Wilhelmina couldn't be sure when it was, exactly, that her sister had died. It could have been the day before her body was found, or maybe early the day of; she knew only that the time between her last breath and her body's discovery was long enough for her body to grow cold and stiff, or so her mother had told her. That was about all Maxine Asher had been able to say coherently, but Wilhelmina suspected it was not just shock that made this the case.

What no one said, and what Wilhelmina herself did not want to think of as a strong possibility, was that it was also possible that Desdemona had committed suicide hours or even minutes after her last conversation over the phone. It was possible, maybe even likely, that it was Wilhelmina's refusal to see her that had pushed her to her all too final act.

There was no way of knowing, of course. No suicide note had been found, and there were no texts or phone calls made from Desdemona's phone beyond the last one made to Wilhelmina. Maxine Asher denied any significant conversations or signs, not that anyone would have expected her to notice or remember any if there were. It was still a mystery to Wilhelmina how her mother had managed to come across her sister's body, hanging in her bedroom closet from an old, fraying jump rope of her childhood. As far as she knew, although they lived in the same house even into Desdemona's first year of her twenties, she and their mother rarely spoke or interacted. But it seemed wrong, somehow, once the question came to her mind, to actually make the effort of asking her mother what had brought her up into Desdemona's room and given her to impulse to open her closet door.

It didn't matter, she supposed. Desdemona's death was certainly suicide; there was no doubt in Wilhelmina's mind about that, even before hearing confirmation from the police assigned her case. There was no point in asking questions when any answers would change nothing. Desdemona was gone, and nothing Wilhelmina could do now would help her. Maybe that had been true all along. Maybe her sister had never been meant for this world, and it had just taken time for her to come to understand and take some sort of action in response to this knowledge.

It was a terrible thing to think about someone you loved, something that Wilhelmina could never have said aloud and could hardly accept as even a private thought. But that didn't necessarily mean that it wasn't true. After all, after everything, it was she, not Desdemona, who was still here.

Most people had assumed, even when they were very young, that it was Wilhelmina who was the older of the sisters, although in actuality, she was the younger by three years. Even from the start, Desdemona had seemed somehow smaller and more fragile than Wilhelmina, even when she was physically taller and more mature. She had always seemed not quite present, as though a sudden wind could lift her up and carry her away- and as though, if this happened, she would welcome it.

She had been different, Desdemona, even when she seemed to be trying to keep herself from standing out against others. She had never quite seemed to fit with her surroundings, with her peers, even those that were also unpopular. Desdemona always seemed too sensitive, too emotionally raw, too caught up in dark interests and moods, too involved in her own inner world to be able to really relate to anyone or anything else outside of it. She dressed in clothes that didn't quite seem to fit or follow any given styles, and she said things that were just odd enough to raise looks, but not odd enough to be interesting. She seemed to be continually too much or too little, never striking a balance or finding a niche of acceptance.

Nowhere seemed to fit her in the likes of social castes, both in school and outside it. She was smart, but not "geeky" enough to put effort forward or have the motivation to show it. She was too shy to be in band or drama, too edgy to be in with the goody two shoes and religious types, but too straight laced to hang with the goths or stoners. Certainly none of the jocks or cheerleaders would have in school, and even past graduation, Wilhelmina never saw her engage in any relationship that could somewhat resemble a friendship. She wasn't consistent enough to hold down jobs for more than a few months at a time, and she couldn't seem to commit strongly enough to an interest to have a goal to pursue.

Wilhelmina had known, even when she was only in middle school, how terribly her sister was sometimes treated. If rumors about her sister had hit the middle school crowd, then Desdemona's abuse must be widespread and common for the older group. By the time she was in the eighth grade, she had heard people call her a slut into all sorts of kinky things, a Satanist who sacrificed kittens, a lesbian, retarded, a nympho who slept with teachers, and just a plain freak. Some people probably assumed, based on the way that Desdemona never responded to any of it, that she just didn't care.

But Wilhelmina knew better.

Desdemona rarely, if ever, vocalized what was happening to her, or how she felt about it. But she didn't have to in order for her younger sister to see it, and to be able, in a way, to experience Desdemona's feelings for herself. She knew without Desdemona having to say it how her sister ached at her peers' behavior, how she tried, in her own way, to modify herself, to make herself seem more acceptable. But the truth was that by the time Wilhelmina was a freshman in high school, she had already found a niche of friends, other kids like her who were serious and ambitious, highly motivated achievers who, if not popular or widely accepted, were at least accepting of their own place in the high school scene. But Desdemona, a senior, with so much more time to find her place, still seemed to have no one.

It had broken Wilhelmina's heart to see her sister sitting alone in the cafeteria or at a table in the library, her shoulders slumped as she pretended oblivion to everyone around her. More often than not, she invited Desdemona to come join her and her own friends, hoping she could encourage her to fit in with them, or at least to show everyone else that Desdemona mattered to her and she would not tolerate her being ostracized in her presence. But no matter what she tried, and what Desdemona herself tried, it just didn't seem to work. Her presence with Wilhelmina's friends was tolerated, but it was clear even with efforts at kindness and inclusion that she did not mesh with them.

The truth was that Wilhelmina had a gift for adaptation and survival in nearly all circumstances, and Desdemona did not.

But somehow, with Wilhelmina, or maybe because of her, Desdemona had survived, even if she couldn't quite adapt. Wilhelmina had sensed from an early age the depth of her importance to her sister, the need that Desdemona had for her, and she had tried to be there for her when Desdemona asked, and sometimes when she didn't. She tried to deny it verbally, at least to her sister's face, in the times that Desdemona claimed aloud that she had no one, but Wilhelmina knew that it was true. So she stayed close to her, interfering to "rescue" Desdemona sometimes with reluctance, and never spoke, even to her friends, of the secret, slowly growing resentment that she felt towards Desdemona's need for her.

Because if it wasn't for Desdemona, Wilhelmina might have felt freer, less tied down with the responsibility that being her protector gave. If it wasn't for Desdemona, she might have sent off for scholarships to boarding schools, to summer programs and early college admissions. She might have left her hometown years earlier, and had that much more time to begin to experiment with what might actually bring her happiness.

But she couldn't do that, not when Desdemona wouldn't, at least not while both of them were still young enough to legally if not emotionally meet the definitions of being children. Desdemona needed her to be there with her, so Wilhelmina had stayed. She pushed down her anger with reminders of everything Desdemona had done for her, of all the ways that she owed her, and when she thought about it, it was enough to dampen the edges of her resentment- but not enough to fully extinguish the flames.

Yes, Desdemona had cared for her, when they were very young. She had poured into her younger sister all the mothering that she had observed in others, the skills that she had pieced together from watching the loving mothers of television and in storybooks. While Maxine slept off hangovers or late nights our, or sometimes simply didn't return home in the morning at all, Desdemona had provided the constant presence of a motherly figure. While Maxine remained distant emotionally, even when physically present, and while Wilhelmina's father remained unknown and unaccounted for, Desdemona had cooed and sang to Wilhelmina, giving her the love that she herself had likely never experienced. She had changed Wilhelmina's diapers and fed her, when her mother couldn't be trusted to remember regularly or to do it right. She had bathed her and taught her and kept an eye on her, and every day and every night, Desdemona had stuck close, making sure that Wilhelmina was never alone. She had played with her and made Wilhelmina the center of her world- but in doing so, somehow their roles had switched over time, and ironically, Wilhelmina had grown secure and independent enough to no longer feel the need for her big sister, just as Desdemona began to need her back.

Desdemona had helped her, perhaps even insured that she survive. Wilhelmina reminded herself of this whenever she felt disgusted or impatient, whenever she found herself itching to simply head out the door and never come back. But duty and love for Desdemona didn't stop her yearning for escape, for a life outside of their drifting, un-motherly mother and their tiny, small-minded town, filled with equally small-minded and conventional people who had shown cruelty towards Desdemona and indifference towards Wilhelmina. It didn't stop her desire for something more, something bigger, for places and experiences and people she had never encountered before.

She loved her sister. But that didn't mean that Wilhelmina didn't often dream of leaving her behind too, along with everything else that she felt to be holding her back. What would it be like to be able to dismiss duty and shame, guilt and obligation, to be free of the ties of Desdemona's emotions and neediness? What would it be like to be someone who had no associations, who was known only for herself?

She loved her sister. But Wilhelmina could not, in the end, let her love for her continue to hold her back from reaching for her chance of trying something new. She needed to breathe alone in a new space, to be able to extend her arms out and make a new definition for herself and her life.

And so she left for Hamilton, the day after her high school graduation, only days after she had secured a part time job, a tiny apartment, and two roommates to split the costs and rental space with. With Hadley and Noreen, Wilhelmina felt different, somehow lighter than before. It wasn't that she could relate to them any more than others, or that they had much in common. Hadley was a blonde, perfectly groomed girly-girl with a privileged, private school education, leaving her wealthy background and family against their approval in an effort to make a living for herself, without the easy offers of their assistance and the support of their name. Noreen was biracial, had worked at least two jobs since age fourteen to support her single mother and her younger sibling, and had gone to public schools so terrible that she had had friends in the ninth grade still reading on a second grade level. They had not started from the same space, but the one factor that drew them together was their desire to escape- and that single factor made Wilhelmina feel more understanding for these girls who were practically strangers than she ever could for her sister in the entirety of their lives.

"Come out here," she had urged Desdemona, though her conviction had decreased with each of her sister's refusals. "Just try it for a month. You'll feel so much better."

But each time Desdemona had told her she couldn't. Each time, she had instead asked Wilhelmina to come back home.

But how could she, when she had finally managed to get closer to understanding what it might be like to have happiness? How could she, when she had finally put herself first?

And so she had told herself that Desdemona was an adult now. She could not make her choose differently in life. One day, when Desdemona was ready, she would leave, or she would begin to make peace with her decision to stay.

She told herself this, right up until the phone call. Right until she learned that Desdemona's final choice had been neither choice at all.