My older sister Peg: sibling and friend

The other day, I was stopped in my tracks, nagged by a thought that emerged out of nowhere.

Suddenly, something just didn’t feel right. 

Then I realized why: It had been days since I talked with my sister, Peg. I picked up the phone, found a comfortable spot on the couch, and dialed.

“Well, well, well,” she began. “This is a nice surprise.”

She always answers with something sweet, a lilt of happiness in her voice. I tend to play the devil to her saint, quick with a ribald joke or a line from our beloved father.

“Where are you?” I’ll say, channelling our Dad, “and who are you bothering?”

We’re seven siblings in all, five girls and two boys, and I maintain close relations with almost all of them. Our parents are both gone now, an eventuality that often severs an emotional artery among many families, prompting siblings to drift apart and focus on their own nuclear families.

But we have persevered, especially me and Peg.

Our mother died in 2008, our father in 2014. One day, I called Peg and used a baseball analogy to make a point. “Well, both our parents are dead, and you know what that means,” I said.

“What?” she asked tentatively, like she almost didn’t want to hear the answer.

“It means we’re on deck.”

It was a dark thought. As I recall, she clucked as she does at something that comes out of my mouth.

“You’re not right,” she said.

Among all my five sisters, my relationship with Peg stands out. We share this history. The thing is, we talk on the phone often. If too many days pass, one will check in on the other. There’s no attitude, no recriminations, other than a bit of teasing, perhaps. 

Like good pals, we just pick up where we left off.

In honor of our dear mother, the original family gossip, I jokingly call Peg “Switchboard Susan” teasing her with my image of her as Ernestine, Lily Tomlin’s character on the old Laugh-In TV show, with her matronly coiffed hair, shoving plugs into the switchboard with a whiny “One ringy dingy, two ringy dingy.”

Peg is anything but that. She's lovely, in shape, looking years younger than her actual age.

Like she says, I’m not right.

We siblings might not always talk, but everybody talks to Peg. She knows what’s going on. In my mind, her sheer energy helps keep our sense of family alive.

Peg’s a talker. She says the same about me, insisting I’m the bigger blabbermouth, and she’s probably right. What differentiates us, she insists, is that I cannot keep a secret which, again, is spot-on right.

It has been this way for years, since I attended college in Buffalo and she worked as an executive secretary for the local power company. When I had a problem, Peg was there. She singlehandedly typed 250 separate job letters to newspapers nationwide when I first started looking for work as a a journalist. 

She listened patiently as I waxed on about Sherri Summers, a girl at school on whom I had a crush and who barely knew I existed.

Decades later, I still call her “Marjorie,” a nickname I concocted years ago because, well, that’s what younger brothers do. She calls me “Jabber,” the name our Dad stuck to me like the crooked wallpaper he once put up in the kitchen of our family home.

Peg is emotional, especially when we talk about our father, who was himself a sentimental man compared to our practical no-nonsense mother. Whenever we talk about our Dad, sharing some sweet or funny story, Peg will pause and say. “He was just so cute.”

Sometimes her voice will break with emotion. It’s one of the many things I love about her. 

Just a few years older, she’s not exactly a mother-figure, but she personifies the feminine form of affection that runs deep in so many families. Like my mother always did, Peg always wants to hear the full story, no detail spared. She celebrates my successes and counsels me in my let downs.

For me, Peg is love personified.

By all rights, Peg should have disowned me decades ago. I have given her gray hairs.

She’s the second oldest in our family and came of age in the late 1960s, when young people like her were just learning to let their freak flags fly. But Peg wasn't any hippie. She had her own style.

I was goofy and bespectacled, watchful and annoying, always looking to play the rat and report to my parents on any missteps my older sisters might make, not that there were that many.

Peg used to tease me about playing so much golf as a boy. “Why do you chase that little white ball?” she asked. Until she herself became addicted to the sport as an adult.

When Peg was a junior in high school, her running buddy was a girl named Diane Wykes, a 90-pound chainsmoker. The two were inseparable and when Peg highlighted her dark hair with lighter hints, I began calling them Frosty and Smoky when I saw them walking up our suburban street, no doubt up to no good.

Peg had a boyfriend named Phil Newman, whom I of course referred to as Empty Old Baby around our house, a contrarian name I invented to get under her skin. 

One Sunday night, when our parents were out bowling in their weekly league, the girls were choosing their Monday school outfits when words were exchanged between Peg and younger sister, Dale — who probably wouldn’t let Peg borrow some coveted blouse.

It was a small two-story house and Dale finally blurted out “You think you’re cool because you and Phil Newman slept together last weekend.”

Uh-oh.

At that moment, both sisters stopped to see me there in the upstairs hallway, but it was too late. I had heard it all. Peg ran into her room crying. And I, of course, broke this breaking news story to my mother the first chance I got.

Whenever I dredge up this story, Peg will listen patiently and then ask, "Now, do you want to hear how it really happened?

Years later, I used to tell my cronies that my sister Dale was single and attractive, like she was some kind of Indian princess, or even Cinderella. When Peg heard that mushy descriptor one too many times, she leveled me in her gaze.

“Who are we?” she asked of she and our sister Sue, “Anastasia and Esmerelda?”

Ahh, Peg.

I still tease Peg about the time I bought single sister Dale a subscription to match.com as a gift. I called Peg one night to let her know, and even shared the password. 

Well, I couldn’t help myself and, apparently, neither could Peg. I’d get online at night to scout out cute girls from Warsaw or Moscow and Peg was curious about what men were reaching out to our sister. 

Dale finally complained to our mother, saying our online curiosity made it look like she was always on the site, hungry for love, when that was anything but the case.

Mom told her to change her password, which she did.

Well, that move drove a stake through Peg’s heart. For years, I teased her about trying to log on, once, twice, three times, only to be locked out. One ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingy.

As the year pass, Peg and I remain thick as thieves. Our politics differ, but we don’t let that disrupt what has become truly an emotional connection.

Of course, we still tease either our about our goofy phone voicemail messages. Something about my breathy direct delivery gets on her nerves and I insist that her old message sounded like she sucked a lungful of air out of a helium balloon.

But in the end, my sister Peg is no Ernestine, and she’s no Cinderella, either.

She’s more of a queen, a lovely woman who in her own way takes after both our parents.

She’s a sister I’m proud to call a friend.

And by the way, Marjorie, I think it’s your turn to call.