I always felt that Mom favored Elena. I don't know why. Well, maybe I do. I suspect it had to do with Elena never having seen her father, and Mom feeling that somehow she had to make up for that fact. And, it didn't seem to matter that much since there were three years between us.
My first recollection of even having a sister was a negative one. We had these wonderful little doll blankets. They were fuzzy and soft. Mine was pale blue with three little pink stripes at both ends. Elena's was pink with, you guessed it, little blue stripes. They were special in that we each had our own blanket, clearly marked by its colors.
Mom was sitting with Elena on her lap. I was standing, leaning on Mom's right leg, holding my blanket. My blanket! Anyone could see that, it was the blue one with pink stripes. Elena was too young to realize what ownership was; it was all hers, everything she could see. And at that moment what she saw was my blanket. She reached down very slowly, anticipating the feel of softness once within her hot little fist. She lusted for it. I could tell because she reached so slowly and certainly, having only the thought of it in her soul. Her eyes glazed over, her mouth began to drool, her fingers gently touched — then clasped it.
I reacted immediately by pulling it right out of her hot little hand. She was shocked from her lustful desire by the jerk, which had travelled up her fat little arm, to her neck .
The fat little arm wouldn't quit. It came back longer, fatter, and a lot faster than before. This time the grab was accompanied by sound. Yes, the neck had sound, and that sound alerted Mom who looked down at her two angels, both being sweet as they could be underneath the beads of sweat forming in all their little folds of baby fat.
Elena, who could not talk, let out still another sound that could be interpreted as `let the games begin.' I, who could speak — and very well at that — said "mine!" The words were fired at Elena, but my glance went to Mom. Ah, now she would break that fat little arm and slap those greedy little fingers and hopefully pinch those chubby little cheeks until they would form the words "I'm sorry I touched your blanket." At any moment now justice would be served.
Instead, Elena's body bent forward at the waist and I now found myself fighting off two fat little arms and ten greedy little fingers. Our hair was starting to smell like wet wool from the adrenaline pumping through our veins. Would no one stop this child? Would I be forced to kill her myself? With a determined, "My blanket!" I ripped it right out of her grasp like a whip. There, that's the end of it; I shall bear no more!
I would not leave my mother's knee, however, because that was also mine. I would stand right there holding my blanket and feeling just grand. I would even turn my head the other way to show my confidence in justice being served. But just in case the lustful one was not at rest I would hold the object of her desire a little farther away. There, it was over.
Suddenly, without notice the fat arm sprang again, this time with speed, determination and fingernails made ragged from past wars no doubt. Not the blanket this time; I had put that just slightly out of reach if not out of sight. The nails gripped my wrist and began making two furrows in it. Pain, blood, the wet wool smell again. Would no one stop this beast? Mother, throw that child on the ground and stomp her to death this instant!
What followed would shape my view of fairness for the rest of my life. The voice at the top of the knee spoke and said "Give her the blanket." The same voice that had once said, "Yours is the blue one and Elena's is pink," was now saying - I couldn't believe it - "give her the blanket" — the blue blanket, my blanket.
I don't remember anything after that. I don't think I cried or fought or said anything. I know I looked at my wrist, branded by the war that had just taken place. The war I had lost. The war that had nothing to do with blankets, but everything to do with justice and security.
How do you protect what is rightfully yours when you are young and small and not in control?