***
Caroline hung back, shuffling her feet and waiting impatiently for Regan to invite her inside. That was the rule: no entering bedrooms without an invitation. Regan called it the Vampire Rule.
“Caroline, I’m really busy,” Regan said, eyes glued to her laptop.
Caroline groaned.
Click click clack click clack.
Caroline cleared her throat, creeping closer and closer to the bedroom doorway until her toes jutted over the threshold.
“You’re breaking the rule,” Regan said, eyeing her sister from her periphery.
“Please, Regan,” Caroline begged.
“Oh, for God’s sake. Come in,” she huffed, closing her laptop.
Ten-year-old Caroline darted inside and jumped onto Regan’s bed, belly first, landing like a limp ragdoll. She exhaled a dramatic sigh.
“Exhausting day?” Regan asked.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Caroline replied.
“Do share.”
Regan walked to her nightstand and pulled out her brush. She knew the drill and settled beside Caroline, who immediately nestled her head in her sister’s lap. Regan brushed her dishwater blond locks.
“Well,” Caroline began, “I had P.E. this morning.” She glanced at Regan and then clarified: “We have P.E. every Tuesday and Thursday.”
“Uh huh.”
“And I was picked last for basketball teams.”
Regan bristled. “Why didn’t the teacher split the teams?”
Caroline shrugged.
“Stop shrugging,” Regan demanded. “God, that’s so freaking annoying.”
Caroline growled. “Fine. I don’t know why Mrs. McMillan didn’t pick the teams. All I know is that I was picked last, and it sucked.”
Regan ran her fingers tenderly through her sister’s fine hair. Still baby soft. Just like Caroline’s heart.
“It’s hard being picked last for teams,” she said gently.
“How would you know? You’re good at sports. You were probably picked first all the time.”
“Not true,” Regan countered. “I was always one of the last ones because of my size.”
“Hmm.” Caroline was quiet for a moment, thinking. “And then I guess you showed them!”
“Eh, not so much. I didn’t get really good until sixth grade or so.”
“I’ll never be good at basketball. It doesn’t mean I should be passed over like I don’t matter.”
Wow. And at ten years old. Regan wasn’t sure what to say.
“Okay, who do I need to beat up?”
Caroline giggled. “Sam and Teensie.”
“Hold up. There’s a girl in your class named Teensie?”
“Yep. It’s her nickname.”
“I can totally take her,” Regan replied.
Caroline buried her face in the mattress and laughed hard.
“You always wanna beat people up!”
“I know. I’m aggressive. I don’t know where I get it from.”
“Mom.”
“Ha ha. Don’t tell her that.”
“Remember the wasp?” Caroline asked.
An instant vision of Mrs. Walters annihilating a wasp that had flown in through the chimney flue flashed in her brain. The brandishing of her mother’s tennis shoe was amusing. The explanation her mother gave after she’d splattered the insect was scary: “Regan,” she panted, “there’s a difference between killing something and murdering it.” Regan never forgot those words, or the image of that pile of slightly twitching red and black mush.
“Oh my God, you’re right,” she whispered to Caroline. “I do get it from Mom.”
“Don’t worry. It’s better to be aggressive anyway,” Caroline replied.
“How so?”
“Aggressive people get what they want,” Caroline explained.
Regan’s eyebrows shot up a second time.
“Well, they do,” Caroline insisted, noting her sister’s expression. “They get picked first for basketball.”
Regan sighed and conceded her sister’s point. “They get picked first for everything. It’s obnoxious.”
Silence fell as Regan continued brushing Caroline’s hair.
“You can come in my room whenever you want,” Caroline said after a moment. “You don’t need permission.”
“Huh?”
“I just mean that I don’t care if you walk in without me saying you can.”
Regan considered this. “No.”
“No?”
Regan shook her head.
“Why not?”
“Boundaries.”
“Boundaries,” Caroline echoed.
“I know I’m your sister, so our relationship is different. Special. But we still need boundaries, Caroline. It wouldn’t be right for me to walk in without permission.”
“But I’m telling you it’s okay.”
“Nope. You can’t put a blanketed statement on all my future visits to your room.”
“Huh?”
“I need permission each time.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the right thing. What isn’t right is barging into someone’s personal space uninvited. You may decide one day that you need alone time, and then what would happen if I walked right in? Like I owned your room? That’s not very fair, is it?”
Caroline frowned. “I guess not.”
“We always need to respect each other’s spaces. That comes first. Always. It keeps people from getting their feelings hurt. Or getting angry. Or feeling like someone did something to them that was unethical.”
“Unethical?”
“Immoral.”
“Huh?”
Regan smiled. “Wrong.”
“Ohhhhh.”
The girls were quiet for a moment.
“Hey,” Regan said suddenly. “Listen up.”
“Yeah?”
“You can be good at whatever you want. Don’t say you’ll never be good at basketball. If you want to play, train. Practice all the time. You can master whatever you want.”
“But I don’t care about basketball,” Caroline replied.
“Oh.”
“I just care about people making me feel badly for not caring about basketball.”
Regan smiled. “Oh.”
Silence.
“Why did you stop brushing my hair?” Caroline asked.
“Oh, whoops. Sorry,” Regan replied, and went back to work.