charlotte feels the same way, but perhaps that is because she and her husband take care of each other. I am still sorry for your loss, that is always hard. I know it has only been a year, but think of this as a time to explore your passions, hobbies and interests! Perhaps you can finally start on that you have never managed to do! Maybe take up dancing again? You were such a beautiful dancer.

I hope to be visiting soon. I will bring the book along, and perhaps we can take pictures and visit you on our press tour! It has become harder for me to travel, but I’m sure we can make an exception on the tour and visit you. I know the readers will be interested to see where the ‘wicked stepsister is.’ I think it is terrible they still call you that, and I know that’s partially my fault-- but hey! You’re famous, right? I’ll have to get the agent to talk to your nursing home, but things will be okay. I’ll bring over a couple of copies of the book for you to sign and give to your friends there at home! That would be delightful!

I do hope to see you soon. I love you and I hope you are doing better. I will send my love to the children.

Love your dearest (Step)Sister,

Ella

‘Thank you, I’d like to take a nap now, please,’ Annie sighs with a heavy heart. She loves hearing from Ellie, but her letters always seem to have a hint of smugness interwoven throughout. Ellie’s letters emotionally exasperate her and while she has made nice, Annie is aware that Ellie still has a lot of hidden, pent-up aggression. And that is fine, but Annie and Charlie got what they deserve a long time ago, and have spent the following years making up for their mistakes. Despite the anger, everything else makes sense: Ellie has it all. She has her charming prince, the beautiful home and life, and the glass slippers. Annie did not have the proper words to convey her sentiment over the slippers, but after overhearing her youngest grandchild stub his toe on the asphalt in the parking lot one day, she decided that it was the best way to describe how she felt about the slippers: Fuck the glass slippers. Fuck them.

Sometimes Annie still gets angry over the slippers, but then decides that life is too short and she has other things to do with her time. Her scheduled nap time is one of these things. Annie rests her white cane against her nightstand and hops into her bed. She stretches her legs out and pulls them back up towards her body, rubbing every one of the little bumps on her feet. It was strange how much her ghost toes acted up, but a quick massage does them good. After the rubdown, Annie informs the aide, as she has for the past year, ‘Could you please wake me up in an hour and a half? Thank you.’ She hears the door shut, and she snuggles up in bed. Her eyelids shut, and all she can see is pitch black. But naptimes are one of the best times of her day: it gives her more opportunities to see again… in colour.