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Show In California That was the year our sister died. She was four years old and was never supposed to have a long life, but that hardly changed anything. Dad said she wasn't like other disabled children, which was a way of defending rather than excusing her handicap. When we saw Down's syndrome kids at the park, their faces puffy, their lips cracked, he told us that some kids were bom with birth defects and that it was sad. Amy, on the other hand, this sister of ours, simply hadn't developed like she was supposed to. Her brain, he said, was just a little too small, just a little less than it ought to be. Even then, as boys with no grasp of genetics or heredity, we knew that what dad said was only partly true. We had watched Amy and could see that in many ways she was just like the other handicapped kids at the playground, and just like the other kids in her school, which wasn't really a school at all. That was the year we had a swimming pool we never used. Mom explained that it wasn't so easy as turning on the hose and filling it up, that there were chemicals we needed to put in the water to keep it clean, and expensive equipment to buy. She also said that the crack in the bottom of the pool looked small but that it was enough for the water to leak into the ground. We spent the better part of one afternoon poking pencils and sewing needles through the bottoms of Dixie cups as she demonstrated her point. Once she had us convinced, she promised that she would talk to dad and have him call a repair company. At first, when we reminded her that the crack was still there and suggested that |
