Sister Snapshots

With the butts gone, I can see that the majority of Paige’s pictures are actually of June’s face.

I’m enjoying my morning coffee when I hear that familiar sound, the whine-scream chorus that can only mean my daughters are fighting again. Specifically, that four-year-old June is mentally torturing six-year-old Paige and that Paige is responding just as June hoped, with screams and the gnashing of teeth. When I woke up this morning, I threw open the windows to let in the fresh spring air. Now I just hope my neighbors can’t hear me yelling. 

How many times have we repeated this dance, and how many more to go? Infinity times infinity, if I had to guess. There’s one video I revisit often in which the girls are about to put on a ballet performance in our living room. Milliseconds into the song, June begins to chase Paige around the carpet. “June! Stop!! STOOOOP! Stop the musiiiiic!!” Paige sobs as June laughs evilly into the camera. Around and around they go. Paige has longer legs and soon enough she’s a step behind June, technically the chaser vs. the chasee. But she can’t exit her sister’s orbit. She can only run miserably in a circle until my husband swoops in and pulls her out of it. 

Scrolling through my photos can produce some real jump scares. I’ll be looking for a picture of baby Paige wearing my husband’s favorite onesie (the one with a smiling lemon on it, sob) when my phone is like, “Oh! How about instead, would you like to see poopy diapers through the years? Set to music??” The other day I was searching for June’s school photo and instead came jarringly face-to-face with a whole album documenting a rash on her torso. I took many of these photos myself as proof for the pediatrician. But most of them—like the most unflattering pictures of me you could possibly imagine, or stunningly lit still lifes of the toilet—are taken by my kids. 

In an attempt to free up storage space on my phone, I bought Paige her own little digital camera. I’m transferring photos from it to my computer when I find multiple snaps of June’s naked butt. A jump scare indeed! Butts are of course the funniest things in the world and I appreciate the urge to photograph them—and boy did it make me laugh—but(t) I make a mental note to talk to the girls about what is and is not appropriate to show for the camera. 

With the butts gone, I can see that the majority of Paige’s pictures are actually of June’s face. June mugging for the camera. June caught unaware. June at ballet practice. June eating ice cream. It warms my heart and is also a bit of a surprise. My ears are tuned more to their conflict than their closeness. 

I’m in the bathroom when I hear another scream. This time it’s a wail of pain. I make my way downstairs and take in the tangle of curly hair on the dining room table. June is cowering in her hiding-place-of-shame by the heating vent in the living room. Paige is crying cartoon tears that are springing off her cheeks. “Junie…pulled…my…hair!!” she hyperventilates. That much was clear. “Why did you do that, June?” I ask. “Paige wouldn’t let me put on her shoes,” she replies evenly. As if it’s the most logical thing in the world. I sigh, send Paige off to dance class with my husband, and oversee June as she writes an apology card. It goes:

[heart] “I am sorry Paige”

[picture of June hugging Paige that looks more like June strangling Paige]

“From Junie iloveyousomuchxoxo”

She really does love her so much, in the way that you torture the one you love the most just to get them to look at you. I snap a photo of the card and save it to my Favorites folder.

Crime scene reenactment by June Hennessy

I can only imagine the fraught relationship Paige has with this maniac that unseated her coveted Only Child status at two years old and hasn’t stopped bothering her since. She craves time away from June but misses her when they’re apart for a day. June’s only goal in life is to follow Paige’s every move and make her pay attention to her (by force if necessary). It’s a little bit buddy comedy and it’s a little bit King Lear.

But they really see each other. June is truly herself when she’s basking in the glow of Paige’s lens. Paige melts down so spectacularly because June has studied her points of failure so extensively. 

June also knows exactly how to make Paige laugh. In another video I treasure, one-year-old June is yelling into a cup to amplify her voice. She glances over at Paige, then finds the perfect cup-to-mouth angle and yells louder. Both girls collapse into giggles. I can already tell that June will spend her life chasing that high.

I scroll through my photos from Paige’s sixth birthday, just a few weeks ago, when she received a new bike. It came with letter stickers that she peeled off and painstakingly pressed onto the crossbar to spell P-A-I-G-E. She paused for a bit to admire her handiwork. Then, on the lower bar, she pressed on ….A-N-D….J-U-N-E. 

For now, Paige prefers her scooter, likely because June has one too. Each kid has a distinct Scooter Personality. Type A: zoom ahead a short distance and dutifully wait for your speed-walking parent to catch up to you. Type B: zoom ahead without any regard to what or who you’re leaving behind. Turn corners, run into people, run over dogs. Your old life is gone. You’re on the open road, the wind blowing through your hair, Bob Seger blaring from your radio. Paige, firstborn, is Type A. June, no fucks to give, is Type B. And Paige, in true Type A fashion, has a nervous breakdown whenever June scoots into the distance. “Junie!!! Come back! Stop!!!!” she screams. “Don’t worry, honey, I’ve got my eye on her. It’s my job to keep her safe,” I soothe. “But I need to keep her safe, too!” wails Paige, in tears. I can just see her TikToks ten years from now, all tagged with #eldestdaughtersyndrome.  

The night after the hair-pulling incident, June requests the Raffi song “All I Really Need” before bed. The chorus goes All I really need / Is a song in my heart / Food in my belly / And love in my family, but I change the last line to And June in my family. She corrects me: “June AND Paige in my family!!” It messes up the meter, but I sing it again the way she wants. Now all is right in her world. She smiles up at me as she dozes off.

In the room next door, I tuck in Paige who tells me drowsily, “I want to marry June someday.” I don’t tell her that they are basically already married: loving each other so deeply while fighting over the dumbest shit. I don’t tell her that I, too, want them to live together until they’re little old ladies: driving each other crazy and keeping each other safe.

Downstairs, I tuck June’s apology card into my Box of Stuff to Save. I imagine the girls going through the box together some day. I know they won’t remember what the apology was for. I hope they’ll remember the intensity of love that prompted it. And I hope their butts are on no one’s camera roll.