[In the style of Eddie Reader] My sister Teen kept hairpins everywhere. In coat pockets, between cookbook pages, lined carefully along the bathroom sink like tiny silver fish waiting for water. Every morning she opened the curtains with the same small tug of her wrist, fed crumbs to sparrows from the back step, often barefoot, even in the snow, then, she'd stand at the stove stirring porridge while the radio muttered weather reports to itself. She read old mystery novels and Mills and Boon with folded corners, kept peppermint candies in her drawers, pressed flowers between telephone directories and Yellow Pages after all, nobody opens them anymore. Her sewing basket always smelled faintly of lavender and her perfume. As children, I watched her comb her hair before school, watched her polish school shoes with Cherry Blossom, brushes going swish, watched her write grocery lists in looping blue ink for mum, milk tea soap biscuits for visitors She remembered every birthday without calendars. Remembered where photographs were hidden. Remembered the sound of our mother singing upstairs, Mario Lanza, or Val Donegan, depending on the day and rain tapped in time against the windows. Years moved around her slowly at first. Reading glasses appeared beside the kettle. Labels appeared on cupboard doors. Names drifted out of conversations like boats slipping loose from docks at night. She began reheating the same cup of tea three times each afternoon. One evening I found her standing in the hallway holding a house key in her palm as though it belonged to someone else. The garden she once trimmed so neatly grew wild around the edges. Letters stayed unopened on the table. Family stories lost their endings midway through telling. Still, some habits survived. She folded dish towels perfectly. Smoothed wrinkles from blankets with careful hands. Hummed old tunes while buttoning cardigans. She dressed everyday as if preparing for that trip to Paris, she never had. She'd touched the spine of every book she passed as if greeting old friends. And sometimes she would smile suddenly at something invisible, a child’s bicycle bell perhaps, or the ghost of Sunday mornings still echoing somewhere inside her. The blue teacup near the sink remained untouched for days. Dust gathered softly on its handle. And I would sit with her, wondering, Today, will she remember my name, if somewhere beneath the drifting fog, behind forgotten names and vanished rooms, my sister still recognized the girl she used to be. Did she notice the changes her dementia brought her. Did she ever notice what's gone? What she lost.
