Michelle Titolo

An Angel Between Sisters
Michelle L. Titolo's sister, Kim Jelley, was starting to get that churning sensation in her stomach. It was her first art show. She had paid for a table at a hotel in New Jersey. But no one was buying her sculptures.

Then in walked Ms. Titolo. She said she wanted to buy a 10-inch-high angel. Take it for free, Ms. Jelley said. Ms. Titolo vigorously shook her head.

"The only thing she ever bought from me was the angel," Ms. Jelley, 38, said. "She just loved and really inspired me to pursue my art. She bragged to everybody about it."

The two had grown up together on Long Island, only four years apart, living with their divorced mother. Ms. Jelley was the elder one, the self-admitted "disorganized" artist. Ms. Titolo was the one with a business degree, a new house and a job as an equity controller at Cantor Fitzgerald in 1 World Trade Center.

As children they danced together in their mother's house to disco music. As adults they went to hip-hop clubs on Long Island. Those were let's-put-on-lipstick-and-stay- up-till-dawn kinds of nights. They also had their subdued moments. After Ms. Jelley gave her sister a tea set for her birthday a couple of years ago, they occasionally sipped afternoon tea together. (Ms. Titolo had returned from a trip to England an unabashed Anglophile.)

For one of Ms. Jelley's recent birthdays, Ms. Titolo gave her older sister a card on which she had written, "Don't worry, I'm going to grow old and fat with you."