PART ONE
The scent of Lemon Pledge evokes vivid memories of my childhood, but none more powerful than of the day my sister saw Jesus in the driveway.

That day, that infamous day, was a typical Saturday. I woke up early and watched "Bugs Bunny" in my pajamas while drinking orange juice from my sparkly mint-green plastic cup. Mom made me cinnamon toast, and sat at the kitchen table with my father reading the newspaper while they drank their coffee, he smoking his pipe and she taking a few puffs of a Now cigarette.

I loved mornings. I could rarely sleep past 6am. I bounded of bed, a wild tangle of excitement. My imagination raced with appetizing possibilities of what adventure the day would bring. I wish I could remember when or how mornings lost that new and thrilling expectation.

I was anxious to go outside and play, it was a perfect summer day and the sun was already warming up our house. I grew up in Rochester, NY, the sixth cloudiest city in America, a place where winter began in late October and lasted until April. When summer emerged, we were mad for sunshine, it was a novelty that never lost its appeal. Knowing this, we took advantage of every precious minute. The teenage girls would grab their Sun-In and coconut scented oil and lie outside to get a tan. The teenage boys would gather in shirtless, denim-clad groups and spend hours meticulously working on their decade old cars, then driving around to nowhere. We would explore the creek or woods on some exhibition, swim in our aboveground pools, or play games until our parents' voices called us home for dinner.

On this Saturday, however, I had chores and had to help my mom clean the house. My father was fixing, or more likely, breaking something in the garage. And my older sister Sandy sat in the driveway, drawing pictures. I was irritated that--as usual--Sandy wasn't helping. She was 3 ½ years older than me and she should have to do more than just fixing her bed, or picking stuff off her floor. As I got older, I learned that simple tasks like cleaning a room would make her crippled with anxiety, completely overwhelmed, unsure of what to do or how to start. But on that day I was just annoyed. Yeah, she did a lousy job cleaning, but if I was going to do it, then so should she.

I knew that if I asked Mom she'd say sure, I could go out and play. But guilt gnawed at me--she shouldn't have to do it all herself. Plus I liked that we were spending time together, and that, in my way, I could help her. I could just play pretend to pass time. And when I got swallowed up in an intricate game of pretend, it was just as much fun as playing on the swings.

My pretend world premises were usually variations on a person whom I would become in the future, or hoped that I could become. Today, I played the part of the cool, sophisticated, single girl. I imagined I was cleaning my ultra-mod bachelorette pad for a swinging cocktail party. I tied a scarf around my hair sipped my grape juice with a sigh of ennui, pretending it was a martini. I liberally sprayed Lemon Pledge on every surface and carefully rubbed the wood until it was sleek and shiny--just like my ultra-mod bachelorette pad would no doubt be. I would be in Manhattan, or Paris, or Puerto Vallarta, because that's where the "Love Boat" always went and it sounded exotic. And my ultra-mod bachelorette pad would always be filled with clothes, parties, boys, and the scent of Lemon Pledge.

As I dusted by the open window, I thought of what job I would have in this fantasy. My girl friends always wanted to play house, nurse, or worst of all: stewardess. Gross. I wanted to be a scientist, a painter, an actress, a make-up artist, a roller derby queen, and a surgeon. As they'd bring out their dolls in strollers and feed them bottles, I was inclined to take the doll apart to see how she worked, or paint eye shadow on her.

I was interrupted from my fantasy by the sight of my sister sitting upright and rigid in the driveway. That was strange. Sandy was always slouched over with long, messy strands of yellow hair in her face as she looked downwards. I watched her, her face staring in the sky. She was absolutely still, transfixed. Knowing my sister, this could not be good.

Many words were used to describe my sister Sandy. Temperamental. Tense. Depressed. Strange. Difficult. Troubled. I didn't know what was wrong with her exactly; I didn't know why Sandy got upset so easily, or why she couldn't sleep through the night. I didn't understand why she always had problems at school. I didn't know why she saw a counselor. I only knew that something was different with Sandy. She wasn't like other people. She always had a problem, or more accurately, a crisis. As I got older I would learn that it was more complex, and 73 doctors later, we ultimately reverted to the same rudimentary terms. As I got older I realized some people just could not be fixed. But on that day, I knew only that something was off, and I got a horrible feeling of dread.

I looked at the sky. I didn't see anything, and couldn't figure out what she was staring at, or why she looked so shaken. Then I saw Sandy's shock of blonde hair racing toward the house. She was running and screaming now and I was so jarred it took a moment to put motion and sound together. In a flash my mother and father were outside on the porch. What was it? What happened? What now?

'There's a man in the sky!'� she yelled.

I inched outside just as Sandy said this. My mother, father, and I all looked up.

'What, in a plane?'� My mom asked.

'NO! There's a man in the sky!'� Her face was tinged pink and the tears were starting to erupt. She was terrified, and we couldn't understand her. A man in the sky? I leaned my back against the door frame, bracing myself. I knew I had to take in the scene, but I wanted to keep my distance.

'Look San,'� my father pointed up to the cloudless sky, speaking in a sweet and reassuring voice. 'Nothing there. It's okay.'� He knelt down and went to give her a little hug, his warm, comforting smile still optimistic. I guess he thought that if he could calmly use reason and evidence, maybe he could stop the runaway train of thought she was headed towards. It was behavior that over the years I too would adopt.

Her face went from fear to anger in a flash. Her hands flung out. Her face distorted and her lips squeezed together. She was not to be comforted. Her voice was low and steady, it gave me chills.

'It was Jesus. I saw Jesus in the sky.'�

While some parents might have dismissed this behavior as the whimsy of a child, my parents already had a lot of experience dealing with Sandy's fears--an endless universe of terror and pain that had no end, and whose origins were a mystery.

'It was Jesus. I saw Jesus. I KNOW it was Him. The robes and everything. I could see Him. It was so clear. It was like a painting, or'�it was...it was.'� She had to keep stopping to gasp for air. 'His hair, His eyes.'� Her tiny hands were clenched in fists.

I thought 'Sandy got to see Jesus? Aw, man! She's so lucky! Why didn't I ever get to see things like that?' To have Jesus in the sky looking down on you was so cool--Jesus watching you, protecting you'�wow. But as I watched her from the doorway I saw her face was not that of one graced by divine hand. It was twisted, miserable. She was scaring me and I felt exposed and nervous.

Maybe she had seen Jesus. We heard about such miracles in church or CCD. Maybe it just scared her. Or maybe she just made it up. She had a tendency of making up colorful stories and great claims. I had only recently begun to realize the holes in her stories, the shadow of lies creeping up on me. But to her credit, she had no lack of imagination. I hated to think it, but maybe it was in her head. She was always convinced that people were talking about her, conspiring against her, especially us. But she seemed so convinced and genuinely shaken, this was something new. She looked desperately at my parents' faces. They must have shown doubt which only made her more determined and frustrated.

'It WAS Jesus. And he looked at me, and then'�HE TURNED AWAY! He turned away!'� She was crumpled up, grasping and clawing at her arms. 'He turned away from me, he abandoned me. He rejected me'�'� I noticed little beads of red appear on her arms where her fingernails were digging in her skin.

Our dog Jamie shyly approached me. I put my arms around her and kissed her forehead. 'It's going to be okay. It's all going to be okay,'� I whispered. I knew I was lying to Jamie, but I didn't want her big brown eyes to get any more fearful.

The Beckers, an elderly couple from across the street, were watching us. Sandy tended to attract attention frequently, and usually the wrong kind. Mrs. Becker shook her head in disapproval. A hot flash of anger rushed through me. I looked at her, willing her to catch my eye. She looked up again, and I gave her a look that I knew you weren't supposed to give adults. I didn't care. I wanted her to feel shamed. She didn't have the right to judge. As I got older I got used to other people judging my sister and my family. People assumed my parents let Sandy run wild. Or, more cruelly, that she was a 'retard.'� Even my friends would ask, 'Why don't you guys just send her somewhere?'� Where? There was no place to go.

My father picked Sandy up and brought her inside. I sat on the floor, hugging and petting a confused Jamie, just taking in the scene. And I saw something I would ever forget. My parents stood listening to Sandy talk about how she was cast away by God.

Then I caught it. It was just a glance that passed from my mother to my father, but it held more weight that I was prepared to know. That one look conveyed too much: worry, disappointment, resignation, confirmation, and such deep sadness that I felt a knot in my stomach.

I don't want to know this. I don't want to know this. I don't want to know this.

Things were going to change.

PART TWO
In the weeks that followed my sister seeing Jesus in the driveway, my family began a slow, peculiar metamorphosis. My sister started seeing a different psychiatrist who put her on pills. She would act groggy sometimes, which, I had to admit, was a nice change from her other states of rage or hysteria. Her moods became more extreme, more unpredictable, and thus, more of a worry. My mom spent a lot of time talking on the phone to her sister. My father spent more time in his 'library,'� a makeshift room in the basement filled with books and his jazz and blues records. One day I saw my father sitting in the backyard. I was going to go out to see if he wanted to kick around the soccer ball when I noticed the look on his face. He was far away. It seemed we were all becoming farther away.

I started looking at my sister differently. I was watching the sister I knew fade from view, and a more extreme figure take her place. It was happening in slow motion, and it still couldn't be stopped. We didn't have fun anymore. She was so serious all the time. We all became more serious at times. I found myself in a constant bubble of worry. What the hell was she going to do? Was this going to get better? Why couldn't she just stop acting like this? What if she just gets worse? Why isn't God doing anything? What if it happens to me? I kept shaking these feelings off, convincing myself that everything would turn out OK. As I got older, that determined sense of hope would falter, but never retreat.

New words were used to describe my sister. MAOI
Inhibitors. Depression. Anxiety. Dissociative. Episodes. Borderline. These words were technical and foreign, and I hated how they sounded, but more, what they implied.

I started to spend time a lot of time with Danny, my best friend. Danny was a big-eyed boy who was shy, sweet, and a dreamer. We fit perfectly. He and his mother had moved from the south, and they were wonderfully odd and out of place. His father was in and out of town I rarely saw him. My friend Jenny once told me with great authority that his parents were 'You know, separating.'�

Danny's mom wore too much eye shadow, and long flowery muumuus, even in the winter. The whole house was coral and turquoise, colors that seemed to have no place in Upstate New York. She had orange-red hair and a slight Southern accent that I adored and tried to imitate. Their house was impossibly messy with clothes and records scattered all over floors. The first time Danny introduced me to her she started singing.

'Sherry, Sherr-rry baa-bee! Won't you come out tonight!'� She beamed at me. She sang all the time, usually making up lyrics as she went along.

She was in the kitchen when Danny and I came in trying to sneak past her.

'Who's that sneaking through my back door?'� She cackled and hugged me close to her boobs.

She held my face in her hands and sang 'Pale Blue Eyes'� to me.

'Who sings that?'� I asked.

She clutched her heart and sighed, 'Lou Reed.'� I didn't know who Lou Reed was, but I could only assume by the reverent tone in her voice and her closed eyes that he was sacred. As I got older, I discovered that was true.

Danny and I were allowed to play in his room with the door closed even though he was a boy and I was a girl. His mother was considered progressive. Of course, most of our neighbors called her 'a real character'� and some said she 'liked her sauce.'� After his mother force-fed us some tasteless and grainy carrot and carob cookies, she went to her room for one of her 'power naps'�. Danny and I sat went to play with his extensive and enviable collection of Match Book cars. I was itching to build a ramp in the backyard. Inspired by Evel Knievel I had the idea that we should see how far the cars would leap.

We were sitting cross-legged on his bedroom floor and Danny kept rocking back and forth, something he did when he was excited or uncomfortable.

'So, um, how's your sister?'� he asked, shyly looking at me.

I had talked to Danny a little about Sandy and Jesus, and he was fascinated by it, he didn't seem scared or put off which made me feel a little bit better. I still wasn't sure if I was supposed to talk to people about this.

'OK, I guess. I don't know. It's weird.'�

Danny kept looking at me, his eyes squinting.

'What?'�

'Wanna see something cool?'� he smiled wickedly.

As I got older, I learned that when boys said that, it usually meant something much different than Match Box cars. But on that day, I just said: 'Sure.'�

Danny hopped up and closed his blinds. He rushed to his dresser where he took something out of a box and put it down.

'Turn off the lights when I say so,'� he said, his back to me. I stood by the light switch and waited.

'Now!'� He said with great dramatic flair.

I turned off the light and the room was immediately transformed, awash in radiant blue, glowing with glistening orange and green flecks that swam around the room. I was enraptured.

'My dad sent me this lamp. See? The light is inside, and this part goes around. It turns the room into the ocean. There's waves and fish and everything. It's like being underwater.'� He was beaming.

We both sat in awe, and looked up at the ceiling, moving and alive. I'd never seen anything like it. We were quiet, and eventually we lay down next to one another, taking it all in.

'We're underwater,'� I said.

'Yeah,'� Danny turned his head and smiled at me, his face a revelation.

It was the first time in weeks I had felt certain and unafraid. Underwater we were safe. It was nothing more than a dark, quiet room with a rotating multi-colored lamp. But it was our secret, and our sanctuary. I took Danny's hand and held it. We spent the entire afternoon talking in a new and undiscovered intimacy. We were underwater and so far away from everyone that we could never be found. It was perfect.

Danny and I spent most of that summer underwater. We could say anything to each other. We practiced swearing. We wondered aloud about what we'd look like when we were older. We debated about who we thought we could beat in a fight from our school. We talked about TV shows, and listened to records. We kissed, on a double-dog dare, and both immediately blushed and giggled. But it didn't matter, because in our underwater room we were free of embarrassment or shame. We were free from divorce, and sisters acting crazy, and being outcasts, and watching our parents struggle to get through the day.

Danny gave me the one thing that no one else could: he gave me a glittering, perfect shelter. A part of me would always love Danny for this. As I got older I would know many men, but none would ever offer a shelter as pure and complete.

My version of being underwater would change over the years, but when the reality of my family became too real, too much--it was that same world of fantasy and endless hope that kept me safe. I was given refuge, I was watched over, and I was delivered. In my way, it became my own watchful Jesus in the sky.

Copyright © 2007 Sharon Bryan

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