Becca probably could have been famous if she’d had any talents. She had that thing about her that made people pay attention, but she never used it to her advantage. The most ambition she ever showed was with her hypochondria. Hard work, being so nervous. She was always asking doctors to run tests for deficiencies and syndromes, but things changed when she met Marco. She said he made her feel better in a general way. I called him Rasputin behind his back.

When she phoned and asked if I was sitting down and told me she had ALS, I was almost relieved, because it was too absurd to take seriously. She started in on a wacky set of symptoms, so I got out of my chair and started emptying the dishwasher. I was about to suggest she stay away from the internet when she said, so I went to see the doctor and he sent me to specialists and Naomi, I have ALS. Then I did drop the plate I’d just taken out of the bottom rack. It shattered into three big pieces and a thousand splinters, breaking apart like an iceberg I’d seen on a nature show. And still I didn’t sit down. I just stood there in the middle of the mess and listened to my sister explain what was going to happen to her body and when.

I was very sorry then. Sorry like a boulder, not a bubble. I’d wasted so much time with resentments that worked like poison. My latent, passive, malignant hate didn’t make my sister sick, and it didn’t kill her husband or son—my beloved nephew, oh my God, what have you done?—but it did taint the decent years that could have been really good years, and now everyone is dead and all I have are memories of decent years tainted by hate followed by loving years tainted by death, which isn’t a whole lot to live for.

Decent years tainted by hate, and for what? I should have been happy for Becca. Mother and Daddy were the ones who thought she was too good for anyone—which on the one hand speaks to how high their standards were for her. On the other hand, it shows why Marco never stood a chance. When Becca left for that seminar in Montreal and came home with a Canadian boyfriend, I was excited for her at first.

She said, “He’s really different, Naomi.”

And I said, “When do I get to meet this really different guy?”