The Floating Cradle

Four

She is technically not invited for Christmas. She hasn't been invited in seven years, not that she ever expresses a desire to come, or to see us any other time. My only contact with her is through birthday e-cards sent twice a year—one from me in May, one from her in March—and the occasional "happy new years!" or "happy easter!" text, to which the other always replies "thx! u 2!"

We'd made more of an effort in the first few years following "last contact" (as I jokingly called it before Lyle told me to stop)—emailing through Daddy's address until I was old enough to have my own, planning a trip for me to visit her that we both knew I'd never take—but one of us probably forgot to respond and the other never bothered to check up. Now, if anyone ever asks about my sister (and they never do), I say, "Oh, Allie? She's living in Boston, I think."

"So, she wasn't like explicitly not invited, but is she not not invited?" I ply Dan for more details, raising my voice over the sound of his hand drill. It's early evening and we're out in the side paddock, ankle-deep in mud as Dan replaces a corrugated metal sheet on the cows' standing shelter. They've been stalled for the night, the barn windows still illuminated as Daddy does his final inspection before lights-out.

"Dang it, Sarah, just ask it straight," Dan barks.

"Was she told not to come, or did Mama just not reply?" I rephrase.

"I told you. Mama got her email in September. It said, 'If you'll have us, we'd love to come see the family for Christmas,' and a bunch of other stuff 'bout 'extendin' the olive branch' and 'bein' the change' or whatever. As far as I know, Mama never replied," he says, adding, "Screw."

I hand him one from my sweatshirt pocket.

"Mmk," I reply slowly. "Who d'ya think the 'we' is? She got a boyfriend, you think?"

Dan shrugs and drills. I'm pretty sure he's on Mama's side, though I've never asked him outright.

"Does it matter at this point?" he grunts. "Christmas is in two days, Sarah. If she was gonna come out, she'd probably have told us by now."

We traipse across the paddock and scale the fence, heading toward a straggly white farmhouse shaded blue in the failing light. I smell my mother's meatloaf wafting out the window, balanced on the sill to entice her brood back home. She has carols playing on the crank radio and I can see her smiling at Pete, who is actually laughing back, his ridiculous black-dyed bangs flopping in his face.

"Smells delicious, Mama," Dan says as we kick off our boots and hang up our coats in the vestibule leading to the kitchen.

"Whaddup Yu-Gi-Oh?" I sneer at Pete, ruffling his hair from behind. He angrily smooths it back down. He's still got vestiges of black polish in his nail beds, the only bits Felicity didn't manage to scrub off with her turpentine-drenched Q-tips.

"Stuff it, Pizzaface," he retorts. I brush it off; I'm well prepared for what's coming to me when I touch the hair. It's nothing I've never heard before at school.

"Mind your nephew," Mama scolds airily. "Mind your aunt."

"That one heifer's gettin' mighty close to calvin'." My father stumps in, blowing on his hands. "Could be a Christmas baby."

"We could name it Mistletoe, or after one of Santa's reindeer," Pete suggests.

I refrain from rolling my eyes at the last second. It is a mystery to me how my family of practical farming stock produced Pete, sentimental and arty with notebooks full of Manga drawings and embarrassing emo poetry.

Then again, it also produced Allie.

Pete and I are off school until the New Year, but work never ceases on the farm. We eat supper early as usual, barely after the sun has set around 4:45, to accommodate my father and Lyle's bedtimes. They'll be awake well before dawn to tend the cows and gear up the machinery, joined by the two hands, Blake and Gilberto, who start just as early and work just as late. If I don't mouth off at supper, maybe I'll get a pass for a few days before I'm tasked with a surfeit of chores.