Chapter 10: Sibling rivalry at our age

I am smiling now a little at her, the worst of the story is over and there are just few odd details that I haven't told her but for the most part I haven't left anything out that I know of. I find myself now talking more to her than telling the story.

Having a brother took more adjusting on my part than on his, you see John had grown up with a sister, and a brother that died while they were children, me on the other hand I was the only child growing up with a mother who showered me with attention every chance she could. While John went to a private school I went to the public schools. I was a latch key kid in a neighborhood where that wasn't that uncommon, people would just watch out for other's kids when they knew a parent was working, I would either come home and watch cartoons while doing my homework or I would go and hang out with a friend. While we were not wealthy by any means and she worked hard to support the two of us, I never wanted for anything in my life. And there are things that she did for me as a child that I will never forget, even if I was at first mad at her when I found out that I really wasn't her child.

But in finding out I had a brother who was 2 minutes older than I was, brought out the extreme competitive nature that I had. While growing up I had no one to compete with, no one vying with me to be better than me at something, and here John was a doctor, but I had a leg up, while he was still a resident there, might have been chief resident, I was an attending on the staff there and for the first few weeks as we settled in to getting used to being brother and sister, I had to constantly remind him that I was the attending, okay I rather enjoyed reminding him of that one. Granted the circumstances that had held him back were not completely his own doing and were unfortunate I still rubbed it in every chance I got. And I was still trying to adjust to the new name. His family insisted on using the name that I was born with not the name that I was given.

"Victoria." I hear a voice calling; it took me a minute to once again realize that it was calling me.

I look up to see who it is, "what Johnathan?" I say snottily to him. "Can't we shorten that to something other than Victoria; please come on you got shortened to John can you not call me something that doesn't sound like I should have a pole shoved up my ass."

As I spit that out Gamma came walking into the room and I wanted to put my head between my legs and run and hide.

"Victoria Elizabeth Carter," I heard her say, "let me adjust that pole for you young lady."

I really wanted to crawl under the table now. Hearing what I was trying to adjust to as a full name wasn't a good sign, especially is she was offering to adjust a pole for me. I could hear John laughing at me as I turned bright red. "That won't be necessary ma'am." I say in my softest most polite voice that I could muster, "my apologies."

I am given a look from her and I'm not sure how I am supposed to interpret it. Something was telling me that I wasn't in trouble, but only because of how old I was, but more of a warning that, my behavior was not going to be tolerated if it happened again. John in the mean time has stuffed is laughter now into a smirk. Which as his sister I felt was my job to wipe off his face.

"John, sorry to see that you have to work on the holiday, that's the nice part of being an attending I don't have to work holidays. But then I guess that's why they are called Residents."

"Ah well it will be so nice that you are able to spend your first holiday here in Chicago with your family." He grinned back at me, "While I am slaving away at the hospital you can be here entertaining with the rest of the Carter clan."

Oh there was something in his tone of voice that was telling me that I didn't want to be there but I had just offered up my head on the platter rather than his. I was going to have to find a way out of this one and fast.

"Oh John you won't be able to be here with us, you need to get someone to cover your shift, it would be a shame for you not to spend it with your sister now that she has been returned to the family." Gamma said saving me.

"Oh gamma it would be a shame if John couldn't be here." I am now grinning like a Cheshire cat. "I will definitely have to talk to Susan and Kerry and see what can't be worked out so that you can be here with us all."

"Sorry but the schedule is already done." He said looking at me, "hands are tied someone has to work."

"And that someone will not be you." I say rather matter of fact. "I will see to it that you have the day off so that you can be here, we wouldn't want to disappoint anyone now would we?"

"Oh no we can't have that," I can hear the sarcasm in his voice but it just makes the grin on my face even bigger.

"Got that right dear brother," I find myself saying, "we would hate to let everyone down."

I did pull strings that Christmas so that he had to suffer right along side me as I learned to navigate the waters of being a Carter. Eventually I got them to shorten the name; Vicki seemed to suit me better than Victoria did.

I find myself looking down not at the old woman who is barely alive now, she's slipping from this world into the next. She has this smile on her face as she reaches up to gently touch the side of my face. I'm not sure what to make of her gesture, there is something more to it than just a friendly touch.

"Oh child you have brought more joy into this world that you know." She said to me her voice soft as she speaks to me now. "You have a god given talent, one that few people have these days."

I find that I am looking at her now, with wonderment in my eyes, unsure of why she is saying this to me now, for I have done nothing more than talk to her for the past few hours, to make sure that her last hours were not spent alone. "I did what anyone else would have done." I find myself saying now in a tone that matches hers. "No one deserves to be alone."

"I watched you grow from afar." She said, "through photo's sent to me once every few months newspaper clippings of your accomplishments. I can see why she was so proud of you. Granted I wished that I could have been there for you but circumstances didn't allow for it. We all have made our mistakes in life and those mistakes are often passed down from mother to daughter, father to son, until eventually someone learns from them. You have, I can see that you are more compassionate."

"Watched me from afar?" She had to have been someone who at one time had to have been close to my mother, not my birth mom but the woman who had raised me for so long. "Forgive me for asking who are you?"

"Bethany was a good woman." I hear her say now it had been so long since I had heard my momma's name mentioned. "I didn't do right by her and it showed. She just got on the wrong path and I was never around to correct it. What she, taking you was wrong, but she loved you just the same. My Bethany never meant to hurt you, I shouldn't have stayed away, I missed out on too much and I could have fixed this so much sooner."

My eyes looked into hers more so than they had the entire time I had been talking to her, for it was now that I could see that it was as if I was a child again looking into my mother's eyes. "Grandma," I say softer than the falling snow outside the window.

I could see the light in her eyes starting to fade even more as I held onto her hand, and as she passed I knew one thing, that the family you were born into wasn't always the family that you were meant to have. While I might have been born into one family I was raised in another. Eleanor always my mother by blood, but Bethany would be the one that I forever called mamma. Yet not matter who I felt that I belonged to the one thing that I knew for sure was that John was my brother, annoying as it might have been, there was something special that would always remain between the two of us.