He looked so sick and unhappy she took pity on him. “But that’s all right. Everybody have to learn.” She moved to the door and stopped. “How come you keep your shirt on?” she teased. “Fraid I see something?” She came back to him. “Ought not to be ashamed of that, you can’t help it anyway. My mama told me it was a punishment for the sin of your mama. It’s good luck to touch it, they say.” Before he knew what she was about, she had run her hand under his shirt at the back and grasped his hump. “Oh, my God! That ought to luck me forever!” He wrenched away from her and began to strike her wildly across the face and head, and she ran bawling from the room.

5

Since going away with Bonard, Lauretta had written to Sarah only once, from their first major stop, New Orleans. She wrote to say what a good time they were having, and that they were talking of moving westward when they tired of the old city. As the months passed, Sarah was pleased that she did not hear again from her sister. She hoped that Lauretta was gone for good.

Being the younger sister, Sarah had, during their childhood, always been second, alternately Lauretta’s scorned and petted pawn. Had Lauretta loved her? Well, she had used her. Sarah suspected that “love” for Lauretta was a word to say rather than an emotion to know. Had she loved Lauretta? She thought hard about it, and decided that she had, at times, but not in an everlasting way. Lauretta had always been selfish, but it can be gratifying to indulge selfishness in those one cares about. Still, no whole person can forever love another who is wholly selfish. Sarah admitted to herself that she had had good times with Lauretta. She had admired her beauty and laughed at her wit and spontaneity, even as Lauretta’s wit made her seem dull and her spontaneity made her feel plebeian and responsible.

That was what she could not forgive Lauretta: the making her feel responsible and dull and “good”—but not pretty, never pretty. Lauretta had, wittingly or not, made her appear to be those things to others too. Because of Lauretta she would never believe that she could be truly interesting to a man. As a child—she remembered with increasing anger—she had seldom considered what she liked or what she wanted. Once a year, on her birthday, Lauretta had graciously insisted, “No, you say, you choose. Today you are first.” The other 364 days of the year Lauretta said and chose and was first.

Always she had deferred to Lauretta, as though it were the natural law of the universe that she do so; and that is exactly how Lauretta, without any self-consciousness, had accepted deference, Sarah’s and everyone else’s. Beautiful Lauretta. Witty, charming, unpredictable Lauretta! Sweet Sarah. Gentle Sarah. Good Sarah.