THE SISTER HE NEVER REALLY KNEW
 

     C T waited with his assortment of personal essentials in
the lobby of Lodge Hall.  His parents were to arrive soon in
the drive-around to vacate him, like everyone else, because
of University requirements.  The dormitory was to be
completely cleaned and fumigated.  Not only age was on the
side of its being infested.  Impromptu student eating habits
fed countless colonies of ants and cockroaches throughout the
building.  C T had similar infestations of anxiety at this
stage, but no easy extermination process came to his mind.

      As an occasional flake of snow drifted by outside the
renovated glass doors, he wondered what being back in the
family arms would be like again.  Certainly he had tried to
make amends with his parents, if such amends needed making at
all.  His letter on the day of the State game was well
received.  "You're really in good shape, C T," his father
told him in a later phone call.

     Was he in "good shape?"  By every indication he should
be.  His report card arrived at a 3.8 grade point with a
strong performance on the final exams.  The card was a
support, but certainly not enough to bear him entirely aloft.
He had been away for a very long time.  Tim had mentioned
some feelings of homesickness one night as finals were
approaching.  "C T," he drawled, "I really miss my Dad's
voice and the way he spits when he dips his Stockholm.  Why,
home is home.  This isn't."

     A woman in a fur-trimmed jacket came in the glass doors
and asked for some random student't room number at the
front desk.  She walked uncertainly off.  With more than 500
rooms, she might be awhile.  C T felt some pride that he was
waiting in the lobby and had consideration for his parents.
Mom had said Tammy was off for vacation already.  State had a
big Christmas/Thanksgiving break that made up for their
shifted quarter schedule.  She was coming along in the car to
pick him up.  He wondered if Tammy had changed her hairstyle
or gone into some new makeup "system."  Maybe she was on a
new fad diet.  Good luck now!  She was known to be the type
who follows trends when they suit her.  All as they grew up,
C T tolerated his two-year-older sister as she fit the forms
of girlhood, young-womanhood, and regular-womanhood.

     Was that it coming up Arbor Street?  The vehicle could
not be easily discerned at such a sharp angle because the
refraction of the glass, but the color looked right.  After a
moment of squinting through the snowfall, he jumped a little.
They had come.  They were right on time, his punctual family.
(Where had his bothersome reliability come from?)  He waited
for the car to pull into the circle, but he also knew the
parking regulations forbade even long stands in some places,
so he hurried right out with his luggage as soon as the
vehicle cleared the curb.  A slight smile settled on his
face, one he'd learned to develop in working with many
strangers.  Were these strangers as well?

     Tammy rolled down the window of the sedan and smiled
through her layer of skin-care products.  "C T!  Good to see
you!" Her expression immediately told him that it was.

     "You're right on time.  Mom!  You're in there.  How are
things going?  And Dad!"  His father stopped the car and put
it in park.  He walked to the back and opened the trunk.  C T
hadn't brought his car keys with him.  It had been that long.
After stowing his gear, he joined his sister in the back
seat.

     "How's it going over at State?  You're still in
anthropology, right?"  Tammy was your average college student
in appearance.  She blended, just like the components of her
make-up.  She didn't choose the fancier and more outrageous
moussed hairstyles, but instead knew the look of success:
the look of not standing out too much.  In the continuity of
a typical classroom's composition, she was an integral part.
State women were known for comprising continuous groups.

     "My grades are good.  I heard from Mom you're really
doing well as an engineer."

     "I'm in physics now.  I changed my mind a few weeks
ago."  If she could study anthropology and have no real
choice of a job other than teaching the subject, he could
certainly be a physics major.  The classification of
"physicist" in the job market to a much larger extent than
that of "anthropologist."

     "Physics!  Well I know you'll be good at it.  You always
knew what you were doing!  Like the time you burned out all
the fuses in the house making an arc light..."  How could
Tammy have remembered that?  He thought she had been off at a
girlfriend's house that day.  Apparently, his older sister
had kept a lot more tabs on him than he thought.

     The road rumbled on to Southville.  He counted the
kilometer markers, that majestic progression that measures an
otherwise bleak scene of occasional agriculture and
occasional woodland.  The ride hadn't seemed this way before.
It was not that it was boring.  Maybe it was just the season.
There was a small covering of snow on the ground and yellow
grasses showed from under the wire fence along the highway.
Tammy had really grown up.  Would she be getting married
soon?  His scorn of prejudice had given up the idea of the
MRS degree candidate long ago, but it seems Tammy might have
chosen a real major the way he did.  But then he caught
himself in the same way he'd recently learned.  The
abstractions of his new major were certainly not real except
that highly contrived apparatuses prove them to be
applicable.  The study of man that Tammy was in could be
applied much more readily to "real" concepts of life.

     They came to the three-bedroom ranch in their meticulous
subdivision just as the afternoon was beginning to settle
into darkness.  His parents climbed slowly from the car; they
were starting into the inexorable slowing of their life, and
Tammy walked to the door in her usual, unimpressive, average
way.  C T went to the trunk with his father again to remove
his luggage.  When they got into the house, he was impressed
by the collection of ornaments on a two-meter scotch pine in
their living room.  He had seen most of them before; many
dated back to his young childhood.  It was just a different
arrangement, that's all, and the difference was the
difference.  Every year the family went to the basement and
found the ornaments, and in recent years they got organized
enough to save the wire hangers.  It was always the greatest
time of excitement, as C T eventually was able to hang the
baubles higher and higher.  Last year, before he left for
school, he put the angel top on the tree.

     "It's a great tree," he remarked, sincerely.  His
parents were hanging up their coats and Tammy was soon to
join him.

     "We needed you to hang ornaments, C T," she started,
"because there are only so many needle pricks your hands can
take."  He became convinced that he would pick up needles in
January, before going back "home" to Lodge Hall.