“Hello hello!” called Charles out into the house.  Tracy, Raymond, and Katherine couldn’t see him yet — the could only hear as he and Clara came in and shut the door.  “We’re back!” 

“Come on in!” called Tracy.  “Katherine’s here!” 

“Oh Katherine!” called Charles back genially, “how nice!  Clara…Clara, take your cleats off first!”  The sound of eager feet on the hardwood floor resounded louder and louder until they saw Clara burst into the room, her face lit up.  She had always loved Katherine when she was dating her brother, because Katherine had always made it a point to include her in games and pay attention to her.   

“Clara!” said Katherine happily.  She stood up from the sofa and walked over to embrace her, a big smile on her face   

“Hey Katherine!” piped Clara energetically, and then her eyes grew wide as she saw Katherine stand up.  “Wooaaaahhhh!” she said, totally awestruck.  “You’re so tall now!  You’re an amazon!!”   

“Haha, something like that,” said Katherine, leaning down to embrace Clara.  In her soccer cleats, Clara was nearly 5’8, Raymond’s height.  “You look like you’ve grown a lot since I saw you last too!” 

“I’m almost as tall as Raymond,” said Clara proudly, putting her hands on her hips and thrusting out her chest.  “And when I wore heels to the 8th grade social this year I was taller than him.” 

“That doesn’t even count,” protested Raymond from the sofa.  “Heels don’t count — I’m still taller than you.”   

“Whatever, unlike you I’m still growing,” she said, waving her hand.  “In like one year I’m gonna be taller than you — then you’ll be my little brother.”   

Katherine laughed and arched her eyebrows down at Clara, turning her head to Raymond as she kept laughing.  “Haha, watch out Raymond,” she said, “she’s gotten super spunky — I have a feeling she’s gonna be true to her word.”  

“I doubt it,” said Raymond, not able to hide his displeasure from the whole cadence of the conversation.  “Anyway I could just lift some weights or something and then I could easily beat her at wrestling.”   

“What, you can’t beat her already?” teased Katherine, going over to him and pinching his little bicep in her fingers.  

“Clara can pretty much hold her own,” said Tracy, chuckling.  “She challenged him to a match a couple weeks ago and, well…it was kind of inconclusive.”   

“Can we just not talk about it?” pouted Raymond.   

“You’re the same age as my brother, right?” asked Clara up to Katherine.   

“Well…actually,” answered Katherine, a bit sheepishly, “your brother is a couple months older than me.”   

“Older!?” burst out Clara.  “But he’s so much smaller than you!”   

“Well, we all grow differently, you know,” said Katherine calmly, “according to our genes and what we do with ourselves.”   

“I wanna be like you when I grow up,” said Clara flatly, looking up into Katherine’s face.  The young girl was clearly starstruck.  Katherine laughed kindly, appreciating the blatant compliment.   

“Well, you can exercise and eat a lot of good healthy food,” she said, her eyes darting to Raymond for a moment as she spoke.  She really didn’t want to make him feel too uncomfortable with the conversation, but, if she was being honest with herself, she was a little shocked at how much he had seemed to have just…deteriorated.  Or stagnated…maybe that was a better word.  And maybe it was all just because she had grown so much herself; she wasn’t really sure.  In any case, all she was trying to do was to navigate this odd situation as gracefully as she could.  But Raymond seemed so sullen…so childish, almost.  It was disappointing to her — and she wasn’t going to just ignore Tracy or Clara for his convenience.  All of this flashed through her mind as she spoke to Clara, and she navigated the tightrope as best she could.   

“And sleep,” piped up Tracy from her armchair, nodding her head at Katherine.  “You grow a lot when you sleep.”  

“Oh yes, of course!  And sleep,” Katherine added, smiling at Tracy as she looked back down at Clara.  “Your body actually releases this cool thing called “human growth hormone” when you sleep, and it’s just what it sounds like — it helps you grow!” 

“See Clara?” said Tracy, standing up.  “Listen to what Katherine’s saying.”  She turned to Katherine, shaking her head.  “I can never get her in bed on time…maybe she’ll finally listen to me now.”   

“I will!” promised Clara energetically, looking up at Katherine.  “I’ll get lots of sleep from now on!”  She looked up and down Katherine’s huge body in flagrant awe.  “You must sleep a lot Katherine!”   

“Ok Clara that’s enough,” said Tracy, unable to stifle a bit of a laugh at her daughter’s brazenness.   

“Geez thank you,” said Raymond sullenly from the couch.  Katherine turned to look at him, not quite able to believe how petty he had become.  She felt bold enough at this point to say something about it.  

“Oh come on Raymond!” she said, her laugh barely hiding the incredulous insistence in her voice…he sounded like a little freshman in high school…“you’re not actually letting this get to you, are you?” 

“Of course he is,” jeered Clara, pointing at him.  “He’s scared to stand up because he knows he’ll look small compared to me.”   

“That’s not true,” said Raymond, standing up to prove his point.  Clara trotted over confidently and stood right next to him, standing up as tall as she could in her soccer cleats.  Katherine had to give it to Clara — she definitely knew what she was talking about.  With her cleats on, she was just about as tall as her brother, but what Katherine noticed more was how much heavier she obviously was…the clearest indication was the difference between their legs — hers were clearly thicker and more heavily muscled than his…maybe even one and a half times as big.  Her whole torso seemed more substantial…even her arms were visibly bigger than his, from her bicep all the way down to her wrist.  Clara seemed to already know these things and she gave Katherine a proud smile as she stood there next to Raymond.  Katherine smiled and gave a little laugh, but internally she was a little more conflicted about what was going on.  She couldn’t believe how…puny he looked…how morose and petulant…how….childish (there was that word again!).  And yet at the same time she looked at Clara and saw a proud young girl who was active and dynamic and growing rapidly — and she couldn’t help but smile back.   

“Ok, ok, we get it Clara, you’re growing,” grumbled Raymond, slinking off to the side away from his younger sister, trying to escape the direct body comparison she was hoisting on him.  But he had to stop in his tracks after a couple of paces, because he realized that he was getting closer to Katherine, who absolutely dwarfed him in every way.  He stopped between the two of them, momentarily paralyzed, not quite sure where to go.  Katherine saw his debacle and her heart suddenly went out to him…the poor little guy — he looked like a scared animal.   

“Hey Raymond!” she said in a kind of hushed tone, her eyebrows going up in a genuine display of humanity, “it’s me!”  He looked blankly up at her, his eyes almost unfocused.  She looked back down at him, seeing confusion and fear in his face.  “It’s just me!” she repeated, holding out her hands with her palms up, encouraging him to relax.   

“Katherine!” A very different voice suddenly issued from the kitchen doorway.  Everyone turned towards the sound.  Charles Pierce was standing there in the doorway, still in his business suit, looking at Katherine with an unabashedly shocked expression on his face.  His exclamation hadn’t quite sounded like him — he had a fairly deep voice, but when he had spoken her name, it was clear that the sound had come out more unfiltered than he had intended.  His surprise was obvious.  Katherine blushed internally, hoping that her cheeks weren’t getting too red in the process.  She was used to people looking at her in public, but to reduce Charles Pierce to this kind of state…well, it made her feel a lot of things at once.   

“Mr. Pierce!” she said happily, hoping that her cheerful tone would diffuse any tension in the room.  “So nice to see you again!”  She walked over to him with a wide smile on her face, extending her arms out for a hug.   

“N-nice to…to see you too Katherine,” he managed to say, mechanically holding his arms out as well.  Like Raymond, Charles was 5’8, and realized as Katherine stooped to greet him that his eyes were shoulder-level with his son’s ex-girlfriend.  The two of them hugged briefly, with Katherine feeling a bit self-conscious as she embraced him…he felt so small to her.  She stood back up and looked down at him, and her heart skipped a little as she saw that his face was bright red.  He had clearly not been able to stifle any kind of reaction to her — she thought briefly about glancing down at his crotch to check to see if he had an erection, but she immediately thought better of it while simultaneously chastising herself internally.  This was definitely no time to flex her power that way.  A few awkward moments passed, with Charles just looking up wordlessly at Katherine with his mouth slightly agape.  Katherine could feel herself really blushing now as she kept looking down at him, hoping that he would recover himself and just say something normal to keep everything moving along.   

“Katherine’s just been updating us on her wonderful life,” said Tracy, coming to the rescue as she walked up to her husband and threaded her arm through his.  As far as Tracy was concerned, her husband’s reaction was better than she could have ever expected — she was quite enjoying watching him squirm like this…but she was not feeling particularly keen on letting Katherine feel too embarrassed, and so she had taken it upon herself to bring a little normalcy to the situation.                          

“Oh…she…she has?” asked Charles, recovering a little bit.  “That’s…that’s wonderful.”  He suddenly closed his eyes and shook his head back and forth a few times.  When he opened his eyes again it looked like he had regained his composure. 

“Golly, I’m sorry Katherine,” he said, looking up at her as he smiled and shook his head.  “It was rude of me to react that way — I just…I had not expected you be this tall!” 

“It’s ok Mr. Pierce,” said Katherine, laughing and appreciating his efforts.  “I’ve gotten used to it when I see friends back home.”   

“Well you look great,” said Charles gracefully, the simple compliment carrying all the weight that he intended it to.  “It’s great that you’ve come back to pay us a visit — I hope pizza’s ok tonight?” 

“Totally!” she said.  Charles smiled and turned toward the kitchen, leading the way with Tracy.   

“Well let’s dig right in!” he said. 

“I bet I eat more pieces of pizza than Raymond!” called Clara as she rushed to get in front.   

“What did I tell you about cleats in the house?” came Charles’s voice, suddenly stern.   

“Oh…yeah, sorry,” said Clara contritely, bowing her head a little as she bent down and took off her cleats.   

“And put them where they belong,” he added.  “Come on Clara, I don’t need to be telling you the same stuff every night.”   

“Sorry dad,” she said again, putting her cleats in the corner and returning to the line as they all made their way into the kitchen.  She passed by her brother, doing her best to stand up as tall as she possibly could.  He responded in kind as she passed him by, enjoying the fact that he was still a couple inches taller.  Katherine watched this whole exchange silently, almost feeling startled at how much Raymond allowed Clara to get under his skin.  She was suddenly aware of a shift in his focus below her, and Katherine turned to see him looking up pleadingly into her face.   

“Can you not encourage her, please?” he whispered up at her desperately.   

“Oh…but Raymond…” Katherine began, shaking her head a little as she was about to say that he shouldn’t let his 14 year-old sister dictate his moods like this.  But he kept whispering in the same pleading and despondent tone.  The two of them were still in the living room, talking alone now. 

“She keeps getting bigger and I don’t know what to do!” he whispered up to her.  “And she keeps wanting to beat me at sports and wrestling and everything.  She never stops!”   

“Come on Raymond,” said Katherine as kindly as she could, putting her hand on his shoulder in support.  She almost shuddered at how bony and frail he felt under her hand, and did not fail to notice that his entire posture shifted to accommodate the weight of her hand.  “She’s just enjoying what it feels like to grow and get older…just…just let her enjoy it!”  She felt his shoulders stoop at her response and suddenly the real question she should ask announced itself clearly in her mind.   

“I mean…why do you care if she gets bigger than you, anyway?”   

Raymond just stood there, his eyes averted upward into his ex-girlfriend’s face.  Katherine returned his stare, looking down on him coolly.  Without really meaning anything by it, she put her hand on her hip as she shifted her weight to the side, waiting for him to answer.  Though she didn’t quite realize it, she had just asked him why he was acting so petty. 

Raymond’s stomach had started churning as he felt the familiar shadow of scrutiny fall over him.  This is how she had been those last couple summer months before she went off to Stanford…always embarrassing him with questions he couldn’t answer without sounding stupid…exposing him as some kind of inadequate person who wasn’t as smart as she was.  Deep down, Raymond knew that she wasn’t actually trying to make him feel bad, but why did it always feel like she had him up against a concrete wall?  And now…now she wasn’t just a couple inches taller.  Now he literally felt like a midget next to her…it was like she was a full-blown adult and he was still stuck in high school.  He loathed this feeling of entrapment, and as he looked at her he was not able to hide the dark glower in his eyes.  He resented her for making him feel this way.  And she saw it…it made her heart sink a little, but, more than anything, it kind of pissed her off.   

“C-come on Katherine,” he said, eying her.  “You know…you know the answer to that.” 

“I don’t, actually,” she said matter-of-factly, deciding that now was a good time to walk towards the kitchen before she made him feel like shit without trying.  “So what if you’re shorter than her?  What’s the problem there?” 

“She’ll bully me,” said Raymond pathetically, trailing after her.  Katherine turned around in the doorway, her hair just barely grazing the top of the doorframe.  She reached her arms up over her head and grasped the top of the doorframe in mock masculinity.  She felt truly amazed that she was having this conversation with him — she knew that he wasn’t the highest achiever in the world, but to be reduced to this…?  It almost seemed laughable.  At least she’d enjoy catching up with his parents and Clara at dinner.   

“Well lift some weights then,” she said down at him with a smile, flexing her biceps in her pose ever so slightly.  “Eat some good food.  Get good sleep.  I don’t know what else to tell you Raymond, but…uh…” 

“But what?” asked Raymond, jutting out his chin a little, as if daring her to say it.  ‘Ok then,’ she thought calmly, ‘I’ll say it.’   

“You’re looking pretty skinny these days,” she said.  She reached down her hand and pinched one of his shoulders, marveling at how small it felt in her grasp.  It felt like she was holding a very small tennis ball.  “Almost a little malnourished, actually.”  She released his shoulder.  “I really think you should try and gain a little weight, Raymond.  You honestly don’t look very healthy right now.”   

“Well, I’ve —” he began in defense, but she turned away towards to the kitchen, not allowing him to explain and excuse himself.   

“Just saying, Raymond — anyway, speaking of which, let’s eat!”  She felt him stand there in the door behind her for a few moments, finally skulking after her with slumped shoulders.  If she thought any more about him, it would make her mad.  What the hell had he become?!  How the fuck had he let himself sink this low?!  It was fucking pathetic.  But she pushed it all out of her head as she smiled brightly at Clara’s lit-up face.  She caught Charles eying her full-grown breasts — but he didn’t look sheepish when they made eye contact.  He simply smiled warmly and went about preparing his plate.  She felt a pang of warmth go through him…his confidence sure was attractive.  He knew exactly what was going on — he was right on her page.  She appreciated that.  And watching as Tracy happily busied herself with her plate, making sure that Clara got enough salad, Katherine couldn’t help but feel glad to be there.  She really did love this family, even if Raymond had just turned out to be a dud.  But there she was again with that negativity.  She turned around and handed him a plate, making it a point to grin at him.  She’d be as pleasant as she could be.  Good lord…even just watching him take the plate from her…his little bony wrist almost couldn’t support the plate.  She subconsciously compared her own wrist to his — her skin peppered itself into goosebumps as she realized that her wrist alone was probably as thick as his upper arm.  This was an odd new reaction she was having…what was it about? 

They all sat down around the table, and Katherine had a bit of a chuckle to herself.  Clara had three pieces of pizza on her plate to go with a heap of salad…and of course Raymond only had one with a little dose of salad.  It was all too funny…why had that strange feeling persisted in her…the one that made her feel a pleasant kind of chill as she compared her arm to Raymond’s?  Something felt like it was falling into place…she inwardly shrugged.  Whatever it was, she’d just allow it to happen.  It wasn’t going to get in the way of her enjoying this dinner.  And she had to admit how impressed she was with Clara — her spirited attitude was actually pretty enjoyable.  

“So Katherine,” began Charles after they had all taken their first bites, “whatcha benching these days?”