Round and Round by Hilary Schaper

The four of you circle your father’s bed. Each sibling reaches to touch his face, a hand, an arm, a leg. To the side, the hospice nurse monitors his vital signs. His breath comes quick, and then, seems to cease completely, only to start up again. “It’s okay, Dad” you say, “it’s okay to let go.” The nurse leans in. “Time to call your mother,” she tells you softly. In the last hour, your mother retreated to her apartment, several floors above the medical center, too grief-stricken to sit vigil. When she arrives, she leans over your father’s head, whispers in his ear, and kisses his lips. He returns the kiss.

After you five leave the room, the nurse pulls you aside. “You have one of the most beautiful families I’ve ever seen.”

§

You imagine the stage set, three chairs arranged in a triangle, seats facing out, the game about to begin. You and your sisters are dressed in your party best—you, the eldest, in a yellow dress with a smocked yoke, and white patent leather Mary Janes; Ellen, the next sister, in a blue dress with a large bow at the back; and the youngest sister, Anne, in a pink dress with a Peter Pan collar. Your brother, James, the baby of the family, wears shorts and a striped t-shirt. As you wait for your mother to switch on the record player, you scrutinize her: the direction of her body, the turn of her head, the position of her hands. Anne bends to tie her shoelaces. Ellen twists a lock of hair around her index finger. James, groggy from an interrupted nap, rubs his eyes.

Petite, in an A-line skirt, cardigan and pumps, your mother stands to the side, her hand cradling the tone arm above the turntable. She places the stylus on the vinyl record. The music starts, its pace leisurely. Your heart thumps. “The wheels on the bus go round and round/Round and round.” You begin to skip, your sisters follow. “Round and round.” Your brother, new to the game, trails behind. “The wheels of the bus go round and round/All through the town.” You girls giggle and snort, tripping over one another as you circle the chairs, and circle the chairs, and circle some more.

“I’ll win,” Ellen shouts.

“No way,” you whoop, “no way, no way.”

“I’m the best, always the best,” Anne screams. “I’m the best. Aren’t I, Mom? The best?”

Without warning, you mother lifts the stereo arm. The music stops. You and your sisters lunge for chairs. Seats, you three have each grabbed a seat! Your brother continues to circle until your triumphant yelps reach his ears. Dazed, he looks around, mouth and eyes wide. He reaches for the arm of the closest chair, the one Anne has claimed. She pushes his hand away fast and hard, and he tumbles.

Your mother points to your brother. “Out.”

As he walks to the corner, his lips quiver, and tears run down his cheeks. He throws himself to the floor, buries his head in his hands. Sobs convulse his body. You’d like to wrap your arms around him, comfort him, but soon the music will start again. Vigilance is essential.

§

Two weeks before your wedding, your mother calls to say that Ellen has decided not to attend. Her yellow, dotted Swiss, bridesmaid dress hangs in plastic in your closet, her straw hat—to be decorated with a garland of wildflowers as a nod to her role as the maid of honor—sits on a shelf. Though you two have never been close, you haven’t argued or exchanged harsh words recently. In fact, your relationship seems to have improved in the last months. You even invited her to a dance concert, something you’d not done before.

“How can she do that? I don’t understand. Why won’t she come?” you ask your mother. “What’s going on? Did something happen? What happened?”

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t say.”

“What do you mean she wouldn’t say? She had to say something. What did she say? Why won’t you tell me?”

“I truly don’t know. She didn’t tell me.”

“I’ll call her.”

“Don’t. She said that she doesn’t want to talk to you. She said to tell you not to call, that she won’t talk to you.”

“That’s not fair. She decides not to come, and she’s too much of a coward to tell me herself? She couldn’t have said something before? I don’t understand.”

“Maybe she feels bad that she’s gained weight, or that your grandfather is opposed to your marriage, and doesn’t want to upset him.”

You know her decision has nothing to do with your grandfather, a powerless bully, or how he feels about your nuptials. She’s never been close to him. Besides, since your engagement, your father (his son) has come to accept and even celebrate your union—a union he initially opposed because of your disparate socio-economic backgrounds. Now, perhaps because you warned him that refusal to accept your fiancé would create an irreparable rift with you, he enjoys your fiancé’s company.

The idea that Ellen won’t come because of a weight gain is ridiculous. She didn’t look any different when you last saw her. You walk in and out of the closet again and again, hoping that the dress and hat will somehow solve the riddle. You are furious at being blindsided and rejected, but not disappointed. Annoyed, yes—she’s disrupted the wedding party (as she does so many things). Angry and humiliated, yes. Mostly, though, relieved. Like an arsonist, Ellen wreaks havoc wherever she goes: she lights a match, tosses it into the brush, and steps back to admire the flames, as though she’s had no part in igniting them. You no longer remember specific instances in which she hijacked moments of calm, but a general sense of the eruptions she provoked, the edginess she spawned, lingers still.

§

Two chairs remain, their backs against each other in the center of the room. Your mother replaces the stylus. The music begins anew. Louder this time, more insistent. “The babes on the bus say ‘Wah wah wah/Wah wah wah.’” You three troop silently, carefully. Your mother adjusts the record speed; the words come faster and faster, blur and collide, “Wahwahwah/Wahwahwah,” curdling into a desperate wail, rising from inside you. Your sisters press behind you, trample the backs of your new shoes. Tired and panting, you long to stop, but do not dare. You sidle up, never allowing more that one pace between you and a chair, ready for the music to cease. “The babes on the bus say ‘Wah wah wah’/

All through the town.” Your mother lifts the stereo arm. Your right hand hovers over the chair back, you pivot, and collapse back into its seat. Anne, too, has snagged a chair. Ellen grits her teeth, tightens her hands into fists. “You cheated,” she screams. “You two always cheat.” Her face flashes red, bright red, purple. “Mom, Mom, can’t you see that they cheated? I was standing by that chair, and Anne grabbed it out from under me.”

Your mother points to Ellen. “Out.”

Ellen stomps out of the room. You hear her banging doors upstairs.

§

You call Anne late one afternoon to discuss Ellen’s return, after 30 years, to the family. Well, not to the entire family, only to your parents and Anne. You’ve not spoken to Ellen since before your wedding, except when you are visiting your parents, and she happens to call. “Let me talk to Dad,” she demands, dispensing with any pretense of civility. You want to join with the others to welcome her back in the fold. After all, so much time has passed; you are all adults. Let bygones be bygones.

“Anne, will you help me to reconcile with Ellen?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she replies.

“Why not?”

“I’m under strict instructions not to give her phone number to anyone.”

“Well, then that means me.”

Silence.

“We don’t talk about you.”

“Am I the fall guy so that she can get back with Mom and Dad?”

“Maybe it’s something between you two.”

You picture Anne standing at the bay window in her kitchen looking out into the yard. Pleased that her sister is back in her life, she seems not at all disturbed that Ellen refuses to speak with you or James. In fact, you suspect that she relishes being the only sibling who’s in touch with her.

“My life has been full of sadness,” Anne adds. “I’m just trying to find a little happiness.” You’re not sure what she means: her divorce occurred years ago, she’s remarried, she likes her work, and her life seems to be on the upswing. Maybe she’s lamenting the unhappy childhood you four children experienced. “We all are,” you answer. “Everyone one of us.”

§

“Mom,” you say over the phone, “I’d like you to bring us together. Ellen and me. I want to make peace with her. It’s been 30 years. It’s about time. I still don’t know why she won’t see me or talk to me.”

“I can’t do that,” your mother answers, her words clipped.

“You’re the mother. I’m left out of the family.” You appeal to her sense of fair play. “You and Dad, and Anne and her husband, and Ellen and her sons, all get together. I’m excluded.”

“You’re not excluded,” she replies. “You don’t live on this side of the country. We’re not excluding you. She’s excluding herself. She stays away when you visit us.”

Though her argument is nonsensical, you understand that she is trying to justify this unorthodox arrangement. Perhaps it is the only way she knows to safeguard a relationship she’s fought years to reestablish. You imagine their accord is rocky, and that Ellen threatens to withdraw should your family fail to meet her conditions. This realization does little to salve your feelings of rejection. A continuous loop plays and re-plays: “You’re not excluded. She’s excluding herself. You’re not excluded. She’s excluding herself. Excluding, you, her, you, herself, excluded.” The words arch and swoop around you. When you reach for one, it shoots off. As you run after it, you stand directly in the path of the careening bus.

“But, it’s as if there are two separate families. Either we’re a family, or we’re not.”

“Of course, we’re a family.”

“Then please. Will you do this? I’d like to be able to talk to her, to understand why she won’t speak to me. I can’t even get in touch with her.”

“I’m sure that she has her reasons.”

“Mom, I’m asking you. Please.”

“There’s nothing I can do. I’m not willing to jeopardize our relationship with Ellen. I’m just not willing to do it.” Her tone forecloses any further discussion.

§

Later it will touch down on you without warning, silently and invisibly. You will try to understand its origin, its logic. You will question your culpability: what you might have done to cause the initial rift. You will puzzle over Ellen’s grudge, why she is still nursing it decades later. Had it been a specific act on your part? More likely, a festering sibling rivalry. Perhaps it arose only out of swirling motes of dust of quotidian life. When it landed, though, its impact was absolute: it had blown apart the family, and created a shadow family—or more likely, it had always been a shadow family.

§

One chair remains. Your mother takes her place at the record player. She touches the needle to the vinyl. The notes swish dizzily in the air. “The mommies on the bus say ‘Shush shush shush.’” Your steps are heavier, slower than in the earlier rounds. You are trudging through a marsh. Anne seems to have picked up a second wind. The music blares. “’Shush shush shush/shush shush shush.’” Though the words mean to comfort, they explode. Battered and bruised, you limp around the chair, hugging your body as near to it as possible. “The mommies on the bus say ‘Shush, shush, shush/All through the town.’” Your legs give out. You cannot keep up. You stumble and fall. Anne continues around, skipping now, stepping over you while running her fingers over the chair frame.

Your mother points at you. “Out.”

§

The Sunday before your father dies, you briefly leave his side to drive your husband to the airport. He came to say goodbye. In your absence, more people have crowded into the room. They sit in a circle around your father’s bed. You know each person—Anne, James and his wife, your mother, your father’s cousin and his partner—except one. You approach her, extend your hand. “Hi,” you say, “I’m sorry I don’t know you. I’m Hilary.” “Yes, you do,” she responds, “I’m your sister, Ellen.”

Hilary Schaper’s essays have been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, and earned Honorable Mention in the New Letters’ nonfiction contest. Her work appears in Hotel Amerika, The Baltimore Review, and other publications. She lives in Los Angeles, and holds an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop.