Mike & Savy Ch. 01

I was eight when my family got a new addition.

When I came home from school one day in the spring, my mother was sitting on the sofa. Her face was red and there was a pile of tissues on the floor next to her. She asked me to sit down.

"Mike, I have something to tell you. You're going to have a little sister."

I remember being really shocked at this. You see, my parents had been fighting for as long as I could remember. They never fought in front of me, but I still knew. At the best of times, they were coldly indifferent to each other's existence. At the worst, I would sit in my room listening to them shouting in their room. It's like I was numb to the world, because home is where everything should be safe, happy, and comfortable.

I couldn't complain about safety; my family's home was beautiful with a huge yard, woods to run and play around in, and I even had a great dog to play Frisbee with. Happy was another thing altogether, though. I couldn't really figure out why they were having a little girl when they didn't even seem to like each other very much. I knew what divorce was; many of my friends had divorced parents. Maybe this was my parents' way of trying to find something to share and stay together over.

"You're gonna have a baby, mom?"

"No, not exactly. But your father and I know a little girl and... " She sniffed, "... we love her very much, so she's going to come live with us."

"Do you mean... adopt? Jimmy's adopted, you know, from another country."

"Yes, that's about it. Are you excited to have a sister?"

"Well, I dunno. Maybe."

"It'll be okay."

A week later, I was out in the yard and my dad pulled into the driveway. He got out, waved at me, and went around to the back door. When he stepped away from the car, he had a little girl in his arms.

"Mike, come here. I want you to meet your sister, Savannah. She's four."

I ran over and tried to peek at her, but she buried her face in dad's neck.

Later that night, I guess she'd had a nap and was feeling better. She was sitting at the table and my dad was feeding her dinner. I had to admit, she was an adorable kid. I asked my dad where she was from. He said that she was from Virginia, close to our home in Maryland, but her family was from the Philippines.

Little Savannah looked up at me and smiled the widest smile I'd ever seen. I was eight, but my heart melted. Maybe we would have some happiness in the house.

Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. I tried to be a good kid. I did my chores. I got great grades. I took care of my sister as best I could. I called her Savy and we'd play in the yard. Sometimes, I'd bring out all of her stuffed animals and set 'em up like a parade. She was my sister and I'd do anything for that smile. Still, it wasn't enough.

I was ten when my parents divorced.

I think by that point, I was so resigned to it, that it barely affected me. My dad was almost always away from home anyway, because he was working. My mom did the best she could with the two of us. I don't think I saw them say more than four words a night to each other. No, the divorce wasn't a surprise and I didn't feel the need to lash out.

Still, what did surprise me is that after the divorce, my dad didn't just move out, he moved all the way to Oregon. Birthday cards and Christmas presents were all I ever got from him, even those tapering off over the years.

I think back and he just didn't have it in him to be the family man. He needed to throw himself into whatever he wanted to be doing at the time. Sometimes, that was work. Other times, it was flying all over the country to see a new city or some such. Either way, he didn't give much thought to family and after that, we didn't give much thought to him.

Mom, sis, and me... we'd be all right. We moved to a smaller house with a smaller yard, but that was okay, because it was still our home.

It's pretty easy for an older brother to dismiss a younger sister, especially when there's four years between them, but I didn't.

I adored Savy and I couldn't even fully explain why. She was just... incredibly special. There was some undefinable quality about her that allowed us to avoid the normal older brother versus younger sister annoyances. I didn't just spend time with her because I had to in order to help out mom, I spent time with her because she was my sister and I cared about her. I wanted everything to be right for her. I wanted her to always be smiling.

After I did my homework, I sat down with her and read books or tried to teach her something. She was unbelievably intelligent. We'd be sitting there and she'd have her face plastered to my old second grade math workbook, even though she was only in kindergarten. She seemed to be just as empathetic as she was intelligent, too. When I got pushed around at school by bigger kids, which happened more often than I'd like to admit thanks to my small stature, she'd come sit by me on the sofa and just cuddle up against me to make me feel better.

That's how it went for us. My mom was still as awesome as ever, providing for us, giving us a great home, and being there when we scraped our knees, had a bad day at school, or needed help with, well, anything. I have no idea how she managed it, keeping us in a comfortable home as a single parent, maintaining a steady career, and always managing to find time to spend with us every single day.

By the time I was in high school, I'll admit that my attentions had turned to other girls than just my mom and sister. I mean, hey... I was a teenage boy. Still, I was a bit gawky, so the attention paid back to me was a lot more limited than I'd have preferred.

I'd started wrestling in middle school, so I could handle myself, but even as a junior in high school and with five years of wrestling, I was a small guy. I didn't break 5' until my senior year, when a small growth spurt got me up to 5'5" and even then, I only wrestled at 125 lbs. that year. I was, charitably, lanky. And no, wearing braces from 8th to 11th grades didn't help.

I did date a girl pretty seriously during my senior year. Jamie was a cute girl, blonde and all-American. She was a year behind me in school, but that didn't much matter. We went to prom together in the spring and were still going strong in the summer. By that time, I'd started a job working for a small computer repair shop. I'd take off early in the afternoon to pick up Jamie. We'd go to the pool sometimes, but most of the time, we'd go to her home and spend the afternoon in bed. I lost my virginity to Jamie and her to me. It was sweet, awkward puppy love. In short, it couldn't have lasted.

When fall rolled around, I was going to the University of Maryland to study astronomy and physics and Jamie was staying home for her senior year. We broke up. I regretted the way it happened, that as soon as I was in College Park, I didn't even try to make a long distance relationship work. Sometimes, that's just the way it is when you're young and away from home for the first time.

Meanwhile, Savy was blowing everyone away at school. Not only was she a straight-A student, but she'd skipped 4th grade and was a talented violinist. She had started school a year later than normal because of the adoption, so skipping a grade brought her in line with the other students her age.

She grew up a lot like I did: small, skinny, gawky. Not only did she have the braces, but glasses, too. They always seemed a bit too big for her petite face. Still, as awkward as she was, she had that smile that must've been a mile wide. When I came home for Thanksgiving my freshman year, not really feeling like I fit in at my dorm, she opened the door and smiled. That was all I needed to feel like all of my troubles had been fixed and were far behind me.

After I went to Maryland, I didn't get to see Savy and mom as much as I'd have liked. I was only a few hours away from home in Salisbury, but when you're in college, leaving campus just doesn't cross your mind much.

Savy and I would instant message almost every day, though. I'd ask her and she'd talk about some concert she'd given or class she'd aced, then she would ask me about college. She was incredibly insistent asking about the minutiae of classes and the details of what college life was like. It just seemed like she was already ready to leave high school and get to college.

I'll admit, it was kicking my ass a bit. High school was a breeze, but I'd never had to apply myself like this. The A's and B's of high school had turned into mostly C's in college. I felt like I was letting her down, even more than I felt like I was letting down mom. Mom had this way of always supporting me, even when I could tell she wanted more, but the thought of not living up to Savy's expectations was troubling.

By my sophomore year, I was doing better. My grades were up and I lived in a different dorm, for international students, so there was always lots of interesting stuff was always going on.

Savy was still my best friend, though. She was starting to think about what she wanted to study in college and, like me, she wanted nothing more than to work at NASA. She was more focused on biology, which I was perfectly fine with. The thought of the two of us possibly getting jobs at Goddard, which is just a few miles from the University of Maryland campus, was incredible.

Relationships? Yeah, I had some.

My freshman year, in the spring, I dated an older girl. She was a senior and I think more than anything, I just made her feel better about herself. She could call me up at 1am and I'd trudge across campus to her dorm to help her study. The sad thing was, I didn't even get anything, physically or emotionally.

My junior year, I dated a girl in one of those relationships that feels really serious when you're on campus, but as soon as you're off campus for a holiday or what not, it feels like it's not really a relationship.

My senior year, I flew solo. I had enough stress to think about with graduating, starting my master's degree, and finding a job to support myself.

I did actually have my first (and only) one night stand my senior year. I wasn't really the type of guy for that, but it just kind of happened. A friend had invited me to a party on campus during spring break.

By that time, I'd filled out my frame and thanks to a growth spurt my freshman year, I stood a respectable 5'11" and 160 lbs. I wasn't really muscular, but the years of wrestling had kept me lean. I'd finally grown out my wrestling buzz cut into an unruly mop of sandy brown hair that was getting more popular at that time. Personally, I've always thought I was relatively average looking, but more than a few girls who were friends commented on my eyes, which had an outer ring of blue that transitioned to green and then gold near my pupil.

At the party, I was actually planning on leaving when the main group in the living room broke out a bong. I didn't object, per se, it just wasn't really my thing. I ended up sitting on the stairs drinking a beer before leaving when a girl came and sat next to me. We talked for awhile and found each other pleasant enough that she invited me up to her room and I went with her.

A few days after graduation, I'd packed everything I owned in the back seat of my old Toyota and headed across the Bay to look forward to a month off before heading back to Maryland. I'd landed a summer internship at Goddard, but I had to recharge. Maybe I'd make a good enough impression to get offered a full-time position on the program I most wanted to be on, the James Webb Space Telescope.

I pulled into mom's driveway a bit after 11pm. The house was dark, but the flickering of light in the living room told me that someone was watching TV, or more likely, sleeping in front of the TV. I opened the door and dragged a few bags inside, before heading to the living room to see who was up. Curled up on the sofa, I saw a pile of long, dark hair sticking out from under a throw blanket. I plopped down next to her and smacked her on the leg.

She bolted upright. I was shocked, that wasn't my sister! She must've had a friend staying over who didn't want to use my room.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I thought you were..."

"Mike!"

"Savy?"

I reached over and flicked on the light on the end table.

I couldn't believe my eyes. Sitting before me was my 18 year old sister and I didn't even recognize her. The glasses, braces, and baggy tom-boy clothes that she'd had as recently as when I'd been home for Christmas were gone.

She was gorgeous.

Before I could even have another thought, she threw herself against me in a giant bear hug.

"I missed you, Mike."

"I... I... I missed you, too."

After what felt like an hour of that hug, I pulled back to take a look at her. Her long dark hair, which wasn't jet black like a pair of Chinese sisters that had lived in my dorm, but very dark brown, was tussled, in that "I just woke up next to a sexy girl" kind of way, and hung down her shoulders and nearly to her waist.

As my eyes drifted back up from seeing how long her hair had gotten, I couldn't help but notice her incredibly petite waist and flat stomach peeking out from under her tank top. Up a little further and... oh my god, my sister had developed since last I'd seen her. She wasn't huge by any means, but there was a very nice amount of cleavage visible at the top of her tank and... she was definitely not wearing a bra. I had no idea how she could be that perfectly proportioned and with everything perfectly shaped and placed.

Maybe it had only been a split second, but it felt like an eternity before I'd gotten my eyes back up... and there she was. Savy sitting there with that grin on her face, creeping wider and wider into her famous smile. My eyes were well-adjusted to the relatively dim light now and she was stunningly gorgeous. Her dark brown eyes, with flecks of gold reflecting back. Her beautiful, full lips. Her slightly flat nose and the small bridge between her eyes. The curve of her chin.

Snap out of it Mike! What the hell man? That's your sister!

"So, big brother, how's it feel to be a college graduate? You know I'd have come for your graduation ceremony, if you'd asked."

"Oh, um... I really didn't want to go through all that. Sitting out in the sun for hours while people drone on about possibilities and what not. Who needs that?"

"You always were the realist."

"And what about you? Diploma in hand, heading off to Maryland. Are you excited?"

"Well, yeah, but I'm more excited that you're back."

She continued smiling at me the entire time and there were brief moments when I even forgot that she was my sister.

We talked until probably four in the morning. Savy asking question after question about what the campus is like, what I'd done that last semester, and what I'd be doing at my internship. It was all I could do to try and answer her and keep my eyes up where they belonged.

Once I finally got her to slow down a bit with the interrogation, I was able to get in a few questions of my own and just sit back and marvel at her as she told me about being valedictorian, and playing The Beatles' "In My Life" at graduation, which I was furious at myself for missing it, even if it was in the middle of my finals. Mostly, she talked about her plans for college. Savy had always been more focused on the future, while I had been somewhat absorbed in my past.

I don't know when I fell asleep, but I crashed and I crashed hard. The next morning, I felt mom waking me up and giving me a kiss on the forehead.

"It's good to have you home, Mike."

"Hey mom, I'm glad to be back. What time is it?"

"Oh, about ten. You two looked comfortable and I figured you'd been up all night talking, so I just let you sleep."

Then I noticed Savy curled up next to me, starting to stir awake.

"Coffee and breakfast?"

"Thanks, mom."

The rest of that day was spent getting my things unpacked and filling in mom on everything Savy had asked me about the night before. It really was good to be back. Don't get me wrong, I loved being on campus at Maryland, but I'm a country boy at heart and the Eastern Shore is in my blood. No matter where I ended up in the world, my home would always be on the Eastern Shore.

The next five weeks flew by. Mom tried to stuff me as much as possible, insisting I was too thin. I did my best to fix up the house, fixing a broken fence post, patching a few shingles, and other general maintenance on the house that I knew was difficult for mom to do on her own.

I don't think Savy and I spent more than a few hours apart the entire time. Whether we were weeding mom's gardens, which she never had quite enough time to work on, thanks to how hard she worked at her job to put us through school, scholarships aside, or heading over to the stadium to see the Shorebirds, we couldn't spend enough time together.

I'm not going to say I minded having this gorgeous girl with me for a month, but it was more than that. We talked... about everything. Sometimes we'd talk about what programs she was interested in at Maryland, sometimes about the Baltimore Orioles, sometimes about nothing at all. I tried asking her if she'd had a boyfriend that she hadn't told me about, but she just blushed adorably and said she hadn't dated anyone. She told me she'd gone to prom with her two best friends, just the girls.

Before I knew it, I had to pack up my car again and be back across the Bay. As I was putting my last bag in the trunk, Savy shuffled up next to me and melted into my arms to hug me. I held her tight for as long as I felt was appropriate, even though I would have happily held her for longer, and then looked down at her face. The front of my shirt was wet from her tears.

"Oh Savy, you know I'm gonna miss you, right?"

She sniffed and wiped her nose. I did my best to reassure her, even though I was going to be missing her terribly, too.

"And I'll be online every night to IM with you."

"I know."

"I couldn't have asked for a better trip home."

She pulled me down a little bit so that on her toes, she was a very petite 5' even, she could reach up and kiss me on the cheek before turning away and scurrying inside. I don't think I'd ever felt so awful pulling out of the driveway.

There's not many times in your life that you know right as they're happening that you'll look back on your deathbed and think, "Yeah... I wanna go back there." Those five weeks were one of those times. Spending all that time with her, learning who we were with how much we'd changed, was incredible. I'd like to pretend to be the tough guy, but as I drove onto the Bay Bridge, my eyes were watering and I had to clench my jaw to hold back my own tears.

A few days later, I was somewhat settled into my apartment in Greenbelt and ready to start my internship at Goddard. The first thing I did was have another intern take a picture of me next to the sign out front, under the NASA flag, and send it to Savy with the note, "Hope you're here soon."

Oddly, over the next few weeks, she was pretty quiet. I'd IM her and ask how things were going, but only got short, one sentence or even just a few word answers back. I worried about her.

It wasn't long before it was time for her to start her first semester at Maryland. Ahead of time, I drove to her dorm, the international dorm that I'd lived in for two years, and was standing there, grinning with excitement like a damn fool, when she and mom drove up.

Before I knew what hit me, Savy had jumped out, tackled me, and was sitting on my stomach.

"HI!"

I laughed out loud and said, "Hey there!"

I could hear mom chuckling in the background, but all I could see was Savy's smile in front of my eyes, framed by the bright blue sky. I could barely breathe, but it wasn't from her sitting on me.