Do you have a sister? Have the two of you kept secrets? Hmm.

My sister’s name is Joan Elizabeth. We grew up in a fairly small town during a not-so-fairly benign time…unless you call the Cold War benign.

We shared lots of things: clothes (she was two years older, so I often got the hand-me-downs); a small table and two chairs (where I learned to print upside down and backwards by mimicking Joan Elizabeth); fried clam dinners at Howard Johnson’s (when we were supposed to be at church); a bedroom, until I was twelve or so.

We shared secrets, too: like our handmade cemetery on the banks of Lynch’s Brook where we buried the dead birds and small animals we found; like the fact that there really was a boogie man on the path to Duke’s; like the time I fractured my jaw on my sled because I was horsing around (strictly forbidden); like drinking water from our plastic Tiny Tears’ bottles; like sneaking down to the railroad tracks in Mittineague Park to catch a glimpse of Grandpa passing by on the train (he was an engineer).

Of course, like most sisters, we also had an ultimate sister-secret, the kind of thing that is so secret you can’t ever tell a single, solitary soul, cross your heart and hope to die. (Did we really “hope to die?” Good grief.) Anyway, I’ll only share it here if you, too, promise not to tell. Okay, are you ready? We found the scandalous book Peyton Place in our mother’s bottom dresser drawer.

Want to share your sister-secret(s)? “Friend” me on my Facebook page…I won’t tell a single, solitary soul!