The Magnet

Kneeling at the foot of my bed, I search through my backpack for my missing heart-shaped eraser. I discover my Oklahoma magnet in the front pocket, buried under dirty tissues, candy wrappers, and dried out pens. I thought I’d lost it, but here it is. Guilt punches me in the gut and I squeeze my eyes shut. I had wanted Lily dead. Two years later and I still can’t forget.

I stroke the magnet’s smooth surface with my thumb, feeling each of the fourteen ridges along the edge. The pea-sized Indian face is still as stern as ever. I stare at the Oklahoma-shaped magnet and begin reweaving the Indian’s story, trying to flee the guilt, trying to forget. Instead, I surrender to memory.

Two years ago, I bought this magnet at a dusty gas station in Oklahoma near Interstate 44. I found it on a black spinning rack, filled with magnetic Indians, bison, state flags, and even a smiling tornado. I chose this one because it had it all, plopped right down on the state of Oklahoma. Lily liked it best too, but I refused to let her get the same one, threatening her with a ferocious glare. Instead she bought a post card with a log cabin on it.

Lily. She was the star soccer player of fourth grade, but nobody knew her like I did. They didn’t hold her when she hid in a closet after losing a game. They didn’t watch her slow breathing as she slept with her teddy bear, Marvin. They didn’t know that simply saying “Ichabod” sent her into uncontrollable fits of laughter.

It happened on the fifth day of our Oklahoma vacation, the day after Mom stayed up late to read us “Harry Potter.”  At the end of each chapter we begged her for one more, with Dad adding pleas in a high voice that gave us the giggles. Lily and I clung to each other’s hands as Mom’s quiet words painted Harry’s adventures in our campfire. Four hours later, Mom’s voice had become hoarse and we dragged our blankets into the dark RV. Then I dreamed I was flying. I slept in late the next morning. Lost in dreams, I didn’t even realize when Dad pulled onto the road and the RV began to rumble beneath me.

At ten thirty, I opened my eyes and watched the clouds zoom by through the glass. My narrow pop-down bed, with its pea-green vinyl mattress, stuck out right below a window. Lily and I took turns sleeping on it because we both wanted to gaze at the stars at night.

 “You’re up,” Mom said. She sat beside me and put her arm around my shoulders. “Don’t eat too much for breakfast. I’m making a picnic lunch and we’ll be eating it in a couple hours.”

“Okay.” I got out of bed and dug through the cupboard in the kitchenette at the back of the RV. “Has anyone seen my Cocoa Puffs?” No answer.

Lily had quickly taken advantage of my bed’s vacancy, and was sitting on it staring out the window with a notebook and pencil in her hand.

“Are you writing poetry again?” I asked.

Lily’s chin-length hair bounced up and down as the bed vibrated beneath her. It was straight, and the color of butter, like mine. I wanted to get mine cut like Lily’s. It made her look grown up. But if we had our hair the same, people would get us mixed up even more than they did now, so I kept mine long and braided.

Lily turned her eyes away from the window and looked at her notebook. “Yeah.”

“Lily, why do you always –“ 

“Just because you tried it first doesn’t mean I can’t.” She flipped her pencil over and industriously rubbed the eraser back and forth.

“But it was my special thing.” My eyes began to burn as they filled with tears. “You wouldn’t like it if I –“

“Clara, just because I’m doing it too doesn’t mean you can’t. Stop being so selfish.” She looked me straight in the eye then returned to her work.

I grabbed the big quilt from Lily’s bed, crouched in the corner between the kitchenette cupboard and the fridge, and cried beneath the purple and white squares of fabric.

Lily’s head poked under the blanket near my feet. “Can I come in?”

I nodded.

She crawled next to me and put her arm around my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Clara. I won’t write poetry any more if you don’t want me to.”

Dim light filtered in through the quilt, each square glowing softly. I looked up at Lily’s blue eyes. They shimmered and her eyelashes were dark and thick from tears. Poor Lily had been crying. Maybe I was the mean one.

“No, it’s okay,” I said. “You can write poems if you want to.”

Clouds covered the sky by lunchtime, but we were excited for our picnic so we ignored the signs of rain and stopped at a meadow off a side road. After unpacking our food, we discovered that the bees were looking forward to the picnic as much as we were. They crawled on Dad’s peanut butter sandwich and tried to swim in Mom’s coke. Lily and I scooted close to Dad whenever one came near.

“If you don’t bother them, you’ll be fine,” he said.

Lily didn’t mean to bother the bee. She didn’t even know it was there. It was hiding in the grass, probably feasting on a wild flower, and she stepped on when we were racing barefoot to the baby oak. She hopped on her right foot, watching a red welt swell on the bottom of her left. We both began to cry.

I helped Lily sit down and held her in my arms. “Dad!” I called.

I squeezed Lily tightly until Mom and Dad’s shadows shaded me from the glaring sun.  Mom crouched down and held Lily close while Dad pulled the stinger out.

“Congratulations on your first bee sting, Lily,” Dad said. “It’s a badge of honor.”

Lily smiled through her clenched jaw and loosened her grip on Dad’s hand. 

Dad picked Lily up and carried her back to the blanket covered with sandwich bags and dirty paper plates. “Make way for the wounded soldier!”

Lily giggled.

Maybe I should have gotten a bee sting too.

We each had two Oreos, smeared with peanut butter, for dessert. A line of chocolate grew under Lily’s lower lip as she ate. The exciting things always happened to her. Why couldn’t I have gotten the bee sting?

Lily’s face grew red and at first I wondered if she had heard my thoughts and was angry. I smiled grimly. Lily couldn’t read my mind, no matter what silly stories there were about twins. Everyone thought twins were the same people, that Lily and I were the same people, except that Lily was better. I clenched my jaw as anger rose inside me. I hated being a twin. I hated Lily.

Lily swallowed and swallowed again.

I scrunched my eyebrows together. Lily couldn’t seem to swallow her Oreo. “Lily, are you okay?” I plucked a blade of grass and ripped it into tiny pieces.

Lily didn’t answer and I glanced back at her. She only looked at me with wide eyes and swallowed again and again.

Concern nibbled at the edges of my anger. “Dad,” I said. “Something’s wrong with Lily.” Dad looked at her.

Lily gasped. “I can’t breathe.”

           “Did you swallow the Oreo the wrong way? Drink some water.” Dad handed her a water bottle.

           Lily shook her head. “I can’t breathe.” Her voice trembled and tears began streaming down her face.

           Suddenly Mom was by her side. “Justin, we need to take her to the hospital.” Her voice was unusually loud.

           Dad and Mom’s eyes connected for one brief moment before Dad picked up Lily and ran to the RV, lying Lily down on the pea green mattress below the window. I sat on the other bed, staring at Lily, anger forgotten. Lily. What was wrong with Lily?

           Mom held her hand and stroked her hair. Lily was making funny noises, like dying gasps in movies. Was Lily dying?

           Dad called 911 as we plummeted down the grey road stretching forever onward. He yelled into the phone. “My daughter can’t breathe! Where’s the hospital?”

           I heard the murmur of a woman’s voice on the other side, calm and steady. Didn’t she understand? Lily, our Lily, was dying.

           Mom and Dad rushed down the long white hallway, with Lily pushed on a stretcher by their side. Mom’s hand still stroked her hair. I watched them leave me, sitting in the red bucket seat directly across from a TV playing the Flintstones. I could hear Dad’s tennis shoes squeaking on the shiny tile long after they disappeared around the corner. They hadn’t even noticed when the nurse told me to stay here. Lily wasn’t the only one who needed them.

           As I stared at the TV, I remembered sitting in a corner unnoticed at Lily’s victory party. She had scored the winning goal, giving her team first place in the soccer tournament. Mom came out of the kitchen with a soccer-shaped cake for her while Dad recounted stories of his own soccer days.

           “We’re so proud of you,” Grammy told her. “Our little soccer star.” 

           Before she left, Grammy told me she was proud of me too, but I knew it was an afterthought because they were all thinking of Lily.

           Lily. What would it be like without Lily? Mom might make a flute-shaped cake for me after my recital. Grammy would notice how good I was at poetry. I could spend every night of our vacation on the bed by the window. Our bedroom would be all mine and I would paint it blue with clouds, because there would be no Lily wanting it to stay pastel purple. If Lily died I would have Marie as a friend all to myself. Donald would follow me around with his tail wagging instead of following Lily. On my birthday Mom and Dad would tell me how special I am, not how both of us are. It would be nice.

           A cool hand touched my face. I jumped.

           “Clara. Come here, baby.” Mom wrapped her arms around me and her tears dripped onto my forehead. My muscles stiffened. If she knew. If she knew that I had wanted Lily dead she would never be holding me like this. She would hate me. Mom stroked my hair and tears streamed down my face. My body began to heave.

           “Lily will be alright honey. She’ll be okay.” Convulsions shook me even harder. If she knew why I was crying. If she knew she would hate me. My stomach twisted as if it wanted to break loose and flee from the darkness inside.

           “Here, Clara. Look at your magnet,” Mom said. She pulled the Oklahoma magnet out of my backpack and handed it to me. “Tell me a story about the Indian. It will get your mind off things. Tell me, what did the Indian do when white men came to settle on his land?”

           I told her about the Indian. How he wanted to kill the white men to save his land, but his wife told the white men of his plan and saved them. “He wasn’t really so bad, was he Mama?”

           Lily comes in our bedroom and finds me staring at the magnet. She glances at it and smiles. “I remember that. It was a fun vacation, before I got stung.” 

           At first I want to hide the magnet, afraid she’ll read my guilt in the Indian’s face. Am I any different than I was that day she almost died? Don’t I still dream about having friends and parents to myself? Don’t I sometimes wish she wasn’t my sister because she distracts all watching eyes from me? Yet I remember how we clung to each other on our first day of school. How she braids my hair. How we whisper secrets to each other in the night.

           I look at Lily and smile weakly. I hold out the magnet, trying hard to stop my hand from shaking. “Here, Lily. You can have it. Remember, you wanted it once.”

End.