siblings

the glory and disaster

Another Murphy brother in the world, my sister and I having birthdays this month… I’ve got siblings on my mind. Specifically, the developmental benefits of low-dose, sustained cruelty. (Says the eldest.)

Lily was the greatest admirer I’ve ever had and I did not take her swooning for granted. I wielded my power by scaring her and telling her lies, such as: strawberry seeds are poisonous, except to those with antibodies, which I had and she lacked. I gave her a sharp-tipped knife and watched, stone-faced, as she picked out the seeds one by one.

When I was nine and she six, I ordered her to get me a bowl of Lucky Charms. I was shocked by her refusal. Normally, she did whatever she could to be in my company, especially in my room, which I’d just re-arranged by moving the wicker around and tidying so that it had a fresh, cozy appeal.

“Fine,” I said. “Then get out.”

“Fine,” she replied.

Someone had been teaching her to stand up for herself. I rolled my eyes. I really wanted the Lucky Charms, just not badly enough to walk downstairs.

“If you get me a bowl I’ll give you ten things from my room,” I said.

She looked around, her green eyes traveling beneath her cornsilk bob at the treasures on my shelves. She hurried off and came back with a giant bowl sloshing with cold milk. I told her to close her eyes and open her hand… into which I dropped ten, freshly-clipped toenails.

I howled at a Lauren Hough’s piece “Maybe we’re all only children now,” where she listed some zingers I wish I’d come up with, such as: “‘the other one may never come in. Some girls just get one boob.’” What a missed opportunity.

This long, close summer has made me appreciate my boys’ evolving dynamics. When Max was gone for two weeks at camp I discovered…he’s the problem! Quietly, subtly instigating all drama. Never forget, I’m in charge, he asserts, foot up to trip a hallway-racer. Augie makes peace for all—until he blows. I will be an angel until I rage and when I rage it will be the Rapture. Clyde plays the world’s tiniest violin, then beats his brothers in races or wiffle ball. Didn’t you hear the pediatrician say I’m going to be 6’3”? Y’all hovering at 50% on the growth charts. I watch them wield their cleverness and mischief. Whatever the result, I let them work it out. Sometimes I worry they’re too mean: then I remember how awful I was and how beatific I’ve become. 😇

Lily is a natural comedian and performer—one of three people who can still make me pee my pants. She recently explained that the only way she could keep me from bullying her was to do a 24-hour minstrel show. Her humor is preemptive self-defense, tailor-made to my taste. When I learned this I felt flattered and proud and also sorry for myself because I’m not especially funny. I never had to be.

Endowing Lily with a wicked sense of humor has occasionally backfired. When I got married, Lily was my Maid of Honor. There are about a dozen photos of me scowling through her speech as she told my elegant in-laws and their friends about the time I made her drink my pee. Hairdos and silk dresses rustled, heads turned—was this a joke? “I don’t care, I wouldn’t take it back,” my face seemed to say. “You deserved it.”

According to Hough, siblings are our best teachers. They wound and weather us just enough that we aren’t too fragile. In the most moving paragraph of her piece, she details what only children miss:

“…they’ve never learned to love their worst enemy, who eats cereal wrong, who does everything wrong. They never learned to take the blame to save someone who doesn’t need any more trouble. They don’t know how to end a fight just by sitting down in the same room and watching a show. They don’t know you can. They don’t know it’s over now. No one has to apologize. You were both being dicks…Never learned someone’s worst secrets and kept them. Never watched someone’s weakest moment and wiped it from their memory out of respect, because they watched yours too, and forgot.”

When I read this, I remembered the night I got caught in my boyfriend’s prep school closet when I came back for a weekend visit from college. I was there to play Parcheesi. I don’t know why I didn’t have a car.

“Lily,” I called from the sidewalk payphone after crawling out from under the school’s imposing, wrought iron gate. I stood under the foggy glow of an orange street lamp looking out at the boys’ dorm. All the windows were lit up after my discovery. “You have to come get me.”

“But I don’t have a license.”

“Forget about that. Driving is easy.”

And she came, in the misty dark. The ride of our lives.

I’ve so enjoyed comments on my weekly emails that I’m asking the whole crowd…

Gimme your sweet stuff, your edgy stuff, your innocence. How were you duped? What were your nastiest revenges? How did your sibling stand up for you? If you were an only child, what did you envy about your friends from Irish Catholic families?

Also, please wish Lily a happy belated…. This one’s for her. Maybe they all are.

Love you, Lil —

Isabel

PS: If you liked this, zip back up and tap the ❤️, forward it along & consider signing up for a weekly email. I’ll love you back, promise.

Lily & Augie, August 2023