MY THERAPISTS ALL AGREED I was a textbook compartmentalizer: I coped with people and problems in my life by keeping each in a separate box. This strategy struck me as clever and sound. I didn’t grasp right away that they were describing a disorder. I was skeptical of mental-health professionals in general, having worked for years in human resources, attending retreats where my colleagues and I debated the most efficient way to gather pine cones. But OK. I paid these people (except for the one appointed by the court), and they seldom agreed on anything. So I thought, This one I should look at. I decided to start writing letters to myself — get the compartments talking to one another:

Dear Gilda [I’m named after my grandmother, a name and person hated by me],
     I hope you don’t find it presumptuous, my writing to you. In the time I have known you, you have made some difficult choices, and though you often choose poorly, you do so with fervor, gusto, and a third word I can’t think of right now. You have your moments. Only last week a salesgirl failed to ring up a hat you wished to purchase. You could’ve walked off with it. The hat was yours for the taking. Instead you pointed out the error, and only when the smug whore got smugger did you stroll with the item. This hat, by the way, does not look good on you. Stop wearing it. As Grams used to say, “All things are not available to all people.” True, she often said this after having cut a pie into too few pieces, but I wish today to reimpart this knowledge to you, from you. Your sister suffers, as we all do. Remember this. Be decent when you can.

THE TROUBLE WITH SAM started with an ear infection. The doctor prescribed medicated drops, but when Fawn got Sam into the bathroom with the dropper, she would have none of it. I don’t know any children myself to compare her to, but Sam seemed to me inordinately large for a five-year-old. So when the two of them went at it — wrestling over the sink — my sister went down, toppling into the tub on her keister, elbow jogging the faucet as she went. Water drummed her face while Sam hovered over her, cold and demonic. “And stay the fuck off me, you slut-fuck,” she said.

“That’s just the part I’ll repeat,” Fawn whispered to me over the phone. “You’ve never heard the language comes out of that kid’s mouth.”

I couldn’t tell if she was furious or crying. “Where are you?”

“I’m under the kitchen table till I can figure where the little bitch went to.”

I suggested she find the girl and sedate her, but Fawn refused. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about crushing Valium in her fish sticks, but she’s not mine yet. They can still take her away, you know, whether this stuff’s my fault or not, because no one cares whose fault it is.”

“Whose fault what is?”

“Shit just happens, OK? You’re not a mom; you don’t know. But if you’re the one holding the bag when the shit comes down, you’re standing in the rain with a fistful of flowers.”

What shit had to do with the flowers, I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t like the way she sounded. That weekend I drove up. As I got out of my car, a little girl stopped me and asked if Sam could come out and play. The girl had frizzy red hair and a rash of orange freckles that made her look filthy instead of cute. She was holding a tennis ball frothed over with dog slobber. She said, “Sam wanted to French-kiss me. Then she put her tongue in my ear and tried to hump me.”

When I went inside, Sam came out of the dining room holding a brush dripping bright green paint. It dashed down her knee onto the new beige carpet. “Hi, Aunt Gilda. Mom’s nursing a hangover, and I’m painting.”

Fawn came up behind her holding a ceramic cupid with bright green lips.

“There’s a girl out there looking for Sam,” I said.

The two exchanged a look. My sister said, “Red hair? Freckles?” Then to Sam, “Hon, get me the phone. I’ll call her mom.”

While Sam was out of the room, Fawn explained that the girl was a lesbian and unable to keep her hands to herself. “She’s not supposed to come around here. She got caught making out with Dougie down the street.”

“I thought you said she was gay.”

“So she’s bi.”

“Isn’t everyone bi when they’re five?”

“Whatever. She’s bad news. Let me clean up, and we’ll talk.” She started toward the bedroom. I followed, though it was always pain and agony, what went on in there — Fawn slithering around on the sheets, telling me things I wouldn’t tell a gynecologist. “Stop me if this gets too graphic,” she’d say. These infatuations, they never lasted. They were silly, narcissistic games disguised as mutual admiration. Always they ended with hate mail or the guy doing doughnuts in his Camaro in Fawn’s front yard.

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