Sisterly Love is a serialized novel. To savor the full narrative experience, start at the beginning and work through the chapters in order. You can find chapters on the Home page or in the Archive.
CHAPTER 33
Sydney, Australia
The leader of the Dykes on Bikes slapped the fish-netted thigh of her pillion passenger, who climbed off the Harley Davidson. Then she swung her leg over the bike, lightly skimming the saddlebag with her Dr. Martens boot. Behind her, the cold-blooded revving of the pack crescendoed. She raised an open palm in the air and took her eyes to the onlookers at the barricade. Only after the last machine coughed and sputtered to silence did the leader of the Dykes on Bikes extend a hand to the President of the Gay Pride Organizing Committee, who was waiting nearby.
From her position atop the double-decker bus, Summer watched the film crews and photographers close in around the couple. A light breeze carried the click, click, clicking of the cameras toward her. She strained to listen to the conversation. She felt certain she heard the leader of the Dykes on Bikes use the word ‘pinkwashing.’
“Does it look like we’re going to get a happy ending?” said April, approaching from behind.
Summer tried to twist around, but her costume restrained her.
“What would a happy ending look like?” she called, unclipping the papier-mâché corset and wriggling out of the Mermaid’s confined space.
“Times have changed,” said April. “It wouldn’t hurt to give someone else a go; the Dykes on Bikes have started the parade since 1972.”
“I don’t disagree. But I’m not so sure the prime spot should go to the highest bidder,” Summer said, standing up.
With both hands, she took hold of her heavy wig then carefully edged around the train of jet-black hair that extended all the way down her back to twice her height. She tiptoed along the edge of the purple fishtail that rose and fell like a wave along the length of the upper deck, its caudal fin flicking high into the air and off the end of the bus, then eased herself onto a scaly hump.
April passed Summer a beer. She narrowed her eyes toward the scene on the ground.
“They might have settled it,” she said, nodding toward the President of the Gay Pride Organizing Committee who was fondling his handlebar moustache.
“That’s a sign?” Summer asked, guzzling her beer.
“No. But I’m willing to bet that leather-clad Amazonian is gonna thump him any minute now.”
Summer smirked and wiped away the little beads of water that had rolled off the bottle and onto her knees.
“If they were the Bros on Bikes,” Summer said, “the organizing committee would’ve backed down before it came to this.”
“I dunno about that,” said April. “Equality exists in some universes. You’re living proof of it: the drag queens would never have given a lesbian pride of place on their float.”
Summer raised an eyebrow, “We both know that I’m only here because none of you blokes could fit into the tiny space your sponsor built for the mermaid!”
“Now, now,” said April. “There’s no need to be a bitch.”
April took a slug on her beer and scanned the placards below.
“It’s good to see the Muslims here again this year,” she said.
“God is a Dyke,” Summer read, nodding toward the Church Ladies placard. “They’ve come all the way from New York City.”
April pointed to a butch man wearing bright red pumps and waving a sign that read: Dorothy Left Kansas for a Reason! “Ain’t that the truth,” she exclaimed.
The Roman God Bacchus suddenly cried out and ran squealing toward the barricade. He wore a diaper and carried a giant wine bottle that read: “Be Happy and Gay!” Summer remembered him from her first Sydney Gay Pride. He had marched in the Chinese Queers entry with her and Frankie.
All of a sudden, the crowd began to cheer and the Dykes on Bikes started revving their engines again.
“Righto, Ariel,” said April,” I’d better get back downstairs, looks like we’ll be underway shortly.”
“Ariel?” Summer said.
“Isn’t that The Little Mermaid’s name?”
“She had no name. She was just The Little Mermaid.”
“Well, it says Ariel on the front of the bus.”
“That’s the Disney mermaid,” said Summer. “She lived happily ever after. The real mermaid kills herself.”
“Darling, you’re so dark,” said April.
“No, I’m serious! The original version of the story is a tragedy,” said Summer. “The Little Mermaid suffers for love and then she dies.”
“That’s too morbid,” said April, adjusting her Medusa hair.
“Whereas, Ariel,” Summer continued, “was squeaky clean; the quintessential good girl.”
“Well, that won’t do either,” said April. “How about you just sit there, look pretty and shut up.”
“Aye aye, Madame Sea Witch!” Summer saluted.
Summer inched back toward the papier-mâché rock and adjusted herself on the feather pillow she had brought along for the four-hour ride. She heard the music start on the lower deck. Slowly the bus merged onto Oxford Street and settled into its place in the procession that was now snaking up the parade route.
Summer studied the spectators. There seemed to be more families than in previous years. Perhaps April’s right. Attitudes are shifting, Summer thought. She smiled inwardly then, recalling April’s earnestness when she had said this earlier—the sentiment bore no resemblance to the April who, for as long as Summer had known her, denounced the institution of family, believing it a global conspiracy to oppress differences and normalize misery. April had been almost evangelical in her conviction after she, Summer, returned from the United States, shaken and unable to accept the situation she had encountered there. That was nine months ago, but Summer still felt the slap of truth in April’s words.
“There’s blood and there’s family,” April had told Summer. “Don’t confuse them; they’re not the same thing.”
Her fierceness had surprised Summer—even though she was accustomed to April’s complaints about the way society lifted ‘family’ to a god-like position, then refused to accept responsibility for the crimes inflicted on those ‘loved ones’ who upset the delicate balance of family life—and she complained to Frankie.
“She comes at me as if this myth about family should have been obvious to me all along,” Summer said.
“She probably just feels that you’re not doing the right thing by yourself,” Frankie offered, conjuring up her own alarming memory of Summer in the airport arrivals hall, distressed, confused, enraged—the image remained fresh in Frankie’s mind to this day.
In the weeks that followed her return home, Summer talked at Frankie incessantly; rapidly sharing her thoughts as she followed her around the apartment lobbying her to accept theories that might explain Rose’s behavior toward Summer: her sister’s isolation; her understandable fearfulness; the impossible standards she set for herself. And when, one after another, her arguments collapsed from an absence of reason, Summer’s voice would trail off and she would succumb to despair; default to an obsession about what she believed to be “the real tragedy”: her sister’s willingness to give up a dream she had worked toward for her entire life.
“...and for what?” Summer angrily demanded.
Frankie listened mostly, occasionally attempting to give shape to the inexplicable obscurity that was Summer’s loss; a grief that Summer could not explain and that Frankie struggled to understand. What was clear to Frankie was the senseless suffering of the woman she loved; it was this that concerned her most. And one morning, Frankie appeared in the living room where Summer had taken to spending her days, gazing out across the bay.
“It’s time to forgive.” Frankie said.
Summer kept her back to Frankie, and Frankie spoke deliberately, reminding Summer that forgiveness is not reconciliation but a gift to herself. Then she said that the resolution Summer craved was possible but only if Summer was willing to make a decision.
“A decision that would secure not your sister’s freedom,” Frankie clarified, “but your own.”
“Sisterhood is real,” Summer said, turning to Frankie.
“Yes,” Frankie agreed, seeing Summer’s fear. “As real as powerlessness.”
The bus approached the fairground and slowed. Summer turned her thoughts to Frankie, who she supposed would be packing for London. She imagined her laying out her clothes on her bed in neat piles; her shoes lined up on the floor waiting to be transferred into individual cloth bags before being fitted like a jigsaw among the garments in her suitcase. She used to tease Frankie about her neatness but now she saw that Frankie’s peculiarities were the things she loved about her. She was sorry Rose had not wanted to get to know Frankie.
The bus came to a halt at the end of a row of floats. She unclipped her costume and clambered onto the deck, stretching to relieve her stiffness. From her bag, she withdrew a water bottle and guzzled thirstily, spilling the liquid down her front. It splashed over the fish tail and glistened. Instinctively Summer crouched and wiped away the puddle. On the parched wooden floor, she punched three dots in a triangle with a dampened finger and, as was her habit, mentally recited Descartes’s principle: I think, therefore I am—a practice she acquired after learning the math symbol, the shorthand for ‘therefore’, in college. She paused then and asked herself why she did this. But like many of the idiosyncrasies that constitute Summer O’Flynn, she had no answer. It’s not important, she decided, climbing off the bus. She glanced toward the stadium, where April and her friends had already pushed through the turnstiles into the festival. But Summer was in no mood to party, and she moved in the opposite direction, toward the gates.
+
A horn sounded as Summer flew across the road, oblivious to the traffic traveling in both directions. Her eyes were fixed on the scroll and the gilded acanthus leaf draped over the pillars on the iron carriage gates. Sweeping into the parklands, she veered to the right along the pedestrian walkway. Her flowing ivory gown briefly caught on the sandstone as it brushed the pillar. Overhead a screech owl beat its heavy wings erratically. An updraft carried it over the treetops toward the heavens—grrurrrr-gogogogogo. Summer gave no indication she was any more aware of the rapid trill than she was of the breeze toying with the halo of daisies that crowned the silky black mane spilling down her back. She moved ghost-like along the boardwalk toward the sculpted figures of a swooning nun and an angel. Without stopping, she swerved onto a yellow gravel path that led to a canopy. She ignored the ugly entrails cascading from the body of the nun and the expression of agony as the angel thrust his sword into the nun’s heart. In the Garden of Crede Deo, she paused and surveyed her dominion, which was pleasing to her sight. In it were willow trees and rose bushes and every living creature that moved: fish in ponds and grazing cattle, lions, and winged fowl, and creeping things. She saw that it was good. Under an apple tree, a gentle man with a beard crouched like a child. Before him stood a small army of little clay soldiers lined up, as though waiting to receive their orders. On his face he wore an expression of intense concentration that intermittently broke into pleasure as his hands skillfully fashioned each new figurine. He did not look up, and Summer pressed onwards, lashing at the dense foliage. Twine reached for her, clutching, clasping, releasing; giant roots sprung up then receded as she navigated the arid land. Presently she reached a clearing where a man with shoulder length auburn hair reclined on a bed of flax beside an open fire. He reached for her and she drew near, laying down beside him and taking his face in her hands. She ran her fingers through his wavy hair, she kissed his eyes, his nose, his checks, her lips touched his, and they parted. She pushed her tongue deep into him, eager to taste the sweetness of his breath then pressing her body to his, she began to rock, thrust, a gentle rhythmic movement that grew more urgent. Her hand reached for him beneath the large leaf that barely covered his erectness, he raised the folds of her gown and parted her legs, then swiftly he was upon her. With equal strength she rejected him, and he fell into the dust of the earth. She straddled him and began again to thrust, but he seized her, threw her to the ground and mounted her. She brought up her knees and took his head between clawed feet. He uttered a guttural cry and began to strike at her with his fists; her fingers found his throat and she began to squeeze, but it was not his throat she clasped; this skin was soft, smooth, the hands that scratched at hers fighting for life, were slim, small, the flayed fingers elegant, feminine. She looked into the green eyes, glassy, fixed, and her heart overflowed with love as she pressed her thumbs into the seat of the voice, pushing until no breath remained. Her wings carried her high into the Huluppu tree. She wound her cold, scaly body around the trunk and emitted a howl. Then she flew beyond the firmament where there was neither darkness nor light to where angels greeted her. Thunder crashed and lightening flashed. Once more she howled.
Summer awoke from her dream with a start. She sat up and brought her hand to her throat. Beside her, Frankie stirred and reached under the covers. Slowly Summer spooned back into Frankie. She ran a finger down Frankie’s spine then brought her lips to Frankie’s smooth, soft flesh, lightly brushing against the layer of down as she inhaled. A surge of arousal came, and she gently began to thrust back and forth, back and forth. Frankie murmured and reached for Summer’s hand, bringing it between her legs then sliding it up to her breasts then to her lips where she caressed then kissed the ring on Summer’s finger.
THE END