A NATION OF FAMILIES

      VIOLET BRASSO HAD A PROBLEM THAT GREW BIGGER EACH TIME she visited it, and she visited it often. The familiar pains in her chest and back were coalescing into a single, clarified anguish: What was she going to do about Olivia? What would happen when she could no longer take care of her younger sister?

      It was hard for Violet to imagine two people more different than she and Olivia. If archaeologists dug up the Words Cemetery thousands of years in the future, after all the tombstones had washed away, they would assume she and Olivia were from different subspecies. It would never occur to them that such variation issued from the same family.

      Everything about Violet was large, not fat, but big. Though she was feminine to the core, her bones were twice the size of Olivia’s, her shoulders wide. Her brown eyes nestled deep beneath a sloping brow, lending her facial expressions the proclamation plain. Her hair, which she usually gathered into a bun, grew out straight and thin. Her hands were bigger than her father’s had been; she was tall and moved slowly. People had always thought of her as old, partly because she stooped to look shorter.

      Olivia, in every way, was tiny and preternaturally cute. She looked twenty-five, if that, though she was actually thirty-eight. Her face resembled a child’s, with darting, bright blue eyes; her hands were so incessantly busy they seemed to have separate agendas. Those who met her for the first time, especially in the company of her sister, often found themselves later in the day reminiscing about collector dolls—the kind that are too expensive to actually play with. Her hair sprang out of her head in curls so thick and tumultuous that, after being cut and falling to the floor, they bounced.

      Most members of the Words Friends of Jesus Church assumed Olivia’s youthful appearance had something to do with having been cared for all her life. Born into a tightly knit, protective family, the cherished invalid had been passed from one relative to another. The stress of adulthood had never caught up to her, so she had naturally remained young in appearance.

      In a moment of weakness, Violet had once told this to Olivia—why she looked so young—and regretted it immediately afterwards. Olivia’s reaction was so vehement and sustained that it seemed they would never get over it. She refused to eat and stopped talking altogether. For weeks, Violet found small pieces of colored paper, neatly folded and placed in the kitchen and bathroom drawers, under cushions, in the refrigerator, with carefully written quotations from Scripture, in ink.

      “He looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts” Mark 3:5.

      “Judge not that ye be not judged” Matt. 7:1.

      The pains in Violet’s chest returned, and she was reminded that at the first opportunity she and Olivia needed to have a talk. She needed to explain that it was time to begin thinking about other arrangements. She needed to guide Olivia firmly through a realistic assessment of her own situation, to remind her that many years separated them; her older sister’s health was now failing and some changes were in order.

      But the opportunity seemed never to arrive, partly, Violet suspected, because she dreaded the encounter. Talking to Olivia, about anything, usually brought out one of Violet’s shortcomings: she could rarely say what she meant, or at least what she said was often not heard in the right way. Things perfectly understood in her mind came out jumbled. Olivia, on the other hand, had the gift of speaking clearly and authoritatively on practically any subject, and could run right over most people with her talking. Her uncompromising spirit flowed seamlessly into language. Despite the diminutive size of her vocal organs, her voice resonated in an astonishingly deep, full, and commanding register, imparting to her words a gravity-based sense of importance, even when they weren’t important at all.

      So Violet tried to avoid thinking about her problem. But now the subject of death and its inevitability was in the air. A funeral had been scheduled for Thursday afternoon—one day away—and the basement in the Words Friends of Jesus Church was in shambles. Late summer rains and a clogged eave spout had conspired to bring three inches of water running down the foundation wall, and even after the sump pump from the Words Repair Shop had removed the muddy liquid, the church smelled of mold. Cardboard boxes filled with quilting supplies and Sunday school materials rested on dark, sagging bottoms, gaping open in places like the mouths of dead fish. To make matters worse, following the first cleanup effort someone left the back door open. Dogs came down during the night, rifled through the pantry, and left a mess that pet lovers could never adequately describe.

      Yet the need for everything to look its best had never been greater. The deceased had been a long-standing member of the community, with a large family. Many people, some of them new to the church, were likely to attend. As the senior member of the Food Committee, she had made the necessary calls to coordinate main dishes, salads, and desserts, but there was still much to do.

      “Nothing is more important mostly than a funeral,” Violet said as they ate a noon lunch of soup and sandwiches. “The whole point of a person’s life—or the lack of a point if it’s more or less rounded—can’t help popping out at a funeral.” She wedged the last triangular bite of wheat bread, cucumber, mayonnaise, and lettuce into her mouth and chewed deliberately.

      Olivia helped herself to another puddle of tomato soup. The ladle wobbled dangerously in her small hands, and tipping the liquid into her bowl summoned a wincing blink into her face. She eased back into the wheelchair and rested before picking up her spoon and beginning her comments.

      “When the end comes—for whomever it comes—it is the duty of the church to hold them up and present them to God.”

      Violet picked at the bread crumbs along the edge of her plate. “Funerals remind us that nothing ever for very long has ever lasted for very long ever and always things change.”

      But