I picked up a copy of Teen Beat.
And I pretended I didn’t know her.
I’ve never told anybody that.
Not Pete. Not my mother. Not anybody.
I pretended I didn’t know my own sister.
Because I was thirteen. Because people were watching. Because I was embarrassed.
Annie quit that job the next week.
She never worked again.
She stayed home. She watched Elvis movies. She did puzzles at the kitchen table. She stopped waiting for my bus.
She died when she was thirty-four. Her heart. A lot of people with Down syndrome have heart problems.
I was twenty-eight. I sat next to her in the hospital at St. Mary’s. I held her hand.
I wanted to tell her I was sorry.
About the Super One. About the magazine rack. About Teen Beat.
I didn’t.
I never did.
So when I stood in the juice aisle at Lakeview Foods and watched a woman in a white puffer vest scream at a nineteen-year-old with Down syndrome in a green polo shirt, I felt something hot rise in my chest.
