Page 2 of Things I Read About

I hop off the lift and start my wide zig zag across the mountain. After a few minutes I realize I was wrong. I do notice Skye’s absence. Hm. I’m often teased about being an introvert but I’m just quiet. The two are not the same. As the youngest of five girls, I enjoy a bit of loving chaos around me. Big crowds, small groups, it’s all fine.

It’s the communication part that trips me up. Since I was thirteen. Or actually, that’s just when I became more self-aware.

I squint my eyes at the bright snowy light, or perhaps at the memory.

Standing in our kitchen, Gran said, “Your mother loves this dress on you. I bet she’s smiling ear to ear right now.”

I replied, “Mom can’t smile, Gran. She’s dead.”

My grandmother burst into tears and ran away. Literally. She ran from me, stacked charm bracelets jingling on her wrist like she was one of Santa’s reindeer.

I didn’t want to talk about that incident with anyone in my family, because there was a lot of crying back then. Our mom was the heart of our family and my dad’s whole world, even more so than the family greeting card empire he inherited from Grandpa. She’d just been hit by a drunk driver on one of her early morning runs. No warning, just gone… like the power line to our family’s whole existence had been cut.

So, I read. And I read. And I read. Everyone in my life says I’m so much like my mother. But she was obsessed with bones. World-renowned orthopedic surgeon and so on.

I’m a brain girl. The brain itself, the mind-body connection, psychology, neurology, biology, all of it. My piano obsession only expanded after I read about how reading and playing music lights up different parts of the mind.

All my reading also helped me understand my obsessive tendencies. And my propensity to blurt out obvious conclusions. I’ve never been tested, because of the suffocating hubbub that would’ve ensued, but I am not neurotypical. Where I fall on the wide spectrum is unclear, because I’ve been masking and self-editing for so long.

Should I be in therapy? Yes.

Would that—asking to go to a therapist—have sent my entire family into an oh-no-little-Sally-is-not-okay-we-must-save-Sally tailspin? Also, yes.

It’s fine. I read enough to keep up with any therapist worth their salt anyway.

Worth their salt.

That’s a solid idiom. I read that it comes from Roman times. The Latin word salarium, which is the origin of the word salary, literally means salt money. Historians aren’t sure if they were actually paid in salt or used their pay to buy salt. I snort to myself, thinking about Roman soldiers all geared up in gold armor carrying big white bags of Morton’s salt.

I laugh again, noticing I’m standing at the end of the ski trail, staring at the vista and thinking about idioms. I realize, now that I’m coming back to reality, that two people have asked me to move out of the way.Whoopsie.

I also realize I made it down that blue track like a champion. I need to tell my sisters I’ve graduated past the greens. I’m not actually still-thirteen like they seem to think, frozen forever in time due to grief.

It’s fine, Sally.

Their over-protection is a natural human response to trauma. It’s also why I had my bright idea for the rest of this week.

Bright is an understatement.

It’s blinding.

My siblings are leaving.

So my girl squad is arriving.

And I am going to cease being Sally Canton, brainy little sister, and start really living. Black diamond slopes, hot strangers, questionable decisions. Look out Park City because here I come.

2

“Girls niiiiiiiight!” Samantha squeals as we meet in the gleaming lobby.

“Must you sing-song everything like that?” Skye sighs at her, acting exasperated but smiling wide.

Sam laughs. “I must!”

We are all sparkling and shining in the small space. My sisters look glamorous, even Susan, who tends to go for the corporate look. I, on the other hand, look… short. Young. Lame.

My sisters tease that I got all the curves for the whole family. Unfortunately, they got all the height. Even in the sky-high heels I wear on nights like these, I always feel a little dumpy.