In a CoVid world, I learned to embrace the little joys in life. My latest little joys are the cutest kittens ever, named after two characters in The Sometime Sister.
Stella Star is the one on the left. She was "more than comfortable in her role as princess. For her the crown wasn’t the least bit heavy." The one on the right is Lesroy. "He never walked into a room; he twirled or tap danced in."
“She is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Lesroy said. “I’m going to call her Stella Star because she is the most beautiful, beautiful, shining star in the entire universe.” My cousin always had a gift for hyperbole.
When Stella was little—and sometimes when she’d been not so little—I would find myself laughing at how enthusiastically she dove into a piece of cake or pie. Like Justin, I would occasionally wipe errant crumbs or cream from her face.
We collected smooth stoned from the creek behind my house and turned them into tiny trolls who guarded us when we too impromptu naps on blankets piled inside our palace.
When we were kids, Lesroy always wanted to play shadow tag. He and Stella would laugh and race around trying to overcome each other’s wavering images. But the game had creeped me out. Seeing my shadow-self seemed too much like watching a part of me shift and dissolve into nothing..
Katherine Nichols Author 