I suppose it’s a bit silly, me, an old man, tapping away at this tiny screen at… oh, it’s past two in the morning. My eyes aren’t what they used to be, and my fingers are certainly less nimble, but sometimes a thing just… insists on being told, even if only to the ether. It’s about my sister, Eleanor. Always has been, really. She’s… well, she’s passed on now, a few years back, and I find myself still replaying these old tapes, these grievances that feel so trivial now, yet still prickle at the corners of my memory. We grew up just down the road from the old Miller place, you know, the one with the crooked fence? That’s where our story began, in this little pocket of nowhere where everyone knew everyone’s business before you even had a chance to breathe it in yourself. And everyone knew Eleanor was… well, Eleanor. She had a certain vivacity, a kind of magnetic insouciance that just drew people in, and she knew it, too. From a young age, I was the steady one, the one who meticulously saved his allowance for a new fishing reel, while she’d spend hers on penny candy and trinkets, only to “borrow” from mine a week later. It was a pattern, you see. A pre-established behavioral paradigm, one might say, that persisted for… well, her entire life, and mine, by extension. The thing is, it wasn’t just little amounts. Not after we were adults. She’d get herself into these predicaments, these financial cul-de-sacs, and I’d always be the one to… well, to extricate her. Mortgage payments, car repairs, those ill-advised investments she made in that artisanal candle business that went belly-up faster than a fish out of water. She’d call, always with that same breathless urgency, and I, like an automaton, would just… provide. And mind you, this was while she steadfastly refused to engage in any form of consistent remunerative employment. “Oh, Bartholomew,” she’d say, with that dismissive wave of her hand, “you and your dreary little ledgers! Life is for LIVING, not for counting coppers!” And then, the real sting, she’d relay these sentiments to our mutual acquaintances – poor old Mrs. Henderson down the lane, or even young Thomas who runs the feed store now – making light of my “hoarding tendencies,” my “ascetic lifestyle.” She’d paint me as some kind of misanthropic miser, while she, of course, was the free-spirited artist, constrained only by the petty demands of commerce. It was a projection, I see that now, a defense mechanism, perhaps, to deflect from her own… well, her own lack of fiscal discipline, her inability to grasp the principles of delayed gratification. And I let her. For decades, I let her. Part of me, I suppose, found some peculiar solace in being the dependable one, the anchor, however much she might try to cast me adrift with her barbs. There was a certain… tragic nobility in it, at least in my own mind. And yet, there was also a deep, abiding sadness. A longing, I suppose, for just one instance of recognition, one genuine thank you that wasn’t followed by a request for another twenty dollars. I remember once, after I’d paid off her outstanding medical bills – she’d had a nasty fall, tripped over her own laundry basket, can you imagine? – I’d driven all the way into town, a good hour and a half, just to drop off the check. And she looked at me, lying there on her sofa, surrounded by magazines and half-eaten biscuits, and she said, “Oh, did you bring that new fertilizer for my petunias, Barty? The ones from the nursery are just dreadful.” Not a word about the medical bills, not a flicker of anything but mild irritation that I hadn’t anticipated her horticultural needs. It’s a strange thing, isn’t it, how a lifetime can be defined by these small, repeated gestures, these tiny cuts that never quite heal, but just… scar over, leaving a faint, permanent mark. You’d think by seventy-six you’d have figured it all out, wouldn’t you? But some knots, they just stay tied, even after the rope has frayed to nothing.