Yolk(61)

“How do you feel about seeing Mom and Dad?” June asks.

“Fine.” I shrug.

Strangely, I’d thought about this trip only as far as seeing June at the airport. My brain may as well be an animal in a carrier. I can sense that I’m going somewhere and that it’s most likely going to be unpleasant, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I don’t even know what to imagine. I’ve never gone home before. I was only ever there already.

“Fine?” She flips open the black pleather check folder and scribbles the credit card receipt haphazardly.

I gaze at the receipt. Her signature’s a mess. It’s a cross between a tilted Z and an N.

“That is not your signature.” I snort.

“Sure is,” she says.

I pull out a black spiral notebook from my bag, open it up to a blank page, click my favorite black metal Caran d’Ache, and scrawl a swooping cursive J. I add a Y with a jagged series of barely distinguishable loops that bookends in an elegant K. I do it over. I love signing my name. It’s aesthetically pleasing and precise. It signals good taste. It makes me feel well-bred.

“Do you even know how to sign my name?” You’d think someone who’d stolen someone’s identity would do a little homework.

“We’ve got face recognition and chip cards. Nobody gives a shit about signatures.” She takes the pen from me. “This,” she says, “is my real signature.”

She scribbles what could be a J and a series of hillocks that could be anything. She does it again. And again. Each one is different. She side-eyes me. “You can be vain about anything, can’t you?”

“I read that if you turn the paper upside down, it’s easier to copy.” I flip my notebook. “Upside down you can focus on the shape and not what the word’s supposed to say.”

“You idiot.” June snorts. She sips the last of her wine. “First of all, it’s not like I’m going to be at the hospital, like, uh, hold on, Doc. I have to turn this page upside down. Besides, I’m the one who taught you that. The upside-down paper thing.”

A memory scissors through. “Treat it like a drawing,” June’s saying. It’s the two of us at the dining room table, and I’m copying Mom’s signature from her checkbook duplicates. I’m signing June’s marine biology field trip to Galveston. Mom and Dad were at work, and I’m getting scared reading the small print. The school claimed no liability in cases of accidental drowning, allergic reactions, or any other issues arising from any activities whatsoever. “It’s only, like, three hours away,” says June. “But we’re supposed to be back at eight, so if I’m not back by…” She shrugs, without meeting my eyes. “Maybe call Ms. Hoover at school. Or the cops.” I’d thought it was weird that she’d asked for my help until I realized what she was really doing. She was telling me where she’d be because she wanted someone to know. Someone to worry about her if she needed them to.

“You wanted me to know,” I tell her.

June looks up from her sandwich. She’s plucking out sprigs of arugula. Arugula, raw onions, beets, all June’s enemies. “Know what?” She takes a bite; it smells garlicky.

“You wanted me to find out,” I tell her. “You need my help. You just didn’t know how to ask for it.”

“What are you talking about?” she says, chewing wetly. Sometimes eating with June makes me want to gag. It’s always so anatomical.

I finish my water and shake the ice cubes at the bottom of the glass. Then I pinch the stray arugula off her plate between my thumb and forefinger and put them in my mouth.

“Fucking disgusting,” says June to me, shaking her head. “Chew away from me. I can smell it.”

I chew right up in her ear. “If you didn’t want me to find out that you’re snaking my identity, you wouldn’t have told me you were sick in the first place.”

I know my sister. She could have just as easily signed the permission slip herself. We were constantly filling out our own permission slips and tardiness notices. June wanted to tell me where she’d be that day without having to tell me.

“You don’t think you’d notice if I had cancer?” She pushes me away from her, eyes flicking skyward.

“You could have hidden it from me.” Before the confrontation, before she invited me over, she absolutely could have pulled it off. “Instead you came to me. And then you let me move in. You handed me your mail.”

“You’re insane.”

“You need me.”

She snorts.

“You need me emotionally,” I tut, with a sympathetic little frown. “It’s okay that you need me. You don’t have to admit it. Your subconscious spoke for you. I heard you loud and clear.”

“Bullshit.” She stabs the air. “If I didn’t save your ass by letting you stay at my house, you wouldn’t have found out any of this.”

“I don’t believe you, June,” I singsong. “You wanted help from your little baby sister.”

“Shut up, Jayne,” she says, and grabs her purse and suitcase. I watch as she storms off and joins the service desk line at the gate.

“Call me June,” I tell her. “It’s okay. This is a safe space.”