Human Sister

carefully, you won’t be able to see Grandpa and Grandma walk through it.”
    I knew Michael was eager to meet Elio, so I tried to hurry through a tour of the yard. But Elio wanted to take photographs to send to Aunt Lynh of the deck’s magnificent view: the tree-lined drive, the winery, the ribbons of vines coursing up and over and down the vineyard hills. Then, back down in the yard, he asked to see his father’s gravestone, beside which daisies and lavender blue asters bloomed. The dark gray granite, polished on one side, was inscribed:

    MARCUS BRIAND
    For thirty-one years, a beloved man:
    husband, father, brother, best
    friend, student, and uncle.
    We who live miss you.

    “Tell me,” Elio said, lightly squeezing my hand, “what you remember about the day Pa’s ashes were buried here.”
    “I was only five at the time, and though I remember what happened, I didn’t understand the ramifications until much later. It was nearing sunset. Grandma said we were going to bury Uncle in a beautiful place at the edge of our garden, a place that Uncle especially liked. She and Grandpa took me out into the yard to wait for Mom, Dad, and First Brother to arrive. Mom and Dad lived in Berkeley at the time with my two brothers, but First Brother was my only brother who ever came here to visit.
    “Dad looked sad when he opened the car door. He hugged and kissed me softly. Mom cried. I felt her tears on my cheek. First Brother, who didn’t look sad at all—he had trouble expressing emotions—carried the granite gravestone. I asked where Uncle was. Dad opened the backseat door and lifted out a terra-cotta urn. I asked if Uncle was inside. Dad nodded. I asked to see. He lifted the lid. Nothing there resembled Uncle. Then, while the rest of us watched in silence, Dad dug a hole. He wiped tears from his eyes with the back of his hand as he worked, streaking his cheeks with dirt. When the hole was large enough, he placed the urn in it.”
    Elio was staring wistfully at the inscribed stone, probably remembering the father he missed but never spoke much of to me after I’d told him how Uncle had died. I caressed Elio’s cheek with my fingers and continued: “Grandpa began to say something, probably something from his favorite Stoic, Epictetus, but Mom cut him off, saying, ‘I don’t want any words.’
    “Grandpa nodded. Dad shoveled loose dirt back into the hole and, with First Brother’s help, placed the granite stone on top of the hole. By then the stone had become covered in shadow. I looked behind us, over there.” I turned and pointed toward the west. “The sun was about to dip below those hills, and I remembered Grandma once telling me that night doesn’t fall, as if from the sky; it rises like mist from lowlying pools of shadow and flows out from hills and trees, quietly ascending as it snuffs out light.”

    Elio and I stood naked in front of Gatekeeper 3. “Only Sara may enter,” a deep voice commanded.
    “I’ll enter first,” I responded. “Then, after I’ve passed, please admit and examine Elio.”
    The door to the examination chamber opened. I stepped forward. The door whooshed shut behind me.
    “Are you certain he is the one Grandpa calls ‘Elio’?” Gatekeeper asked in its deep masculine voice.
    “Yes.”
    The door to level 3 opened. Michael stood in the antechamber, looking relaxed in his kimono. He, like me, had never worn anything except underpants in those warm and comfortable rooms. Grandpa and Grandma, on the other hand, had always worn kimonos that normally hung in the little antechamber in front of Gatekeeper’s door. For Elio’s arrival, the issue of what to wear had been resolved conservatively in favor of underpants plus kimono for each of us.
    I hugged and kissed Michael. Then, as practiced, Michael walked around the side of the antechamber so he wouldn’t see Elio until Elio had dressed.
    I dressed, and soon Elio stepped through Gatekeeper’s door.
    “Welcome!” I said, holding underpants in one hand and a kimono in the other. “These are for you to wear.”
    “Are we in the top-security area?” he asked, taking the underpants.
    “Yes.”
    “Is it safe to talk about everything now?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then where’s Michael?” He pulled up his underpants.
    “On the other side, around the corner,” I answered.
    Before I could say more or stop him, Elio dashed out of the antechamber. Already things aren’t going as planned, I thought as I ran after him, still