I was in 5th grade, looking up at the transparent storage bins just barely fitting in the back of our

2008 Land Rover; a Tito’s bottle hid amongst wool sweaters, laundry detergent, a ratty pink

teddy bear, textbooks, and tampons. My sister was about to leave our little cottage on the Long

Island Sound, headed towards the rest of her life. I had just mastered how to do long division as

she entered college as a Biology major.

I was a ten-year-old ‘baby,’ though. She didn’t know how to pronounce my name, “Kyriaki”

when I was born, even though she was at the ripe age of 8 years old, so she just called me

“baby.” That evolved into babes, and thus the nickname’s final form developed into beabes. I

wasn’t a “’real person,” as she liked to phrase it. Not yet.

I remembered when she came back for the first time. I woke up to our foster dog yapping

downstairs, and she had appeared in our shared room the night before, long after my 9pm

bedtime. She asked me to borrow a sweatshirt; New York got cold at that time of year. How

could she have forgotten to pack a sweatshirt?

My arms found her body.

I was still in elementary school. I knocked on her closed door; that door remained shut for most

of high school. You couldn’t hear very much from the outside, just a slight murmur of existence,

perhaps. She had a Blue Devils sticker on it since I was born, like she couldn’t wait to get away

from home. From being the first of the three “Vasilopoulos sisters.” I would often knock on that

white door, only to be met with the typical “go away!” teenage angst response.

I was older now. I don’t really know who you are, she said. She was wearing a blue flowy top,

big silver hoop earrings; she had developed a new style, far from our mother’s hand-me-down

taste. We were in a decently sized group of people, which gave my sister the guts to joke about

1. She would never say this to my face. It was funny how little we knew about each other’s lives.

I found out she had a serious boyfriend from my mom. My sister found out about my 7th grade

“boyfriend” from snooping on my texts. She didn’t understand my humor; she didn’t understand

why I liked learning about stars more than anatomy.

Our conversations were awkward. Our interactions were filled with a void of absence. Silence.

Everyone always told us we looked similar. Like twins. Twins, yet she forgot about my

thirteenth birthday. How can you be twins with someone you barely know?

Once she was gone, everyone would always accidentally call me by her name. They would ask

me how she was. They looked at me and just momentarily wished the face they laid eyes on was

hers. Her shadow lingered, embracing me in its cool touch. Our blonde hair, our blue eyes, our

Greek nose.

She still calls me beabes. I’m in high school. Beabes, not Kyriaki. Beabes is still in 5th grade.

Beabes is still someone who she never got to know. Beabes would tattletale on her talking to

boys. Beabes still doesn’t have a real personality yet. A blank slate.

Kyriaki is promptly developing a taste for physics; She enjoys long distance running, she makes

people around her double over laughing. Kyriaki is fiercely independent; she doesn’t have a

sister to depend on, so she now depends on herself. She is no-longer just the baby sister;

Kyriaki’s hair is darker, and she wears a little bit more eyeliner. She is relaxed, and non-passive

aggressive. People do not forget her uniquely Greek name.

But, I remember how that white door would sometimes open. A long time ago. You would put

me on your lap, and we would watch youtube videos on your “big-girl computer” together.

Sometimes I return to that place, that little cottage on the Long Island Sound. I see you as the

quiet sculptor. Shaping me with your absence, with your invisible hands, leaving subtle imprints

on who I’ve grown to be; because, although you were not there, I was.