Human Sister

holding his kimono in my hand.
    “Hi,” Elio said, and he and Michael hugged—flawlessly.
    “Hi! I’m so thankful to meet you,” Michael replied with equal enthusiasm, a response more relaxed and genuine sounding than any during our many practice sessions.
    When I offered Elio his kimono, he replied that it was so comfortable in this area that he didn’t need one, and Michael readily agreed. I hung all three kimonos back in the antechamber, then watched the two of them, hardly able to believe how well their first meeting was going. Michael, who for weeks had agonized and fussed over every conceivable detail of their meeting, seemed completely at ease and improvised masterfully. He took Elio on a tour of the hydroponic garden, including an unscheduled discussion of the air scrubbers and the recycling system that lasted over half an hour, even though our well-practiced tour had never taken more than eight minutes. Finally, I had to interrupt because Elio and I were expected to begin greeting guests in the banquet hall at 1800 sharp. But, first, Elio wanted to see the bedroom where he and I would be sleeping. On our way there, he leaned toward me and whispered, “I like him. He’s weird, just like you.”
    “I’m glad,” I whispered back.
    “Whoa!” he exclaimed upon arriving at the bedroom door. “Minimalism minimized!”
    A queen-size platform bed abutted the wall opposite the door. Just to the left of the bed hung a full-length mirror on the otherwise blank white wall. Completing the inventory, a scenescreen displaying yesterday’s late afternoon sky was on the ceiling directly above the bed. There was no closet, dresser, chair or bathroom.
    Elio abruptly lunged onto the bed. “Nice!” he said, rolling and bouncing around on the mattress. “It’s firm. And it doesn’t squeak like my rickety old bed back home.”

    After all the dinner guests departed, Grandpa, Grandma, Elio, and I gathered in Michael’s rooms for the final birthday celebration of the day. We brought a platter heaped with dark chocolate truffles that Grandma and I had made, two bottles of our finest demi-sec, and five champagne glasses.
    Grandma was about to begin pouring the wine when Grandpa interrupted: “Dear, I believe Michael would like to give Elio a special musical welcome.”
    Michael signaled he was ready. “Imagine the hour is midnight,” he said. A bell chimed twelve times. “That was the campanile in Berkeley. Grandpa recorded it for us. Imagine now that on this midnight, watchmen in an ancient tower spot a bridegroom coming.”
    I had heard the “Wachet auf” cantata several times before. I had heard all of Bach’s extant works several times, for Bach was Grandpa’s favorite composer, having achieved a perfect balance, Grandpa said, between emotion and intelligence, the balance Grandpa strove for in the conscious, intelligent products of his own efforts. Tears welled up in my eyes as soon as I recognized the sublime opening ritornello theme. More than ever before, I appreciated then how Bach had miraculously endowed dignity and splendor with a beautiful, quivering mixture of intimate tenderness and desire.
    Immediately following the musical interlude, Grandma poured the demi-sec, allotting to Michael only the quarter glass we had found quite sufficient to make him giddy, and we sat around the study table eating, drinking, and talking for about twenty minutes before Grandpa suggested we take some photographs.
    The last photograph taken by Grandpa that evening became Michael’s most cherished. In it, Elio, Michael, and I stand, arms around each other as we laugh together in front of a scenescreen displaying a view of the garden recorded earlier that day by a camera mounted near the garage. In the hand not wrapped around Elio’s waist, I hold a platter containing the few remaining truffles. In his free hand, Michael holds an empty demi-sec bottle.
    In photographs taken minutes earlier, Michael stands on one side of me, appearing pleased as he studies Elio, who stands on the other side of me, and who at various times hugs me, kisses me, and makes faces at the camera. But by the time this last photograph was taken, Michael had moved around to Elio’s other side, foretelling the near future in which I would remain Michael’s sister/mother, but Elio would be his beloved best friend.
    As I look now at this last-taken photograph, I wonder what Grandpa thought of us that evening of his ninetieth birthday. Did he