Annie's Room by Jillian Law

Annie’s Room by Jillian Law

            I hesitate when I get to Annie’s door. I’ve never been welcome in my sister’s room before. More often than not, her door was closed. She could spend hours upstairs, her door closed, a clear signal that she wanted to be alone. I could never figure out what she did by herself all the time. Honestly, I didn’t really care.

            The door is open. Since she’s died, it’s been open. That must have been my mom. She took a dress and a pair of shoes out of Annie’s closet for the funeral. I don’t remember what they looked like. I don’t remember a lot about the funeral.

            I look around, still standing in the doorway. I can tell no one has been inside. It looks like Annie just dashed out for a moment. Like she has run off to class or to work or to hang out with any number of friends whose names I don’t know. God, why don’t I know any of their names?

Her bed is still unmade, pillows on the floor. Her laundry sits in a basket nearby, waiting to be taken downstairs. Dirty mugs line her windowsill, a habit that my mom hated and constantly complained about.

My mom hasn’t cleaned Annie’s room yet. I think she still hopes Annie will come back, that all of this will just be some nightmare, that Annie didn’t die in a car accident that no one can explain. I can’t blame her. I wish this was just a nightmare too.

I keep having to repeat the facts to myself. My little sister is dead. She was twenty years old. She was driving home late at night from class, and she veered off into a ditch. No one can explain why. She wasn’t drunk or high. There was nothing wrong with her car. Her friends said she seemed fine that day if not a little frazzled. But that was normal, they said, Annie was always frazzled.

I laugh to myself. Of course, Annie was always frazzled She was trying to graduate in three years instead of four. She was the smart one in our family: driven and focused and better than I could ever hope to be.

I was the fucked up one. I barely graduated high school. I didn’t go to college. I bounced around from one job to the next, never staying in anything too long. I drank a little too much. I wasn’t reliable. I wasn’t consistent. I was never the kind of big brother Annie could’ve looked up to. At least, not recently...

 I step through the doorway, looking around her room. It hasn’t changed the last time I was in it when she was in high school. Annie didn’t like any of us in her space and especially me. I lost the right to be in her room around the time I stopped knowing her friends’ names or what classes she was in.  

I glance at the walls. They’re still the light purple (or lavender as Mom and Annie corrected me) I helped Dad paint them when we moved into the house. Black and white posters of old Hollywood movies like Casablanca and Breakfast at Tiffany’s cover them. That had been my Christmas gift to her last year: hanging up all her framed posters. I didn’t have the money to get anyone a gift. I thought she’d be mad or disappointed, but she just smiled at me like I was doing her the biggest favor in the world.

I know that, if I lifted the poster of Audrey Hepburn to the left of her bed, I would see the wall completely mangled, paint and even dry wood torn up. There used to be silver stick-on stars there. Mom put them up for Annie when she was ten. One day, when Annie was eighteen, she tore them off the wall. At first, she just used her hands before switching a nail file. By the time she was done, her fingers were cut-up and bloody.

I never knew why she did that. Annie told Mom that she just couldn’t stand the sight of them anymore and had to get them off. Mom accepted this easily, but I always wondered. Ripping something off a wall in a manic rage was something I would do. It wasn’t really Annie’s style.

I wish she was here so I could ask her. When she was alive, I barely asked her anything. I didn’t ask her why she tore the stars off the wall or how school was or what bands she liked. I wasn’t interested in her world. We were strangers born to the same parents fifteen years apart.

To be honest, I thought I had more time. I thought I had time to get my shit together and for Annie to grow up and for us to be adults together. I imagined taking her out for her first drink or helping her move into her first apartment.

I should have had more time, but instead Annie veered right into a ditch one night going home from class on a clear October night. There was no rain, no snow, no other accidents that could have caused her to swerve. But she did, and now I could never ask her any of my questions.

Now, I can only scavenge her room for clues, gaining little insights from the knickknacks she surrounded herself with. I know she loved old movies from the posters on her walls. I know that she was an organized slob from how her dirty mugs lined her window sill in order from biggest to smallest.

None of these insights add up to the whole of who my sister was. They can’t. These things are not Annie, but they’re all she left for us. For me. It has to be enough.

I move towards her dresser and mirror. It’s the same white one she’s had since she was seven, the one that matches her bed and nightstand. It screams little girl, and I can tell she noticed. She tried to disguise the mirror with other things: quote magnets taped to the side, necklaces hanging across the top left curve, and ticket stubs from movies and concerts stuck on the mirror itself. I don’t recognize any of the bands, but I’m sure I heard her blasting them through her door.

I finger the necklaces, trying to remember if I saw her wearing any of them. I can’t recall if she had a favorite, but I do recognize her rosary mixed in amongst them. I remember when she got it for her First Communion. Someone gave it to her, maybe an aunt or cousin. Annie was very gentle with it, handling it like it was glass.

I’m surprised she still displayed it. I can’t remember the last time any of us went to church. I didn’t know if Annie still went. Maybe she did. Or maybe she just liked the sight of the rosary, a ward against evil amongst her long silver necklaces.

I wish I still believed in God. I know Mom does, and I think Annie did. But I don’t. I haven’t in a while, but especially now I just can’t. If there was a God, Annie would be alive, and I’d be dead. That’s how the Lord would want it, right? Perfect younger sisters get to live, and asshole older brothers die in car accidents.

On her dresser, there are four framed pictures: two on the left side of her TV and two on the right. The first one to the left is of her and three girls. I don’t know the other two girls, but next to Annie is her best friend Lydia. They’re all posing in long dresses, hair and makeup done “to the nines” as Mom would say. When was this? Her prom? Annie looked happy. In the picture, she’s wearing a floor-length red halter dress. Her hair is half up, half down, curled in the way I know took Mom hours. She had her arm around Lydia.

It looks like the camera caught her right after a laugh. There was a way Annie smiled when she was forced to take pictures: her smile tight and uncomfortable. Then there was a way she smiled when you caught her after a laugh: smile wide, nose scrunched up. I missed seeing that smile. I’m sure Lydia did too.

It’s hard to imagine Lydia without Annie. The two have been best friends since they were eight years old. Lydia is in all of Annie’s pictures, all of her best stories. In my head, Lydia is simply a short, red-headed extension of my sister: bright and funny and ambitious. She knew everything about Annie. I can’t imagine she doesn’t know why Annie did this.

The photo next to it is of Annie and another group of girls. I recognize none of them, but I easily spot my sister. They’re all in front of a Wonder Woman poster, posing like superheroes. Once again, they caught her mid-laugh, her hands forming finger guns. God, why don’t I know any of these girls? How many friends could she possibly have had? Why didn’t she call any of them that night?

On the right side of the TV are two pictures I’m more familiar with. One is of Mom, Dad, and Annie posing with Ariel at Disney World. Annie is little in it, maybe five or six years old. She’s grinning widely in the unselfconscious way she’d only do as a kid. Mom and Dad are both smiling, happy that Annie is happy. I don’t remember that trip. Maybe I wasn’t there. Maybe I was off somewhere drunk or high, convinced I was too cool for family vacations.

They’re all wearing Mickey Mouse ears. I laugh at the sight of Dad in Mickey Mouse ears. He would only do something so ridiculous for Annie. Both my parents doted on Annie, but Dad was the best version of himself with her. After all, she didn’t give him any reason to scream at her or lock her out of the house when she was out too late. Mom was in denial about Annie, but Dad? Dad had just lost all will to live.

I suck in a breath, reminded that Dad was upset because he was left with me. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to be left with me either. I feel like my parents could have been prepared to bury me. Once, Annie told Mom that she was afraid of getting a call that I had died one day at school. She didn’t know I could hear her.

I glance at the other picture. My own face stares back at me, Annie beaming next to me. My arm is around her waist. She’s in another fancy dress, and I’m wearing a tux. It must have been a family wedding. Maybe Mikey’s? I don’t remember, but I remember taking the picture. Annie hunted me down before I could reach the bar. She made Mom take seven before she was satisfied with one. I didn’t ask. Annie was like that. She liked taking pictures. She wanted to remember things. I never thought about how I was one of those things.

I walk past her dresser to the right side of her bed. God, there must be ten books piled on top of her nightstand. I can’t even figure out how she was able to turn off her lamp with knocking them over. I look down at the bottom and see twenty more books on the shelf under her nightstand. I’m not surprised. Annie read like she needed it to survive. She always had a book with her: on her phone, in her bag, or stored in her car. I scan the titles, trying to figure out how the books are organized. Annie loved to organize things so there must be a system to this.

I don’t know how much time I stand there, trying to figure it out. I can’t figure anything else out like why she died or who all her friends are or why she clawed those stars off her wall. I don’t know which Audrey Hepburn movie was her favorite. I don’t know when she went to any of those concerts or movies whose tickets decorate her mirror. I don’t know so much, but I want to figure this out, just this one thing. Maybe then, I’ll feel like I knew my sister.

“The ones on the nightstand are the ones she bought most recently.” I freeze. I turn around and see Lydia. She looks as wrecked as I feel. Her hair’s thrown into a sloppy bun, and she’s wearing yoga pants and a hoodie that looks vaguely familiar. Maybe Annie had the same one. Dark circles line her eyes, and I can tell she hasn’t been sleeping too. “The ones on the bottom are organized by genre.”

Lydia doesn’t hesitate at the doorway like I did. Instead, she breezes right in like she has every right to be there. Maybe she’s the only alive who does. How many nights did she spend lying on Annie’s bed, watching Netflix and doing homework? How many sleepovers and cram sessions and bad days did they share? Lydia probably remembers the evolution of this room better than I do. She probably knows the bands from those concerts and the girls in the photos.

She stands next to me. Her fingers dance along the spines of Annie’s stack of books, gently grazing them like Annie will appear and yell at her for touching.

“Annie was so anal about her books,” she says. “She always knew if you put one back wrong or out of place. It was like her spidey sense.”

I don’t say anything. Lydia looks at me. I try not to meet her eye. Her gaze is too fierce for someone ten years younger than me.

“Your mom said you’d be in here,” Lydia says, her eyes still trying to meet mine. “What are you looking for, Sam?”

I don’t know how to respond. What, do I tell Lydia that I’m trying to figure out my dead little sister? That I want to know why she died and what her life was like? That I was a bad big brother while Annie was alive, and now I wish I could make up for it?

            So I don’t say anything. For a minute, Lydia and I just stand in Annie’s room. I shiver, noticing that is cold. Mom must have turned off the heat upstairs. Even though it’s cold, I still have an urge to open a window. The air in the room is musty, reminding me that no one came in here anymore.

            Finally, Lydia speaks again. This time, she’s not trying to meet my eyes. Instead, her focus is on the framed picture of her and Annie. “I don’t think we’re going to understand why. I really don’t.”

            “You don’t know why?” I ask, finally meeting her eyes. God, Lydia looks tired. I may have buried my little sister, but Lydia also buried her best friend. This can’t be easy for her either.

            “No,” Lydia shakes her head. “I texted her earlier that day. I was coming home from campus that weekend. We made plans to go see a movie. She didn’t say anything. I didn’t know.”

            I don’t know what to say to that. Lydia knew Annie best, and if she doesn’t know why, would anyone? Suddenly, I feel foolish, like I was digging around for answers that didn’t exist. I wouldn’t find them in Annie’s room, and I wouldn’t find them with Lydia. The answers rested with Annie, who rested with our grandparents in the family plot.

            I make a decision. “Hey, want to get out of here?” I suggest to Lydia. “Get a cup of coffee or something?”

            Lydia agrees. We leave Annie’s room. I gently close the door, looking around one more time. Traces of my sister are there, but that is not the only place they live.

  

Traces of Annie live in Lydia, who takes me to the coffee shop she frequented with Annie. Both of them would drink Starbucks, she tells me, but they liked this place best.

She tells me stories of her and Annie, stories I have heard before and stories I didn’t know. She tells me about that prom night from the picture: how Annie later hated the hair style she chose, how they were the last group to leave prom, how Annie didn’t want to leave. She tells me about the first time she and Annie went a party: how Lydia got drunk and Annie freaked out because I had told her if she drank alcohol before she was twenty-one she would die.

I laugh. “I forgot I told her that. Annie used to believe everything I told her.” I pause. “I wish I had told her better stuff. Or just like, had been a better brother.”

Lydia smiles at me. “She loved you, Sam. That’s what matters.” Clearly, I don’t look convinced because she keeps talking. “She used to talk about you all the time. ‘Sam got a new job’ or ‘I wonder if Sam wants to see the new Halloween with me’. She never gave up on you. Not even for a second.”

I want to believe Lydia. I want to believe that my sister died thinking that I was a person who could get better, a brother who tried. I can’t know. Likely, I’ll never know. I don’t have the chance to be better with her, but I can be better.

“Did she ever tell you about the time we went to the Bahamas?” I know Lydia has heard this story, but I tell it anyway. It was our first and only major family vacation, and it was ill-fated from the start. We missed our first flight. The airline lost our luggage. I spent more of the trip sneaking into casinos than bonding with my family. I don’t remember how Annie liked it, but I do remember this.

On our last day, we went out on a banana boat, a tube shaped like a banana tugged by a little boat. The water that day was choppy and unpredictable. As the boat started going faster, we hit more waves. Then, at the same time, Mom and Dad went flying off. Annie screamed. She was nine, maybe ten, and she probably should have flown off too, but I hung onto her. I grabbed her hands and kept her on that raft. The whole time, I could feel her shaking.

Eventually, the boat stopped and went back for our parents. Dad wanted to finish out the ride so he stayed on, but Mom went to sit in the boat. Usually, Annie followed Mom, but she wouldn’t get on the boat until I did too. She held my hand the entire way back.

Maybe that was the last minute I was a good big brother. It’s a sad record considering it was almost over a decade ago, but that is the person I want to be: someone who hangs on tight and keeps someone from going overboard.

I like to believe Annie thought I was still that person. More importantly, I want to be that person. After all, I have time, and she doesn’t. I owe Annie that much, I’ll try to become that person, little by little, until I remember what it feels like again.

In the meantime, though, I’ll hold the pieces of my little sister I have close: the little girl who clung to me for safety, the girl who ripped the stars off her wall, the best friend who made Lydia laugh over frappuccinos, and the reader who stacked twenty books on top of her dresser. In the meantime, that will have to be enough.