I didn’t know my sister was interested in our mother’s brass knuckles until we were going through the will together and there was no mention of them at all.
Despite our similarities, my sister and I were not competitive. In fact, in most cases if I knew she wanted something more than me, I would have yielded gladly. I’d learned as a child that having her as an ally was much better than whatever I’d wanted in that moment.
And yet I wanted these particular brass knuckles for myself, for my own daughter, and I wanted them as much or more than anything else my mother had left me. Her furs and crystal included.
My sister claimed she wanted the brass knuckles for her son, the one studying ceramics in the city. When I pressed her on this she claimed he loved to collect odd things such as speculums and sling-shots and horse teeth.
I knew she was lying, but whether she had made up the details of his collection or his desire for the knuckles, I could not tell. Either way, we soon realized that there was no easy solution.
Instead of fighting for them as brothers would, we decided to handle the situation in a civilized manner: we would have a third party flip a coin. The best 2 out of 3 times.
Our attorney flipped the coin and my sister won: two heads in a row.
When the attorney, without much ceremony, presented her with the brass knuckles, my sister put them on at once. She made a fist and began shadowboxing. She moved her feet as my mother had taught me to do all those years ago when I assumed that our punching lessons were a private affair.
