Nina was an amazing artist. That might sound like an opinion, but I think it’s fair to say it’s a fact because no one who saw her drawings ever disagreed. She could draw a photographic reproduction of absolutely anything. But real skill, her skill, wasn’t in drawing things that were obviously there, but noticing and capturing things that weren’t—the weird angle of the sunlight in late winter, the slightly scared expression on a person’s face that even they’re not aware of making.
Nina made everything into art. She inked elaborate landscapes onto the soles of her Converse, and covered her tank tops in portraits of the people she saw on the street. Every few weeks she’d dye her hair a different bright crayon color to match whatever was going on in her life at the time. Two weeks before she disappeared she’d decided to dye it blue, “graduation-hat blue,” she’d called it. I remember sitting in the kitchen with her, watching from my seat at the table, as she squeezed the dye onto her head, swirling it around like someone squirting ketchup onto a plate of fries. “There’s some left,” she’d said when she finished. She’d held the bottle up and shook it around. “You want a streak, Belly?” And I’d nodded, thrilled to be included, even though my stomach was already filling with anxiety about what my mother would say when she saw it. Nina chose a chunk behind my left ear and coated it. I remember exactly how the dye felt on my head, cold and heavy. I’d put a paper towel on my shoulder to catch the drips. And then we just sat there, just the two of us while the dye did its thing, making jokes and laughing and dancing along with some song she put on the stereo. I remember thinking this was a sign that finally, finally, I was old enough for Nina and I to really be friends, not older-sister/younger-sister friends, but real friends who just so happened to be related and I was so happy. Nina hadn’t been home much around then, and when she was it was like she was there and not there at the same time. But I remember thinking that day, as we sat there surrounded by the sweet smell of chemicals, that this was the start of something new, that everything would be different after this. And it was, just not in the ways I’d imagined.
Two weeks later, Nina was gone, a dye-stained towel left in a ball on her floor. I never did show my mother the streak in my hair, or anyone else for that matter. I wore my hair down until it faded away so Nina and I were the only two people who ever saw it.
Here’s another thing about my sister: Nina did what she wanted. She wasn’t reckless, but she didn’t worry about things other people worried about—getting in trouble, getting laughed at, looking stupid. She pool hopped late at night and cut class and talked to strangers. She was the type of person who, if she saw a guy wearing a big cowboy hat that she liked, would say, “Hey, cowboy! Can I try on your hat?” And he’d probably end up letting her keep it.
When she was sixteen, she started sneaking out at night. She’d go to bed like regular, and I’d only know she snuck out because I’d hear her tiptoeing back up the stairs just before the sun came up, smelling like a mix of alcohol and smoke and her ginger orange perfume. What she was off doing, I don’t really know. She was never barfing drunk, just at most a little giggly. And when I’d ask her where she’d been, her response would usually be a wink or a grin. Nina was an expert at dodging questions.
For a while my mother tried to stop her from sneaking out, but my dad had left us by that point and our mother was working nights most of the time and so there was not much she could do. Besides, Nina was always, always, always home by morning. Well, except until she wasn’t.