After Joyce evolved from that brown-eyed Keane* child, she degenerated to an evil strain of our family. She was an exemplar of an evil daughter and sister. She didn’t like to talk to family and was fond of going upstairs to her room after dinner rather than converse or answer questions, put to her back as she gained altitude. Perhaps there were more attentive spirits speaking to her from under her bed. Evidently, they were more tolerable company than her aggrieved family in the kitchen and dining room below. We were left with a game of sister Joyce crossword. What is an eight-letter adjective beginning with “H-A” and ending with “F-U-L”? Ensembles of wandering unanswered interrogatories echoed among us. Joyce did not speak whatever language we spoke, including silence. She objected to any communication with us. We were the aliens, and the enemy. The repugnant blood that flowed through our veins poisoned her days.

Avoiding her Magrini character and her embrace of self-loathing was a strain for Joyce and it began to show. First through the edge in her voice, the tightness of her lips, and finally from the cancer growing within her. She welcomed the dead end of war against herself with vigor and rage. She would attack us by self-destruction. The evil outside would be obliterated by killing her core. The one way to be victorious through such conflicts is to be a victim in her own extinction. Understanding the dynamic and satisfaction of this winner’s triumph is difficult for the remnants of life that remain. Who can understand this bizarre victory dance performed by a cold and still corpse, lifeless in a coffin? I acknowledge that she seems to be free from the pollution of our blood. She lies there in the winner’s circle. The garlands surround her as a video loops silently in the background. Her past in posed victories with strangers, unconnected by family. Joyce’s final propaganda film shown to an audience gathered around the lamb of her sacrifice.

There is no applause, but a short intermission from the blather to a communal and slight bowing of heads and downward-turned eyes. They engage in a pantomime of prayer, to ponder for just a moment on what is now the center of the universe for the aggrieved. They are the shoes that brought them here: sluggish brown loafers; black apprehensive pumps; nonchalant flats; nimble, unceremonious sneakers grabbed on the run… And with one upward stroke of finality, their heads raise appropriately to parallel simulated sadness, in a release from obligatory repugnant manifestation. The encumbrance is complicated and grueling. Perhaps a tear is shed or a heavy sigh escapes, for there was talk of potential spectacle, and a rumor of a thespian connection amongst the mourners.

Joyce Lynn Magrini never moved out of her parent’s house. There were no dances, movies, dinners, and dates. She disdained our family in favor of relatives that were interrelated via my mother’s sister, who had died. Their family was wealthy, and Joyce seemed to be comfortable in her substitute nest with her uncle’s family, particularly with her cousin. At times she traveled with her relative from that family. Knowing anything about Joyce would have been a triumph. Our goal was to get closer in whatever way we could. The sound of her laugh, a story from work, a secret, or one of her distractions as it floated across her sky. We wanted her to share something of her with us, as a sign of her humanity and love. But we were the storms she sought shelter from, never to be refreshed by the deluge of family. Her withering was heartbreaking to experience, as the pain was seen in the eyes of my mother and father, sister, and later by my wife who was also shunned by Joyce. Mama was distraught to experience Joyce’s hateful and impatient behavior as a caretaker. Mama was not brought up to complain, so she was confined to Joyce’s prison during her final years of cancer. She did not have the bad taste to criticize. Mama could not see well even with glasses, and depended on Joyce to read the prices on the products at the grocery. Instead, Joyce chose to smoke cigarettes in the car as Mama strained at the cans trying to guess prices. I did not permit a slight smile when cancer took Joyce, as it took Mama. We know cancer will take so many more. It will take many who will likely escort their mothers into the grocery and help them down the aisle, and uplift their pride when they select a cheaper, wiser can of tomatoes for sauce.

I remember one time I invited Joyce to have dinner at our house for her birthday. After struggling coercion, she finally consented to come with her cousin presumably for her “safety”. She did not want her picture taken with us, which with her was typically not a problem as she was never substantially present. Joyce was more like a fog bank than a person. At the dinner table it was infuriating trying to engage her in conversation. She had an annoying habit of smirking and looking downwards and to your left or right. She never looked you in the eye. Joyce was ashamed and angry with anyone associated with the Magrini name. Her mother, father, sister, sister-in-law, and most of all, me, her brother. After my parents died, she took the house as her own, despite my parent’s stipulation that it be shared between all siblings. As the eldest child the house is where I was charged to take care of my three sisters when they were born, and while they grew. My memories were strong of holding them in my arms, telling them stories at night, and sharing terrors and tickles as brothers do. The house was an important representation. It was bought by my Nonno Giulio, whose name I carry. He provided that house for us to live. It might be valid to say that I was extremely frustrated when Joyce coerced my father to sign the house over to her when he was not aware of his actions. I could have fought it, but I reasoned that the circumstances of such a fight would be debilitating in themselves. Space is the resolution for such conflict. I was finally beginning to realize that the disease of Joyce had no vaccine or cure. I needed to bury this measure of recollections of family and growth. There would be no photo album of her memories, figurative or otherwise. The house had to go. I knew there was no other support expected from my family, as it was irreparably broken. I had a choice to make.

Joyce went upstairs as she always did, but stayed there in death. She will be silent, as before. I wonder today if her dust is happy, and grows sunflowers to follow her sun? I doubt that… The silence she speaks today is slightly gentle and restful. It breathes with me, like polluted air. We know that her silence will always speak, but these are other voices. There is no elimination of pain, except to learn how to survive in the shadows of it. Encounter and collaborate with life. It does not live upstairs, where the coldhearted and cruel plot their paths to decay.

By Giulio Magrini

From: United States

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