Words on Skin

[neerathemall]

Twenty-years and two days old, Richard woke to the sounds of sea gulls crying and surf lapping at the beach. But it wasn't either of those things that drew him out of his sleep. It was a slender little finger that did it. That finger was tracing letters across his back. It wasn't all that odd, his kid sister Lizzie liked to wake him up this way - writing words on his skin.
They'd written messages like this for each other since they were children. It was their mother's idea. When they were young, their family went on long car rides to visit their grandparents. Little Richard and Elizabeth would get noisy in the back seat along the way -- two hours of nonstop tickling, poking, fighting, laughing and crying. Normal kid stuff, really. Unfortunately, their father was a bit high-strung and those long drives to see his in-laws only made him more tense.
Their mom did what good moms do. She buffered. She taught her children skinwriting to keep them occupied. "Give her your hand, Richie," his mother nodded at his sister from the front seat. "And close your eyes."
"Okay, now you think of a word, Liz. A small one. But don't say it out loud, honey. Ready? Now spell it on your brother's palm."
Liz nodded and traced each letter of her word with her tiny seven year-old finger. She had to write it twice before he could get it.
"Cat?" Richard finally guessed.
Liz giggled and their mother smiled. "Very good, you two. Lizzie, keep going until Richard guesses wrong. Let's see how many words you can get him to say."
Over the next two hours, their parents listened to the more peaceful sounds of elementary college vocabulary coming up from their backseat. "Dog." "House." "Truck." "Chicken, but you forgot the other 'c'."
Their mother's strange little improvised game was one of the many things that built a strong bond between Richard and Lizzie over the years. They had their tiffs and their struggles but they stuck by each other more than other siblings they knew. That bond grew even tighter when their family shrank a few years later. Their father died of a heart attack. No one was surprised -- he'd always been wound pretty tight. Their Mom missed him but she was leading an active, happy life again.
Richard focused on his sister's finger as it traced the three quick letters of her ritual puzzle before moving on to what she was going to make for breakfast.
The puzzle? He'd never solved it. Feeling what was for breakfast? That was easy.
"Pancakes," he muttered into the mattress.
"Good boy. And the other thing?" she scratched the thick brown hair at the back of his head.
"I still have no fucking idea what the hell 'imu' means."
"Ooh, poor little Scooter. Don't worry, you'll get it someday. You're the smartest dumb guy I know," she patted his back and left him alone to get dressed.
Stupid "imu" puzzle.
Eight years ago, he'd told her that she'd misspelled 'emu' and described the little ostrich-like bird. She'd laughed and shook her head, "Uh uh."
Seven years ago, he'd guessed that she'd cheated and skipped the apostrophe for "I'm U." Some sort of funny poetry thing. This of course made no sense. She'd laughed harder.
Lizzie's hardest laugh came three years ago when Richard, fresh from his first few weeks of high college physics had figured out that "I" was the letter for electrical current and the Greek letter "mu" was the symbol commonly used for a coefficient of friction. Thus, "I mu" meant "current friction" referring to how her finger was rubbing across his skin.
Lizzie had nearly wet herself laughing, "Dumbass, I wrote that for you when I was ten years-old. I barely understood what you just said now. How the hell could I have meant that then?"
She had a point.
Richard sighed into his pillow. He knew he was smarter than average and that he was pretty good at figuring things out. The fact that his little sister had stumped him for so long was a sore point.
Well, Lizzie was right about one thing -- pancakes sounded perfect for their first day at the beach.