She wasn't like other people. She knew things, so many things. As a teenager, when everyone else was swimming and doing teenager things, her nose was in a book. A regents prep book, and she wasn't even taking the class yet. She always had her eye on the prize...getting out.
Another thing about Danielle. She was beautiful, in a smart, unobtainable way. The boys stared and lusted, and she rolled her eyes and ignored. It was funny to me, what she had. Some of my boyfriends broke up with me with the sad thought they might have a chance. She rolled her eyes even further, "forget him, he is a loser."
She left me when she was sixteen. Moved out. I didn't have a chance to be with her again till I was 20 years old or so. I lived in Boulder, CO, and she called one day and said her roommate was moving out, did I want to come? Hell yes I wanted to come. One week later, I was walking my boxes up a flight of stairs to settle into a new place with Danielle. Together again. Her roommate wasn't gone yet, so I bunked in her room with her for a few weeks. The first night we laid in her room, I was eager and wanted to talk, she was exhausted and wanted to sleep, after explaining that she was not conversing anymore, she sleepily said, "besides, you just had a long trip across the country. Pretty ballsy just packing up and moving like that....". That was enough for me, I had her approval, I did something she admired, and that was enough for years.
The saga of Danielle and I goes on. I find myself pregnant by a person she does not admire, and she stuck by me when he didn't (which she painfully predicted). She force fed me wheat bread, yelled at people who didn't offer their seats to me on the train, and followed me around forging a bubble that nobody could pierce. I was safe and that was that. When I gave birth to Luke, she stood by me and gave the sperm donor the obligatory hairy eyeball when he visited.
Danielle. The name may have no pull with you, but mirrors the effect of the highest matriarch in my life. She was where the buck stopped. After Luke was born, I moved home leaving Danielle behind which was very hard to do, she was, after all, my security.
She lives the next state over, in Vermont. Our sons are the same age. Danielle has grown into a perfectionist (maybe always has been one), still beautiful, kind of a control freak, and an appreciator of things that she loves. When she discovers something amazing, she calls me and tells me about it. Then, a few days later, I'll receive it in the mail, or as a Christmas present.
I had the pleasure of having Danielle stay at my house for a few days last week. My face starts to get sore from laughing after being with Dani for a few days. She prepared us dinner the last night she stayed here and I realized there is a magic that comes with Danielle. Everything she does is tinged with this uniqueness. Everyday things like chopping garlic. Her garlic pieces are perfect, the way her fingers grip the knife, like Bobby Flay or something. She has a way of doing things and is perfectly happy in her element preparing a dinner made from fresh organic vegetables and breads. This is what she loves. She wants to make everyone's plate, put the right amount of pasta, sauce, and veggies on each plate. No one gets away without their greens, sorry! She makes us all sit around the table and say what we are thankful for before we eat. She even eats...like Danielle. Neatly placing the fork in her mouth after every bite, closing her eyes and tasting every flavor of every morsel like it's the last dinner she'll ever eat. She is Danielle, my sister, my confidant. Oh how I want to be like her, but if I was like her, it would not be good. We can not have two alpha wolves in this family, she can have it. We will be connected forever and always because she would have it no other way, and what Danielle wants, she gets. I won't argue.
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