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From CBC Podcasts, radiotopia

1:02

and Mermaid Palace.

1:05

Welcome to

1:07

the heart. I'm

1:10

Katelyn Preston. And this

1:14

is sisters, a five

1:16

episode series about The Great Love Affairs

1:19

that has been my

1:21

relationship with my sister.

1:24

Natalie, What

1:27

you're about to hear is

1:29

the story of

1:31

siblings. The

1:33

story of female friendship.

1:37

The story of how

1:39

love grows and changes

1:42

across decades. The

1:50

story you're about to hear is

1:53

real. Natalie

1:55

and I spent the last

1:57

two years talking, writing,

2:00

and creating this together. All

2:02

of the recordings are from real

2:04

moments that happened while my microphone

2:07

was around over the past twenty

2:09

years of our lives. Of

2:11

course, there were a few times when

2:13

the microphone wasn't around. We'll

2:16

always let you know when what you're hearing is

2:18

a reenactment. So you can

2:20

trust that everything else is

2:22

real life. On

2:26

the note of real life, The

2:30

series and the story that you hear

2:32

inside of it is still

2:35

a story. It

2:38

is a narrative thread that was woven

2:40

by choosing some threads of reality

2:42

to focus on and leaving other

2:45

threads of reality by the wayside. Every

2:49

story no matter how real is

2:52

a fiction. I

2:55

invite you to think about a photograph of

2:57

yourself from long ago. The

3:00

picture is real. It

3:03

shows who you are, what you look like.

3:07

If it's a good photographer who took it,

3:09

Maybe the picture tells a story

3:13

about what your life was like at the time.

3:16

Maybe it gives a window into a moment.

3:20

But it doesn't tell the whole truth of who you

3:22

are, what

3:25

is outside the frame. The

3:34

truth is something that a linear time

3:36

based narrative could never hold even

3:39

if it's five entire episodes. So

3:45

We use reality and frame

3:48

different parts of our lives to

3:50

create a picture that we hope you

3:52

will see some of yourself inside of.

3:55

Or at minimum that you will get

3:57

voyeuristic pleasure out of experiencing.

4:02

And with that, We

4:05

begin. Sister's.

4:10

Sister's. Do

4:10

you want some champagne? Yep. I

4:12

think we it.

4:13

We have to. Okay. I can make

4:15

you mine. No preamble.

4:18

You already said that taste your lips

4:20

is Oneisode hates me.

4:23

You just wanna get her done. Nice

4:26

on. Nice on the day.

4:28

Travel God's pooped. You

4:33

said I'm so happy. So happy.

4:37

Kind of fight. This

4:41

is real. I love you. Yeah.

4:43

See you tomorrow. So it was a close game. How

4:45

do you wanna go to Oneisode I was whiny.

4:48

A text student? He's been reminding

4:50

me of my time. And when they grew up

4:52

on her when she made a rush

4:54

back. Okay. Say I'm

4:56

never ever gonna win play with you ever

4:58

again. don't care about you winning. I care about your

5:00

little game that you do. It's

5:03

not a day

5:18

blue blizzard bus.

5:20

Chaquana. Can you do

5:22

it the way that you did it the first time? That was so

5:24

funny and new to me. Couquee Chaquana.

5:26

Random load. That's I'm the

5:28

head of the day. No more. Check

5:31

them out. Check them out.

5:34

Chapter one. Childhood.

5:38

Being the older sister. The

5:40

younger sister always gets her away.

5:42

Who's

5:46

gonna tell first? Oh my gosh. Can

5:48

we just tell at the same time? This isn't working really

5:50

well.

5:52

Once upon a time, there

5:54

was -- There were -- -- a beautiful child

5:57

that was born. And then there was,

5:59

wait, which one is beautiful? A.

6:04

Who gets to go first?

6:05

Yeah. Why does that

6:07

question ring? It's so uncomfortable. Oh,

6:10

day. I got Why does it

6:12

make you wanna go? What is fair and

6:14

what is just I will just

6:17

go second because I assume you wanna go

6:19

first.

6:19

In the spirit of equality between

6:22

older and younger sisters.

6:23

Pampers Cruisers. Yeah. We're

6:25

putting our hands out. Rock

6:28

paper scissors.

6:38

A ten year old girl wakes up

6:40

at five AM every single

6:42

morning. To

6:44

practice piano for forty five

6:46

whole minutes before she goes to school.

6:54

For the first two years of her life, she

6:56

played in a playpen while her daddy

6:58

practiced guitar for eight hours

7:00

a day. Sometimes,

7:03

he would take breaks to crack a beer, roll

7:05

a joint with his brother Mark. Sometimes,

7:08

he would take breaks to change her diapers. To

7:10

bring her to the park, push her

7:12

on the swings. Mister

7:15

mom, he would proudly call

7:17

himself. It was nineteen eighty

7:19

six, and there he was a

7:21

baby boomer man with feminist

7:23

inclinations.

7:24

Kate, Liz and Mary pressed. Wonderful

7:28

person you. Katelyn

7:30

Mary pressed. I

7:37

was daddy's little girl and

7:40

then Natalie

7:42

was

7:42

born. I

7:43

think Natalie. Natalie. Yeah.

7:46

You're smiling. Yeah. Yeah.

7:48

Yeah. You're smiling. Man,

7:53

hello? I mean, please. Can

7:59

With the arrival of the second kid, Daddy

8:02

finally bit the bullet about trying to be a classical

8:04

guitarist. And went to teacher's college.

8:08

And so the center of my universe

8:11

departed. And left me alone

8:14

with an unfamiliar parent orbiting

8:17

around an unfamiliar baby.

8:29

Is where it began.

8:30

Delly. Delly.

8:37

Delly. I know

8:39

you're not supposed to have favorites and families, but

8:41

everyone always does. Dad

8:43

was my favorite and I was his.

8:46

And so just like him, I was

8:49

disciplined. I worked

8:51

hard. I worked hard at

8:53

what was most important in my family.

8:57

Music.

9:11

Everybody in the family was a musician.

9:14

My parents met playing guitar duets

9:16

together. So,

9:19

Natalie played piano too. Natalie

9:23

never really practiced. Instead,

9:26

she played. Every

9:40

year we perform at the Qualis festival.

9:43

We drive all the way to Ottawa and go to

9:45

some fancy building where there are a bunch of

9:47

rooms with grand pianos and judges.

9:50

You perform your pieces and the judges

9:53

rank you. And maybe you

9:55

get a metal, gold, silver,

9:59

or bronze. I

10:04

get up on stage in front of all

10:06

of the hopeful parents, in

10:08

front of my hopeful

10:09

parents. In front of my

10:12

hopeful daddy.

10:17

When I sit down, I'm

10:19

panicking, and then all

10:21

of those hours of practice kick

10:24

in. We're

10:36

making the stink.

10:47

I spend the rest of the

10:49

performance freaking out about it.

10:56

Finally, it's

10:58

over. I

11:00

take a bow. The judges

11:03

say that my technique is

11:05

excellent, and I'm

11:07

awarded bronze. Natalie

11:11

emerges from her adjudication room with

11:13

a trophy that is taller than

11:15

both of us, a trophy

11:17

taller than both of us and two

11:21

gold medals. It's

11:24

her musicality, Daddy says,

11:27

She's a natural. Kate's,

11:31

you're just like me, an

11:34

anxious performer. There's

11:38

a picture of her in the town newspaper,

11:41

the Chesterville record, mom

11:43

and dad put it on the refrigerator, and

11:45

I look at it every day at five AM

11:48

before I sit down and start my

11:50

scales. You

11:53

can imagine maybe the insult to injury

11:55

it was when she started to copy

11:57

everything that I did. I

11:59

liked neon green. I called

12:01

it funky green. I thought I was special

12:04

in cool for thinking of a new name for

12:06

it. And then suddenly she likes

12:08

neon green. She calls it funky

12:10

green. It's her computer password. I

12:14

started learning clarinet. She started

12:16

learning clarinet. I became obsessed

12:18

with rainbows. She still to this

12:20

day is obsessed with rainbows. As

12:24

a little girl trying to eke out

12:26

an identity, there

12:28

she was showing me up

12:30

at the one thing I was supposed to

12:32

be the best at, being

12:36

myself. And

12:39

maybe I would take

12:41

it out on her a little bit. Natalie

12:44

was crystallized in the family as the innocent

12:47

one. The one who needed

12:49

to be protected. We

12:56

talk about sibling rivalry, but

12:59

I've always suspected that I'm the one

13:01

who was in a sibling

13:02

rivalry. Natalie, was

13:05

just enjoying living her life.

13:11

What do you say now?

13:12

Bye. I think I have

13:14

to say to him.

13:15

Wait. Natalie was gonna say to him.

13:17

What Natalie? I'm gonna

13:20

be eight. It'll Two

13:24

of us. Two of them. Come

13:27

on. One pair of one, two

13:29

of how to love

13:32

the world so high. This

13:35

is Natalie's room. Oh,

13:38

and a new mommy's

13:40

k. She's recently messed

13:43

up, like, you know,

13:45

they're they're going up to the second. Don't

13:47

forget the water. Natalie, you're in the way. Sorry.

13:56

I'm sixteen. She's fourteen. She

13:58

wants to borrow my suede boots. These

14:01

boots are my pride and my

14:03

joy. They go up to your knees.

14:06

They have fake sheeps for popping

14:08

up around the and their laces have pom

14:10

poms at the end. They're

14:12

stylish in a strange kind of

14:14

way. In my strange

14:16

kind of way, I do not, under

14:19

any circumstances, want her to borrow these

14:21

boots. But

14:23

I also don't want to be a bitch ass con.

14:26

Okay. Fine. You can wear

14:29

them on

14:31

one condition. If

14:34

anybody compliments you on these boots, you

14:36

better not let them think that you bought them.

14:38

You tell them that they're your sisters and

14:40

that she bought them and that they're hers.

14:44

On one condition, I

14:46

had said it exactly the way that

14:48

my dad would say it. On

14:51

one condition, anytime

14:53

that I needed something from my primary caretaker,

14:56

my dad, he would

14:58

leverage holding something

15:00

ransom Seeing somebody in position

15:03

of need as an opportunity.

15:07

Iceberg lettuce and shards of glass

15:09

scatter across dinner table My

15:12

heart is beating so fast that I've forgotten what

15:14

it was that I said that made him so

15:16

angry. Clean

15:19

that up. I

15:22

look at him wondering if he's serious.

15:25

Mom and Natalie our deer and headlights

15:27

still.

15:29

What? You

15:31

broke my bowl.

15:36

I

15:36

look over desperately at mom and Natalie

15:38

looking for some backup that this is totally

15:41

insane. Natalie is

15:43

staring down at her plate mom

15:45

is staring wild eye at a dad. No

15:47

one says anything. Well,

15:50

I do. What

15:53

the

15:56

It would happen so quickly, like

15:58

a match sparking into flame, over

16:00

an invisible cloud of gas, One

16:02

second, he was a grown man, my

16:05

dad, and the next second,

16:09

he was the rage. Since

16:11

becoming a teenager and realizing that my

16:13

dad was a deeply flawed man and not

16:15

god, or as we called him, the

16:17

master of the universe. Dad

16:19

and I went from being best friends to

16:22

being mortal enemies. In

16:43

those years, the years we euphemistically

16:46

call, World War three between

16:48

me and dad. Natalie

16:51

and I became opposites.

16:55

I was the bad kid, she

16:58

was the good kid, the

17:00

normal

17:00

kid, the wholesome kid. The

17:03

American Eagle jeans and roots sweater wearing

17:05

kid.

17:08

Maybe when she saw how things

17:10

went between me and dad, She

17:13

didn't want to be like me

17:16

anymore. With

17:21

each passing day in the family, I

17:23

came to feel more and more like a one

17:25

of a kind I didn't want to be.

17:29

The one of a kind that is alone.

17:35

When I pick up one of Natalie's fancy

17:37

magazines and she'd yank it back from

17:39

me saying that I'd crease it or wreck it or

17:41

ruin it or when my mom would

17:43

stare at my dad. But

17:45

say nothing. It

17:51

started to feel like it was family

17:53

versus Caitlyn. I'm

18:00

sure that in those years, there were

18:02

moments of fun. Magic,

18:04

beauty, and love between my sister

18:06

and

18:06

I. The sad thing

18:08

is that I don't

18:11

remember them.

18:15

Decades in the future, a therapist

18:18

will tell me that trauma creates

18:20

black and white thinking. That

18:22

in order to protect yourself, you have to see

18:24

things as all bad, and

18:27

maybe that's what I did. When

18:31

I leave our tiny town and the family

18:33

versus Caitlin Dynamic, I believe

18:35

that I'm leaving my family behind forever.

18:39

I'm excited. When

18:42

I think of Natalie, I

18:45

know that we'll be the kind of sisters who

18:47

never understand each other. The

18:49

kind of sisters who show up in a crunch for

18:51

each other and then unload to

18:53

our real friends about how frustrating

18:56

and annoying we find each other Her

18:58

life is a disaster. She doesn't have any kind

19:00

of job security. She hangs over a dead beach. She's

19:02

she's a total of Thomas. She's her armpit. Her

19:04

friends are so boring. I just wanna scratch my eyes

19:06

out after for five minutes of conversation with. The

19:08

kind of sisters who share a mutual disrespect

19:11

of one another's life

19:12

choices.

19:13

It's sad. The way she lives her life. The way she lives

19:15

her life. In our future,

19:17

I imagine her as a suburban Ottawa

19:19

girl with suburban Ottawa friends,

19:22

marrying young, having kids, and buying

19:25

a cookie cutter house in a neighborhood of identical

19:27

houses and a development in Orleans called

19:30

something like Falling Brook. It

19:32

would be a house that was expensive, but not expensive

19:35

enough to conjure the feeling of wealth. In

19:38

our future, I imagined myself arriving

19:40

at a doorstep at age forty unannounced,

19:43

wearing a filthy trench coat and the kind of

19:45

tattered homemade skirt that looked whimsical in my

19:47

twenties and now is a signifier of just how

19:49

outside of society I've chosen to live and

19:53

between homes again. She

19:56

opens the door with the baby in her arms

19:58

and welcomes me to sleep in the guest room

20:00

for a few days. I

20:02

ask her to borrow about five hundred bucks

20:04

and she doesn't hesitate. She gives

20:06

it to me. I

20:08

play with the kids and she watches smiling,

20:11

wearably with her husband who

20:13

would be wearing suit pants at my

20:15

tattered charisma. They

20:18

would smile together at how non judgmental

20:21

the children are. This

20:24

is the future, I imagine, for

20:26

us. When I leave home at

20:28

age nineteen.

20:33

I would love her. But I

20:35

would never like her. Please

20:40

excuse this brief interruption.

20:43

We'll be right back. This show

20:45

is sponsored by better help. At

20:47

the heart, we are obsessed with

20:49

therapy. Therapy is really

20:51

helpful for learning positive coping skills,

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and even how to set boundaries

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so important. If you've ever thought

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Visit better help dot com slash

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dot com slash heart. Chapter

21:21

one, childhood, being

21:25

the little sister. Keep

21:27

her the little sister never

21:29

gets her way. Am I still doing chapter headings

21:31

or just Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cap Caitlyn's

21:34

way is the Caitlyn and Natalie's child

21:37

Kaitlyn and Natalie? Not Natalie and Caitlyn. It's

21:39

Caitlyn and Natalie. A little

21:41

girl wakes up every morning at six AM

21:43

and muffles the sound of the dial up modem

21:45

with a blanket. As she logs onto the

21:47

Internet to look at art albums

21:50

of sailor moon. Her

21:52

sister is upstairs practicing her triads.

21:55

Eventually, her dad will come down and bother her

21:57

about practicing too. She'd get

21:59

around to it eventually. In

22:02

the first year of her life, she was known

22:04

to all who met her as the baby with

22:06

the strange lump on her eyebrow. And

22:09

she arrived home from the hospital in her first

22:11

days on this earth. Her sister

22:13

Caitlyn had taken one of her baby gifts,

22:16

silver engraved picture frame. And

22:18

whacked her in the face with it. The

22:23

little girl, Natalie.

22:27

Natalie Press. Me.

22:37

You're not supposed have favorites in families,

22:39

but everyone always does. Caitlin

22:43

was my favorite. I

22:50

was always trying to catch up with her. That's

23:01

Alright. It's a go. Natalie, go do it.

23:04

Go get it, Natalie.

23:09

She seemed determined to leave me in the dust.

23:12

We won the race. I did. Oh,

23:18

here she comes. Zoom in the bass.

23:28

Natalie, are you being a camera

23:31

hog? Jeez.

23:43

You point the device and then

23:45

you say jeez, you know. You you but

23:48

it was video camera. So

23:50

I would just get into this mode where

23:52

I'm like ready for the camera.

23:55

I'm smiling. And Music.

24:08

Yeah. I mean, I loved I loved the spotlight. Are

24:14

you mixing the airgate? was

24:19

my idol. Okay. She

24:21

was -- Yeah. --

24:23

everything that I wanted to

24:24

be.

24:25

And are you making a rainbow thing

24:27

like that? Like,

24:32

I just saw whatever she was doing and

24:34

thought it was incredible. So I was like, I wanna

24:36

do that. You know? Like, So

24:43

we're in the car. Mom,

24:45

dad, Caitlyn and I. Backseat

24:48

of this Ultimate Bill is where we spent

24:51

so many joyous moments in our childhood. Family

24:54

road trips singing the same songs over

24:56

and over listening to cassette tapes on

24:58

our matching walkman's, reading

25:00

goosebumps and playing license plate card games.

25:03

Today, the mood's a little

25:05

different. We spent

25:07

the day at the Qantas music festival. I

25:10

got three gold medals around my

25:12

and there's a huge trophy in the

25:14

trunk. Mom

25:16

and dad have been raving about how proud they are

25:18

of

25:18

me. I

25:20

look over at Caitlyn with

25:23

her bronze

25:25

metal around her

25:26

neck. Her arms

25:28

are crossed and she's scouring at the countless

25:31

rows of cornfields passing by. The

25:33

smell of Calminer fills our nostrils as

25:35

we watch the massive track spewing fertilizer

25:38

over the fields. Her

25:42

anger fills the entire car.

25:47

I practice so many more hours than her,

25:49

but she gets a trophy. It's

25:52

not fair. Do you think I actually

25:54

said that? Did I actually say that? Mean,

25:56

I remember using,

25:59

like, it's not fair or something about the

26:01

hours, the amount of hours that you put in

26:03

compared to, I said that?

26:06

I think you did.

26:12

We sit in silence and

26:14

what feels like an extraordinarily long

26:17

journey back to our rural

26:19

home, but

26:21

that wasn't the end of it. Kaitlyn

26:24

was bigger sister, and

26:26

she always made sure that I

26:28

knew it. That meant that she

26:31

was a star. She was the

26:32

artist. She was the winner.

26:35

Can you do it, like, repetitively?

26:38

Like, she was a star. She Oh,

26:42

okay. That meant that she was

26:44

the

26:44

star. To be the star. She was the artist.

26:46

To the family. She had to be the winner

26:48

all the time. Drive

26:49

for two whole other years. Of course, I

26:51

should win every race. She was the

26:53

boss. We're playing my little pony.

26:56

We have about a hundred and fifty of them.

26:59

She is performing as all of the ponies and

27:01

I get the role of dog.

27:04

Friend to all the ponies. Like,

27:07

I run around on my hands and knees and say,

27:09

Arf. She's putting on a dinner theater party.

27:11

I get the role of Butler.

27:14

I served the appetizers and drinks to

27:16

her and all of her friends.

27:19

The thing is even though Butler

27:21

is not the role I would choose for myself

27:23

or pet dog or countless

27:26

other variations on this Exactly. -- the

27:28

step sister number two backup dancer.

27:31

Katelyn was just just vivacious, sparkly,

27:35

like so animated, so expressive,

27:37

so center of

27:40

attention, like like dominating the

27:42

room, like whatever room you

27:44

should walk into, it would just be people

27:46

be magnetized and and and

27:49

I mean, I guess, III fell in love

27:51

with watching her be her, you know. Like,

27:54

She always had some crazy new idea of

27:56

how to spend her time. Let's really choose

27:58

your own adventure book. Let's turn the living room into a

28:00

theater. Let's choreograph a puppy dance. This is

28:02

Roy Orbis into. Let's make your own paper dolls. Let's read

28:04

every book on this book. Just climb up on top

28:06

of those huge rocks and Let's make picket signs

28:08

for the teacher's I can walk up and down the driveway.

28:11

Where mom's lingerie and stuff are trained to do

28:13

each other's makeup and paint each other's hair, the garage

28:15

and smoke dad cigar. Let's stoop around

28:17

a mom and dad's closet and see what we can find.

28:19

What are these magazines? I

28:22

admire her big dreams for what we should do

28:24

with our time. Kinda

28:26

liked that she always knew what to do all the time.

28:39

Kaitlyn and dad would start fighting. found

28:42

myself gravitating to the farthest

28:44

corner of the house, I

28:46

felt like the dog, cowering under the

28:48

coffee table in the corner when the vacuum cleaner

28:51

was so overwhelmingly loud, took

28:53

over the entire bottom half of the house. I

28:56

felt powerless. I

28:58

loved my family so much when they'd fought

29:00

like this. I felt torn

29:03

inside. How can protect

29:05

my sister but also be my daddy's little

29:07

girl? How could I do

29:09

anything to make it stop? Caitlin

29:12

was going through a phase where she didn't want to

29:14

be touched. The only way she would

29:16

let me touch her was if I offered to

29:18

give her a massage. I wanted

29:20

to show her that I was on her side. It

29:23

was kids versus parents. And

29:25

for a while, it felt like it was working.

29:28

We got close. Drive

29:37

us to school and almost blow the speakers

29:39

playing system of a down. We'd

29:42

scream at the top of our lungs and sing

29:44

a surge in chaloes harmony for

29:46

taking the melody and me taking the harmony. Even

29:53

though we were teenagers, we were obsessed with nineteen

29:56

eighty's cartoons. Rainbow Bright,

29:58

my little pony, and our all time favorite

30:00

gem in the holograms. When

30:03

DVD boxsets got augmented, we

30:05

bought all three seasons and did our first

30:07

TV binging of our lives. When

30:09

I was obsessed with O town and the group of my

30:11

supposed friends and my grade all

30:13

bought tickets to go to the concert without me,

30:16

she was furious. Kaitlyn

30:18

got her best friend to buy a ticket, and we went to

30:21

three of us as a rival

30:22

Pasi. Even though she didn't

30:24

even know who O town was,

30:27

When she wanted to get out so badly, when

30:30

she went away for university, She

30:33

wasn't only leaving the tyrannical rule of dad

30:35

and a seemingly unsympathetic mother.

30:39

She was leaving me. Her

30:42

sister. She

30:45

was leaving me behind. My

30:49

final year in high school, grade twelve,

30:52

top of the school. We

30:54

lived in a country where there was no such thing as

30:56

public transportation. Before Katelyn left

30:58

the nest, she used to drive us. To

31:01

be honest, I didn't really miss dragging

31:03

her out of bed in the morning. And then desperately

31:06

clutching the seat as she sped so

31:08

fast down the dirt roads that she turned

31:10

an hour long commute into a forty minute

31:12

panic NASCAR race. I

31:15

drove myself to school at my

31:17

own pace. I even got to use

31:19

the bright green firefly to drive my friends

31:21

to Wendy's during lunch hour. I'm

31:31

in my last year at performing arts high

31:33

school, vocal music major.

31:36

One day in November, the most revered

31:38

teacher in the program, takes me aside.

31:42

He wants me to sing a solo with

31:44

the National Arts Center Orchestra. The

31:47

NAC, the most prestigious

31:50

venue in the country. He's picking me

31:52

when I arrive at the backstage of the concert hall.

31:55

There's a framed plaque on the door that says

31:57

Natalie pressed. As I walk

31:59

into the dressing room, there's a massive

32:01

mirror lined with rows of lights framing

32:03

my reflection staring back at

32:05

me. I feel like

32:07

a star. She has a lovely

32:09

voice. I'm just gonna say the Christmas song.

32:11

Will you please welcome?

32:31

I'm on stage looking out into

32:33

the crowd. There's over

32:35

a thousand people here. I

32:37

know that my family, my biggest

32:40

fans who are out there

32:42

turned me on. Except

32:46

my sister. This

32:58

is the most important woman in my life.

33:02

And I don't even think she knows it's happening.

33:32

It's been three months since she left for university.

33:35

And we haven't even talked on the

33:36

phone. I wonder

33:38

what she's doing. What's

33:42

happening in her crazy Montreal life.

33:53

I believe that

33:55

Caitlyn and I will be the kind of sisters, but

33:57

used to share a special connection.

34:01

Connection that I value so dearly.

34:04

I keep a locket that I wear daily to

34:06

remind myself of what it was like to

34:08

live by her side every day. Laughing

34:11

and scheming all the ways we could have fun together.

34:14

While the matching

34:16

locket that I gave Caitlyn, rusts

34:18

in the bottom of an old trunk, covered

34:20

in mysterious decaying food. She

34:23

will live in the most beautiful house,

34:26

the kind of house where each tile in

34:29

the floor is hand selected. It's

34:32

a retreat from the existence of normal

34:34

life and it's a haven for artistic

34:36

dreaming dancing, frivolity,

34:39

and enchantment. At

34:42

age forty, I will show up on her doorstep requesting

34:44

just a moment of quality time with my magical

34:47

sought after sister, but

34:49

she will be too busy working on her art

34:51

to find the time. She'll have to get

34:53

her assistant to schedule something with me. And

34:55

when the day arrives, she will call me

34:58

an hour after we were supposed to meet. To

35:00

regretfully inform me, she will not

35:02

be able to make the appointment. Because

35:05

she met a gorgeous eyeliner wearing

35:08

modern day pirate while reading terror cards

35:10

in the subway, and he's invited her to

35:12

join him on an adventurous tour of the islands

35:14

his boat, KP. You can

35:16

understand right Natalie. Of course,

35:18

I understand Caitlyn. This

35:22

is the life I envisioned for us. When she left

35:24

home, a sister who was

35:26

my world leaving me

35:28

behind as a childhood memory she'd

35:30

prefer to forget. On her travels to greatness

35:33

beyond these meager country beginnings.

35:44

How? How did it happen?

35:47

Like, did you call me and say, you

35:50

know, were you like, hey, I wanna come

35:51

visit? Or did I tell you like, what

35:54

or did I invite you to come? Yeah. I just remember

35:56

it was in your residence. Yeah.

36:00

But I don't remember. Yeah.

36:05

I

36:05

mean, it would be better for the story if I

36:08

if I called you. Should

36:13

we pretend?

36:16

Yeah. You can do that.

36:18

Okay. So just for the listeners,

36:21

this is a reenactment of what of something that could

36:23

have happened, but we're not sure if it did. The

36:25

phone would ring, and dad would he would

36:27

do his thing, his the way

36:29

he does it.

36:31

Now let a look.

36:34

That look. That's

36:37

right. Okay, dad. I got it done

36:39

here. Okay,

36:44

Donna. Got it. Hello?

36:49

Natalie. Hey, Lynn. Oh

36:52

my god. I haven't heard from you in so long.

36:55

I'm cooking room. Have a fucking

36:58

crazy idea. What's

36:59

that? Do

37:02

you wanna come to Montreal?

37:07

When I got to Montreal, she showed

37:09

we had to smoke a bomb for the first time.

37:12

We got so high we were laughing at everything

37:14

together, singing with

37:16

her friends playing guitar, and

37:19

then her rubbing my back to make me feel safe when

37:21

I felt overwhelmed paranoid being in a

37:23

strange place with all these new forms of stimulus,

37:26

showing me the strip where I

37:28

first walked by Cinema Demour and

37:30

almost went into a strip club. But instead, Caitlin

37:32

took me out and we danced the night away in a dark

37:35

techno club. It was incredible.

37:38

We were hungover from the night before, just

37:41

walking down Saint Laurent when

37:44

we decided to take a break. We

37:47

sat down side by side on this wide stoop.

37:50

Our bare knees were parallel as

37:53

we watched the passersby and took

37:55

a breath. She

37:57

looked like a goddess. Her

38:00

hair was always so curly and it

38:02

was hard not to admire how luscious and large

38:04

it was. She had a way

38:06

of making messy look magic.

38:09

She always had some kind of stain painted on

38:11

her lap. From not being scared

38:14

to get soiled by life and having

38:16

more important things to do than laundry. She

38:19

rocked whatever piece of fabric she found on the

38:21

side of the street or paid for in a thrift

38:23

shop if he was feeling extravagant. Like

38:27

the worn taro that she read,

38:29

she looked enchanted and worn down

38:32

by the match strick of being loved. I

38:34

was still in my long blonde hair phase,

38:37

blow dried and straightened because I

38:39

couldn't handle the unpredictable nature of let

38:41

the soft waves in my hair dry on their own.

38:44

She just looks at me and says,

38:47

I

38:50

know we always do what I wanna do,

38:53

and I know that

38:55

in the past, that's just been

38:57

our relationship. I don't

39:00

want to fall into those old patterns. What

39:03

you want to do is important to me.

39:09

So what do you wanna do right now,

39:11

Natalie? I

39:15

don't know.

39:20

And I felt overwhelmed. What

39:22

do you wanna do?

39:23

What what do I wanna do? Is

39:26

about

39:26

Natalie. I don't pose that question to myself.

39:29

I'm not used to that. What do you

39:31

feel like doing today?

39:35

We can do anything.

39:37

And I felt so cared for in that moment.

39:40

Good. Okay. We could go out for breakfast.

39:42

We could go shopping?

39:43

Yeah. Let's do that. Let's go for breakfast. Okay.

39:46

Do you have a certain kind of I mean, I know this, like,

39:48

really, really cool spot. Do you wanna go to this really it's called

39:50

bagels, etcetera? Right across from Leonard Cohen's

39:53

house. Yeah. It's like very nineteen twenties.

39:55

Oh my gosh. It's

39:56

really cool chandeliers and stuff. It's so

39:58

cool. That sounds perfect. Okay. Let's do

40:00

that.

40:20

This has been episode one

40:23

of sisters. Chapter

40:25

one episode. Follow the

40:27

heart at the heart radio. Follow

40:29

mermaid palace at mermaid palace art

40:31

on Instagram. For behind the scenes

40:33

photos of me and Natalie as kids

40:35

and me and Natalie making this series.

40:39

The sisters series is a special production

40:41

of the heart brought to you by CBC

40:43

Podcasts. You

40:46

heard piano by Caitlyn and Natalie Press,

40:48

Guitar, by Greg Prest. This

40:50

episode was directed and written by Caitlin

40:52

Prest. That's me. And

40:55

it was written and associate produced by

40:57

Natalie Prest. Our editor

40:59

is the incredible artist Deborah Schirinde.

41:02

Our researching producer is Alexandra

41:04

Pinnel. Sister's design

41:06

is by Jen Ng. You

41:08

can follow me at Caitlyn

41:10

Press on Instagram, and you can follow Natalie

41:13

at Natalie Pressy. Big

41:15

thanks to our editorial advisors whose

41:17

brains shaped what this became

41:21

Mitchellok Yama on this episode

41:23

in particular. Migilokayama? Thank

41:26

you. Thank you very much.

41:29

Jennifer Custer Drosh, Aliyah Pavani,

41:32

Meghan Castle, Fabiola Carletti,

41:35

Sarah Rose, and Harry Mayzen.

41:39

Special thanks to Jonathan Mitchell,

41:41

Brit Ray, Maria Yablodina, Rachel

41:44

Ricketts, Russiany Nair, Sarah

41:46

Clayton, Damon Fairchild, Tina Verma,

41:48

Audrey Martovich, Arf Norani, Cecil

41:51

Fernandez, Pike Malinofsky, Mitra

41:54

Kiboli, Lauren Dobby, and

41:56

Sam Hall. This episode

41:58

included light references to parental

42:00

abuse. If you or anyone

42:02

you know is experiencing or perpetrating

42:05

parental abuse, please visit

42:07

our website for resources the

42:09

heart radio dot orgsisters. The

42:14

heart is a production of Mermaid Palace.

42:17

Mermaid Palace is an audio art studio

42:19

dedicated to sound magic in the realm of

42:21

podcast, performance, film and TV,

42:24

and art installation. Right

42:26

to us at the heart at mermidpalace dot

42:29

org. Stay tuned for our next

42:31

episode. Coming out next week,

42:33

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