This is How. by Caroline Mayes
I’m six years old. My bleach blonde hair drips on the reddish hardwood floor; I shiver in
a navy-blue towel that goes down past my knees. My mom hums as she dances past me to grab a cookie sheet. The stove is warm, and I huddle closer to it. I hear footsteps coming down the hall, slow, distracted, probably reading a book. I watch as my sister walks into the kitchen and sets her book down at the table, glancing over at our mom putting drops of peanut butter cookies on the cookie sheet
“Come on,” she motions, already heading towards our shared bathroom. I look to mom,
who is busy trying to get the cookies baked for the 4-H awards banquet and silently debate
whether I should wait her out or not. I decide the latter and hurry to find my sister, standing in the bathroom with a comb in one hand, detangler in the other. She plops me on the off-white countertop that has barely enough room for my bottom; my feet sit in the sink. I sit facing the mirror, it covers nearly the entire wall behind the counter. My sister begins to coat my too fine, knots-way-too-easily hair in detangler and starts with the brush. Bottom to top, just like she taught me to do.
My sister has long, thick, red hair in a French twist with not a strand out of place. She
smells like fresh laundry and shampoo. Her pale skin and freckled cheeks bring out her ocean blue eyes that have a certain sense of kindness in them. Her hands are much like our mom’s, gentle and patient, as she combs through the rat’s nest that lays upon my back.
This is how you brush out a big knot, she explains. This is how much mousse you should
use. This is how you use a blow dryer. This is how I did my updo.
. . .
I’m ten years old. My hands are completely covered in the ooey, gooey pie dough. I’m
standing on a Cosco chair butted up to our kitchen island that doubles as a step stool when
needed. Flour hangs in the air and coats me from head to toe. The kitchen smells like a bakery, with the chaoticness of a donut shop on a Sunday after church. My sister tosses a small handful of flour on the stained, yellow pastry cloth, spreading it around with her hands before setting the ball of dough in the middle. She hands me the heavy, white marble rolling pin. It is cold and feels ancient. My grandma used this pin, then my mom, then my sister, now it was my turn. I begin to roll the ball from the center out towards the edges, just like she taught me. As it flattens and stretches larger, I continue to roll, to test its limits of how big I can get it to be. A crack begins to form from the top of my dough and as I roll, trying to squish it back together, it extends to the middle. My pride quickly begins to burn at my eyes. My sister is standing behind me, waiting to see what I will do. I feel her hand brush my shoulder. I quickly turn and push the rolling pin into her hands, crawling from the throne that was my step stool. “That’s okay. Dough can be hard,” she says, taking the rolling pin and scooting the step stool to the side. “Let me help you.”
I wiggle my way back up the chair next to her, taking a deep breath and keeping my eyes
on her. She begins to carefully tear pieces from the outside and lay them over the crack.
Covering it up and rerolling. Covering it up and rerolling. Again and again and again, until it is a nearly perfect circle.
This is how you make pie dough. This is how you roll out the dough. This is how you get
a crack in your dough. This is how you fix it.
. . .
I’m seventeen years old. I’m sitting in an oak kitchen chair at the table in my parents’
house. It is 4:30pm on a Tuesday. It is quiet in the way that it never used to be. All my siblings have moved out except for me. My toes are cold against the hardwood floor. I stare blankly at the computer screen in front of me. NORTHWEST MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY the website says at the top. The next tab, WILLIAM JEWELL COLLEGE. The next, UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL MISSOURI. My three top options all side-by-side. I want to choose before I start my senior year of high school, just like my sister did.
“Are you busy?” I send the message.
Two minutes later I’m still scrolling aimlessly through Northwest’s website when my
phone rings. Facetime call from my sister.
“Hellloooooo, what’s up? What are you doinggggg?” she says, face mere inches from the
phone. I can still see a bit of her red hair, her freckles, and her blue eyes. Her eyes are the perfect shade of soothing pastel. Of a mom rocking a baby to sleep or a bath after a long day.
I flip the camera around to show her my three tabs, waiting for her to tell me it is my
choice to make or to ask which is the cheapest, but that’s not her style. Instead, she pulls out a piece of paper and makes three sections: NWMSU, WJC, UCM.
“Okay, what do you like about Northwest?”
This is how you apply to college. This is how I chose my college. This is how you apply
for scholarships. This is how you sign an NIL.
. . .
I’m eighteen years old. The hallway is quiet, almost calm. I expected chaos. It smells
sterile and way cleaner than anywhere I ever want to be. I make my way down to the end of the hallway. It feels cold, nearly freezing, in here. Room 819. I’m holding a Chick-Fil-A bag, a light pink blanket, and a teal Stanley cup, gripping it all so tight that my knuckles are white. I can smell fries and chicken wafting from the bag. I take a deep breath and knock, gently, on the door. It quickly swishes open to reveal my sister, sitting up in bed watching TV. Her eyes are tired, but happy, calm, content. Next to her, in a little hospital bassinet, that looks more like a fishtank without a top, is my first niece, Eleanor.
“Want to hold her?” I nod, unable to form words. I stand there, unable to move, to think,
to do anything but stare at this little child that I have loved before I even knew her and now, she is here. A tingle surges though my body as I step closer and touch her tiny fingers. She is so new, but so familiar. A tiny piece of my older sister.
I scoop her up in my arms. Her neck is so tiny, so weak. Her feet are so small, so soft.
Her hands are so tiny, so cute. She feels fragile. I glance over at my sister, she’s watching me
with tears in her eyes. I look back down at Eleanor, at her face, her hands, her toes. My heart feels like it could nearly explode.
This is how you hold a baby. This is how you feed her a bottle. This is how you change a
diaper. This is how you put her down for a nap.
. . .
I’m now twenty-one years old. Eleanor is three. She is sitting in front of me on the blue-
grey rug at my parents’ house. Bluey is on the TV, and she is casually boogieing to the theme
song. Her long, curly red hair streams down her back, swaying with her movement. I brush my fingers through it, and she turns to look at me. Her blue eyes as bright as the summer sky and her skin, light and soft with only a few freckles. She smiles so big it nearly makes my heart ache, just like the day that I first saw her. She crawls into my lap and asks me to do her hair like mine. My hair is pinned up in a French twist.
This is how I brush my hair, I tell her. This is how much mousse I use. This is how I use a
blow dryer. This is how I did my hair.