~
Three Score Years
“Imagine being a sexagenarian!” There’s laughter in your voice. I giggle as I wonder about the “sex” part.
“Is it like being a whore?”
I ask because our mother routinely calls women and girls, her four school-aged daughters included, whores and sex maniacs. I am ten. I have no idea what sex means. I have learned to chuckle at the word from my sisters, my brothers, and from school friends. It’s the expected response.
You laugh again. You’re my thirteen years old sister. You listen to our oldest sister more than you listen to me now. She talks about sex. You’re in transit from childhood to puberty. Your ears tune in and eavesdrop to different conversations. You still let me follow you in more peaceful moments. We’re both quiet children in a rowdy house.
We’re serious school girls who read voraciously ahead of our years. We know big words but little about love, let alone sex. It would seem the two may or may not be related. You’re seeking to find out more. I listen and try to make useful suggestions. You’re three years older than me, and my being helpful counts more than revealing I don’t know enough.
Nonetheless, I ask: “But isn’t she too old to be a sexagenarian?” The syllables are carefully stretched in my mouth so their novelty doesn’t trip me up. It’s a cumbersome word for a word lover, with no known way to re-use it easily. I’m practicing; trying it out on my tongue.
You snigger. Now I wonder if you’re mocking me as you exclaim: “Grandma is already old! That’s how come she’s turning into a sexagenarian next week!” You don’t spell it out but I hear the disdain of new knowledge in your tone. There’s learning and ignorance seesawing in both of us. A flicker of fear flutters in my flat chest. Maybe we’re drifting apart. Your chest is no longer as flat as mine. You’re moving to middle school soon. I’ve seen what happens when sisters change school. Our older sister, who used to read us adventure stories, rarely talks to us now. She’s in high school. She has an important life to live. She clicks her tongue with contempt if we get in her way as she moves around the house with a regal air. She relies on mysterious sighs and recurrent hair flicks. She gets the sharpest edge of our mother’s curses. I wonder if she’s a sexagenarian. I don’t ask.
I go for what seems a safer question: “If Grandma’s old enough to be a sexagenarian, what about Mom and Dad? Are they sexagenarians too then?” My best friend Alf has told me adults have a lot of sex which is how babies happen. Our family is certainly large enough. I don’t care to dwell on that. Our mother’s pregnant again.
You stand still for a moment, long enough to stare and for me to feel the weight of your years. “They’re not there yet.” You state with authority. “They’re more like tricenarians. I don’t believe they could be quadragenarians yet.” I hear a flicker of uncertainty in your voice and I’m less worried about the drift I fear.
“You’re making it up now!” I shout with relief, exhaling audibly. “You’re making words up! You are!” To me, quadragenarian sounds like something I should have read about in the Greek mythology books I’m immersed in well past lights-out. I’ve never come across the words you’re dispensing as if you owned the household dictionary.
But then, you reveal the key to the mystery, putting me out of my misery of not-knowing. “It’s about age, silly!” Your voice is filled with confidence I’m not quite sure you fully possess yet.
“Age?” I have to ask. “What do you mean, it’s about age?”
“Adults have categories.” You’re spelling it out for me now. “They’re not just 10 or 15 or even 20 years old like Aunty Beatrice. They have categories to fit into the older they get, you see?”
You’re not really asking. You’re telling. I know not to interrupt. “Grandma’s really old and she’s turning sixty next week. Can you believe it?! Sixty years old! She’s ancient now. She’ll be a sex-a-ge-nar-i-an.”
You break the revelation down for me, sounding its mystery out loud.
“Do you think we’ll ever be sexagenarians?” I feel awed by the power of a life long enough to have its own label.
“Yep!” You claim confidently. “No doubt about it! We’ll go through all the narians, ten years at a time, till we’re centenarians, and we‘re completely bald and all our teeth have fallen out!” We burst out laughing, as I recall silently that means being one hundred years old. It takes my ten year old’s breath away for a second.
The decades slip-slide by. Some crash and some burn. Yours and mine. We drift apart. We don’t lose sight of each other. We catch up and we synchronize our stories. We never talk about sex when we meet. We don’t worry about aging. We go into a new millennium. We’re a long way from our century yet; half a life we think.
You make it to quinquagenerian, and no more. You go AWOL and fall into an unforgiving curtailment and a final darkness. It’s unexpected. Shattering. You abscond before you get the chance to become a sexagenarian. Cancer gets you and doesn’t yield.
It’s been some years already. Now, I am reaching that moment you didn’t make it to. Now, I have to be a sexagenarian for the both of us. I still hear your laughter, unmuffled by your thick fingers hiding your sensual mouth. I still hear you walk ahead. I’m still following, though I know we always kept our own paths. It hurts that you didn’t make it before me. You would have made such an excellent sex-a-ge-nar-i-an.
I keep the word for you, and go for three score years instead.
~
Véronique Béquin
Véronique Béquin often writes about grief and loss, and her experiences as an LGBTQ writer who has moved across cultures, languages, and countries. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in CV2, Sinister Wisdom, the IO Literary Journal, the Midnight Oil, and the Scapegoat Review, among others. She has been shortlisted for the Hippocrates poetry prize, as well as the Bridport and the Wasafari Prize. She has won the Alice Munro Short Story prize. She currently lives in Southwestern Canada.