It has always seemed to me that you don't choose your friends any more than you choose your family, if you are a true friend. You wouldn't disown a true friend more lightly than you would a sister. You would forgive a true friend her transgressions just as you would a sister.
Sisters are relative. We are relatives now, technically, tangled up in a hillbilly family tree, but that's not what binds us.
We are different. We don't wear each other's clothes. We didn't grow up together. We often disagree. One of us is even a Republican.
We have driven each other's cars and slept in the same room together. We've taken vacations alone together, even when we had perfectly good husbands. We gave each other the heads-up before our respective surprise fortieth birthday parties. We've changed each other's kids' diapers and visited each other in the hospital. I spanked your kid in my bathtub before I had ever laid a hand on one of my own. I'll bring your kids Krispy Kreme on a Sunday morning but I'll never do it at home. I'll wash your dishes but not mine. I spent a decade traveling the country attending your family's reunions and weddings and reporting back to you because you wouldn't go. We know all each other's secrets: animal, sexual and marital.
The terminus of my last walk of shame was your breakfast table, where you graciously served me scrambled eggs topped with a generous smattering of precious, meaty morels, sauteed in butter. You know what I found in the kangaroo pocket of my sweatshirt last week. You know where my wedding ring collection is stashed. You know all about the gun. I've read your poems and you've listened to me sing.
Sisters. Cue the banjo. Happy Birthday.
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