Tracing the Nile

It was a late fall Friday night and, once again, my older sister and I sat in my living room, contentedly full from the dinner I'd cooked, and stared into the cozy fire crackling away in my fireplace. "Excellent, coq au vin, as always, Josh," she smiled.

"It's a trick dinner, really, Gwen; pretty easy to do and just as easy to impress. Remember how Dad always said 'you need at least two date dinners, and they can't be pasta'? That was one of my date dinners. Worked like a charm."

"Speaking of dates...have you got anything going on this weekend? Anything tomorrow?"

I looked into my wine, as if it might offer an answer. "No, nothing on; just happy to spend time with you." Our Friday evening dinners often ended up, after a bit too much wine, with Gwen staying in my guest room. She was always welcome and was so frequent a guest that she had a permanent supply of her favorite toiletries in the bathroom.

"Nothing going on? Nothing I should know about? Haven't found The One?" Her raised eyebrow was comically quizzical and I laughed in response, our expressions, gestures, double entendres so well-honed after 30 years that our conversations didn't always need a lot of words. With only ten months between us Gwen had always been my funny, best friend. Sure, in our teens there were friends, girlfriends, buddies, but Gwen was always my anchor, always my rock. The older of us two, she had my back at school and often acted as my interpreter respecting the opposite sex, my navigator and guide as I began that journey of boy meets girl. And she was funny. She could take a joke and tell a joke better than most.

Neither of us had married; Gwen, at 31 and me at 30. I had had many girlfriends and more than a few hookups but had never met the woman I really wanted to settle down with. Gwen, on the other hand, had had far fewer boyfriends and, to my knowledge (and we knew virtually everything about each other) virtually no serious relationships. In fact, she'd never really had a serious boyfriend and even her casual relationships were few and far between.

That was a constant mystery to me. My sister was, well, if not beautiful, certainly very pretty and, as our Mom would have said, 'lovely'. Her hair, still tied up in her workaday neat bun, was dark brown and, when released from its constraints reached her shoulders, dark brown eyes to match, full lips and intelligent brow, befitting her work as a high school PE, history and geography teacher. At 5' 7", four inches shorter than me, 130 lbs she had excelled on our high school volleyball team and was second string on our basketball team as well. I was envious that in the ten years since college she seemed to effortlessly maintain her weight and fine muscle tone. What sports she had maintained since college seemed to be solitary; running, swimming, weight training. I, on the other hand, had to watch my diet, watch my weight, and keep active. So far so good; I had kept up with her excellent physical shape.

But as our conversation languished, as we remained content in each other's company, happy to sip our wine and watch the fire die down, my mind would not leave it alone. As she stared into the fire I took a longer look at her, relaxed on my couch, legs tucked under her skirt. I said she was pretty; honestly, had I not been her brother, I probably would have easily cast her as beautiful. And I blushed, glad that the room lights were dimmed, as I remembered all the times I'd looked at Gwen and thought "if she wasn't my sister...".

I wanted to understand - to know - why she seemed to avoid relationships. I was sure she wasn't gay; she'd occasionally shown a spark of interest in guys, had approvingly assessed various celebrities and actors to me, and had never shown, as far as I could see, any sexual interest in women and god knows as a phys ed teacher she probably had enough opportunity in that department.

I wanted to talk to her about it, but I knew a direct approach would never work. I'd have to sneak up on her, so I asked "what do you think Mom and Dad are up to right now?"

Gwen looked at her watch, calculated the time zone differences, and said "well, it's not even dinner yet in San Diego, so they're probably having happy hour drinks with their friends." Our parents, tired of New York winters, had retired to southern California and had never really looked back. As each of our parents was an only child, Gwen and I were the only family either had for 3,000 miles. That was fine for both of us, as we'd been each other's best friends for our whole lives; even though only ten months separated us, she'd been my protective big sister all through school, had brokered peace with my parents when I'd got in trouble and had always been there for me. And for the last ten years I had worked hard to return the favour.

I directed the chat in our parents' general direction, musing when we'd see them next, whether we'd go to them or they'd come to us. "Almost certainly, Josh, we're heading west; can't see Mom and Dad coming back here, even for a visit. Maybe, just maybe, for Christmas; they always loved Rockefeller Center and the ice rink. Dad would probably risk his life, again, by trying to skate," setting us off both into gales of laughter at the multiple memories we had of our Dad trying to ice-skate.

"I should call them and see if they have any plans, then. If they're not coming here I guess we better book a flight to sunny California, no?" It wouldn't be the first time and each of us knew, without asking, that neither of us had any other plans for Christmas than spending it with what family we had. We chatted in a slow way then about our last calls to our parents, the news and gossip they had and what occupied their time.

All the while in the background of my mind I was watching Gwen...seeing her...and trying to turn off my brother eyes and turn on my potential boyfriend eyes, trying to see her as some other guy might, some guy who wasn't her brother. That's not an easy trick, but I made some progress. I saw a lovely, slim woman, glowing with good health, graceful in her gestures, in her body movements; slim, but with entrancing curves in all the right places, her slender silhouette serving to emphasize her amazing breasts, perfectly outlined by her sweater. I saw a woman who laughed easily, joked and cajoled with me, who held her own - no, bettered me - in deep conversations. Again and again my mind rebounded to the question: "what gives, where are the guys? Why aren't they breaking down her door?"

She was comfortable in her after-school professional demeanor; makeup very lightly and tastefully applied, highlighting her dark brown eyes and hinting at a bit of blush on her cheeks. Her skirt tastefully ended slightly above her knees, complemented by her high-collared sweater. I threw another log on the fire, a silent signal that I hoped our evening would last a little longer. "I'm assuming you're staying the night?"

"Sure, if that's ok. I've had a few glasses of wine, so driving is probably not a good idea."

"Excellent point." Once I knew she had no intentions of heading home I knew that might help me understand; if nothing else she would have to stay while I talked to her. "Speaking of dates..."

"Who's speaking of dates?"

"You were a while ago; you were asking if I had anything on tomorrow, remember?"

"Oh...sure."

"Can I ask, Gwen, why don't you have a date tomorrow? Or even: do you have a date set in the future? Anything out there?"

It was obviously a touchy question and I knew that had it been anyone but her brother asking her Gwen would have probably called a cab and ended our evening. "Why do you want to know?"

"I...I just don't get it, Gwen. You're a really lovely...damn it, you're beautiful. I simply don't understand why guys aren't trailing you like, well, dogs in heat." I was immediately sorry for my vulgar simile and it didn't help that her face almost immediately clouded over. I could almost hear her mind slamming a door shut on me. "Gwen, if I wasn't your brother..."

That got her attention; "if you weren't my brother...what?"

Now it was my turn to color up, to turn my eyes to the fire. I took a long time to reply. "If I wasn't your brother I'd probably harass you until you agreed to go out with me. And I'd move heaven and earth to charm you into a second date. And if I got a third date I'd count myself the luckiest guy in the world, like I'd won a lottery. You've got everything going; you're beautiful, funny, intelligent, kind and caring...for the life of me I can't understand it."

She watched me intently as I blurted all of this out, her facing now going from a clouded, darkened expression to, briefly, a confused look, and then finally concern. The last didn't surprise me at all; Gwen had an incredible instinct, an immediate sense if someone was hurting. I think she saw that in me that evening even before I knew it was there.

Another long pause as I held my breath. She would either talk to me or I'd regret my question forever. Finally, looking into the fire, she said "Josh, do you remember my surgery?"

How could I forget it; twenty years before, a school nurse heard a murmur in Gwen's heart. Our family doctor and then pediatric specialists soon diagnosed a faulty aortic valve. Our parents were told that it wouldn't have immediate effects, but that in all probability it would shorten her life, possibly by decades. The solution was open heart surgery to replace and fix the valve.

It was early days for pediatric cardiology and nothing was a sure thing. There were risks, very serious risks, but our parents concluded that they really had no choice. Gwen had asked did I remember? How could I forget? How could I forget her frequent visits to specialists, her trip to the hospital, the quiet tension in our house during her surgery and days in intensive care after, and my parents tears when they were told that the surgery was entirely successful and recovery assured. I recalled the special treatment that my sister got when she came back home, the extra ice cream, the release from of all chores and jobs, my juvenile resentment at the special treatment she was getting. But that vanished very quickly when I saw her lying in her bed, sleeping hours longer than she normally did, her pallor very slowly disappearing as she recovered, color returning to her face.

Snapping out of my reverie, returning to the present, I said "yes, of course I remember, Gwen; who could forget? You made a full recovery, thank god, no residual effects."

"Well, that's where you're wrong. There was one residual effect." I was mystified by that; Gwen had resumed her normal life a few months after the surgery, fully recovered, I thought. She'd returned to her old self, resumed her role in the family, became very good at sports as she grew older. I could think of no residual effects and my questioning look told her so. "My scar, Josh, my scar. Remember it?"

I thought for a second, casting my mind back twenty years, remembering my sister in her bed, her surgical scar trailing below the hem of her pajama jacket. The only response I could muster now was "well, yes, but what...?"

She blushed now and said quietly "it's an ugly scar, Josh, there's no other word for it. The surgeons were heart surgeons, not plastic surgeons, and I was a little girl; their number one job was to fix my heart and save my life, not to dress me up and make their work look pretty."

"But...but..."

"And the older I got, the more I became aware of boys and the more boys became aware of me, the uglier it seemed. I was incredibly embarrassed if anyone saw even a bit of it. I learned nifty tricks to change in our team locker rooms with lightning speed. I often wore a second shirt under my team shirt, one that I didn't have to take off so that no one ever saw my scar."

I was shocked and saddened; shocked that Gwen had been so affected by something that never occurred to me, and saddened by the thought of how much living, really, she had missed, how much fun had never been possible, or had been avoided by her. My mind immediately offered counter-arguments. "How do you know this, Gwen? I mean, have you, well, you know, had experiences like that? That some guy dumped you because of that?"

"Early on, before I caught on and adapted, yes; a couple of times my dress or blouse was just a bit too low-cut. What other girls could use to attract boys I had to cover up."

"There must be some guy out there who wouldn't care, who'd love you as you are? Surely?"

"And how much effort, how many guys do you expect me to try before I find that guy? Maybe I should put a profile up on a dating site? '31 years old, brown hair, brown eyes...significant scarring'?"

I could see the pain in her eyes and I was sorry that my probing had caused it. We had always been close and in that moment I thought I could feel just a scintilla of her pain and that was more than enough for me. I was awed by how much she must be hurting. "So that's it? You're going to be, what, celibate the rest of your life? Gwen, you'd be a kind of a secular nun. You're far too beautiful, far too," and here I could feel myself coloring, "too sexy, Gwen. You've got the whole package, sis, and it would be a terrible fate if you missed out on all that love, hell, just sex, could give you."

"I'll have to take your word on that, Josh. I don't have any real experience to go by." And she looked away, to the fire, unable to meet my eyes. Again I could feel my heart sinking. I was old enough to know that life isn't always fair, but this seemed a monumental injustice; that because a 10 year old child needed life-saving surgery it meant that as a beautiful, sexy woman she'd be sentenced to a life of celibacy, forced by events, but not by nature, to be asexual. I simply couldn't process that and it seemed to me that somehow that injustice had to be rectified. But I had no idea how.

Usually after dinner one glass of wine was enough to accompany our conversations, but not tonight. I refilled our glasses and returned to my easy chair. I began to think past the unfairness, the screaming inequity of my sister's words. "Can I see it?" I asked.

Her head snapped up, her eyes shifting instantly from the fire. "What...my scar?"

"Well, yes; can you show it to me?"

"Well, obviously not the whole thing" and for once she almost laughed at the idea.

"Ok, a bit, then?" There was a long pause as her gaze returned to the fire, as she sipped her wine, clearly processing my request. Finally she put her glass down and reached up with both hands and pulled the neck of her sweater down a couple of inches. And there it was: the very beginning of her scar, a ridge perhaps three eights of an inch wide, beginning just below her collar bone. She held the sweater down, presumably thinking that the sight would add more than her words and convince me that she was right to choose a life without men, without sex, without love.

"Where is the other end?" I asked. There was an even longer pause as she released the collar of her sweater and took another sip of her wine. More time, more processing. Finally, decided, she sat up straighter on the couch and lifted the hem of her blouse and I could see the scar traversing her navel, seeming to continue below the waistband of her skirt. Gwen seemed to push herself back into the corner of the couch, seemed to draw her legs up closer beneath her, to me seemed like a frightened young animal, drawing back from a perceived threat.

"Let me see it," I said.

"I showed you, you've seen it," she replied, avoiding my eyes.

"All of it."

"What? Are you crazy? All of my..."

"Gwen, I love you. You can trust me; whatever I see, whatever you have won't change that a bit. You must know that. Maybe I'm the only man you'll ever let see all of it, but you know absolutely that that man, this man loves you unconditionally." With that I could see, almost hear, the battle going on inside her head, the conflicting thoughts, the years of careful avoidance of men's sight, fighting with the wish to be seen, to be appreciated. To be loved.

My side won. It took a few minutes, but finally she placed her wine on the table again, stared a long moment into the fire, and reached down, took the bottom of her sweater, and in one slow, sensuous, almost, movement pulled it over her head. And there it was: a scar running from her collar bone down across her sternum, disappearing beneath her bra, and down, down, down. Down across her midriff, her stomach, and navel, eventually disappearing beneath her skirt. I had seen scars now and again; recent, livid ones, small ones, neat ones, but never a scar this long. I wondered idly and irrelevantly if anywhere else on the body could accommodate such a long scar, as she seemed to want to demurely cross her arms across her chest, then dropping them slightly to her lap.

All lividity, which must have been its natural state twenty years ago, was long gone leaving a pale track down my sister's body. And just as Gwen had said, this was not the work of a plastic surgeon; this was the work of surgeons intent on getting to her heart as quickly as possible, fixing her valve, and retreating. She was right; their stitching reminded me of the stitches on a baseball.

We sat long, long moments now as she seemed to relax and adapt to her new state, virtually the first time she had uncovered herself to a man. Perhaps to mimic a relaxed, devil-may-care attitude or perhaps to actually help her relax, she took a deep drink of her wine. Noting her glass almost emptied, I again rose from my chair and filled her glass. On other occasions we were both conservative, cautious drinkers, even if neither was driving, but tonight I heard no murmur of dissent, no rebuffing of my offer. As I stood near her, consciously avoiding staring at her now near-naked body, I felt an aura of arousal somehow, something I could not recall feeling with any other woman. Mine or hers, I wondered, then, in my thoughts, "this is impossible. Gwen is my sister. I'm her brother," and returned to my seat, my glass also refilled. As I sat Gwen seemed to relax even more, one arm returning to her side, the other lifting her glass to her lips.

Her lips. It was like I had been looking at a black and white photo of my sister for thirty years and now saw her in brilliant color; her lips seemed the sexiest thing I had seen or felt in memory as they met her glass rim, were wetted by her wine, were moistened by the tiny pink tip of her tongue. I had had my fair share of the wine, yes, but I was far from drunk. Alarms were beginning to sound louder and louder in my head; this wasn't some beautiful woman I was seeing in a singles bar. This was my sister. This was the one woman, other than our mother, that I knew I truly loved. Now it was I who looked away; I had to, fearing that Gwen would, with a glance at my eyes, read my mind.

To break my train of thought, to act and distract myself, and perhaps to give a clear sign that this conversation was not over, I rose and placed another log on the fire, sat down and sipped my wine while we both watched it flame up and join the blaze. I sat and thought some more, thought about my first request to see Gwen's scar, how hesitant she'd been, how much it must have taken for her to then remove her sweater for me, despite how comfortable she now seemed in her corner of the couch.

Finally, "All of it," I repeated.

Her surprise was instant as her head snapped around, her eyes moving from the fire to me. "I've done that, I've shown you all..."

"No," I interrupted, "you haven't. A small part is still covered," and I let my eyes drop very slightly, now unmistakably focused on the bra covering her breasts. As any woman would, she understood my focus immediately and blushed, hers quickly catching up with my own blush.