Sharing the bed

*** This was from a Friday in October but remained in my journal past its date and is now included here. ***

I can never sleep much more than six hours in a night without waking up with a headache. Fortunately my body knows this and I will wake up before the headache comes on. I usually get the headache only if I've been sick and unable to get up automatically, or if I choose to roll over and go back to sleep when I know I shouldn't, which has happened more often than I care to admit.

Last night I went to bed too early, partly due to eye strain as I have been reading this book about a guy who sailed round the world (a true story) whenever I am not doing something school-related or with the family. I managed to shuffle in to the bathroom and brush my teeth and then I got out of everything and got into bed properly. It has been chilly most nights, but last night there was an ominous-looking fog and it stayed warm, so that my fire was almost unnecessary. I just happen to like how it smells, making the room seem cosy.

There was thunder in the night, an odd thing this time of year. Somewhere out over the ocean a front was rolling in. Once I turned over in bed and pulled the covers up round my back. I was not cold but felt insecure. Another time I rolled back the other way and came face-to-face with another pair of eyes.

'Janine,' she said in an urgent whisper.

My eyes opened wide. Little Lisa (five) in her old-fashioned flannel nightdress hovered uneasily at the edge of my bed, half shivering either from cold or the fear of the storm. Thunder rolled out on the ocean and she quaked on her feet. At once I parted the comforter, blanket and sheet away from the side of the bed and she scampered in.

I know most big sisters would not do this. I was naked-- which is always weird when you have to have someone else under the same covers, although I have done it before with each of my sisters. But little Lisa looks up to me, almost like a second mother, and it is flattering for her to ask me to shelter her from whatever scares her. It's as though God is calling, 'Janine! You have work to do.' The other thing is that Mother and Daddy's door is about 45 feet down the gallery and across the mezzanine from Lisa's door and that's a long way to walk in the dark when you're five and scared. It is an easy thing for me to admit her into my bed. And the other thing is that she is warm, a soft, fuzzy flannel lump to snuggle up behind.

I shifted backwards, to give her one of the pillows, and closed the covers over her. Lisa settled right down, for a moment tensing again as more thunder rumbled, and I wrapped my arm over her and pulled us closer together. She sighed. She would be safe and sound now.

Lisa usually gets up before either Jessy or I-- most little kids do. But I had had that extra sleep too early at night and awoke the moment she stirred. For a few moments we denied to let the other know we were awake, and then she rolled onto her back and stared up at the muslin canopy of my bed. Then, almost as though she could not believe where she was, she turned and looked at me, with our faces about six inches apart. 'Hi,' she said.

I smiled at her. 'Did you sleep all right?'

She nodded eagerly. 'Did you?' I nodded too, like she had, and she smiled again. 'Is Mother going to make waffles?'

It was Saturday. I felt like I'd slept three nights together. 'I don't know,' I said. 'Want to check?'

She nodded like that again and started to sit up. I peeled the covers back about halfway and let her out of the bed. She put her feet down and then stopped, like she had thought of something else, and then turned round and leaned way in to kiss my head. 'I'm sorry I came into your bed,' she said.

I smiled at her. 'It's all right. I'm sorry you didn't like the thunder.'

She shrugged, like that embarrassed her. Then she said what she'd really wanted to say. 'You're a good big sister.'

'Awww.... And you're a terrific little sister.' Then I squirmed over to that side of the bed and we hugged. 'I love you, sweetie.'

'I love you too, sweetie.' We both giggled at that. She has never called me 'sweetie' before-- Mother calls all of us that but Jessy and I tend to reserve that for Lisa or each other.

'Now go down and find out if there are waffles. I think I will put something on first.'

Lisa giggled again. 'Aren't you chilly?'

I snatched back all the covers and pulled them up to my neck, dramatically. 'Not any more.'

She giggled again, wholeheartedly, and then scurried out to the bathroom in the gallery.

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