Inseparable

It was a sunny autumn morning when Jonathan Latimer pulled their VW up to the curb outside the Franklin County Medical Center Emergency Room and threw it into park. His wife Megan moaned and panted through contractions – the twins were on their way.

“Honey, wait here while I get some help.”

“Hurry!” Her face was flushed, dripping. Her copper curls clung to her forehead and temples and were plastered to her neck. She looked like hell, or perhaps a resident of that terrible realm.

He returned a minute or so later, racing ahead of an orderly with a wheelchair. “The contractions are coming closer together than we expected. We didn’t have much warning,” he raised his voice to explain over his shoulder.

The babies, having spent too much time sharing the same tiny space, attempted to push their way into the world, as Megan’s body responded to their need with strong contractions, Megan’s obstetrician explained, her face grave with concern, that Megan’s cervix wasn’t dilating fast enough, and that she had no choice but to perform a cesarean section.

Megan gave birth to two girls. They had vivid blue eyes and little bow mouths, and black fuzz covering their scalps. Even before they were cleaned up, underneath the vernix and blood they were as cute as kittens.

They were identical twins. Conjoined twins.

Dr. Miller broke the bad news, and then the good news, to the couple in Megan’s private hospital room once the new mother had recovered from anesthesia: their babies were conjoined twins, joined at the hip, but theirs was the type of connection that is known as a “skin bridge,” easily corrected. The OB-Gyn had called in a surgeon, and she assured them, “Dr. Gutierrez knows his stuff. He’s on his way.”

After explaining to Jonathan and Megan the details of and the risks involved in the surgery, after obtaining their permission and Jonathan’s signature, Dr. Gutierrez separated the twins. In the end, Jane and Leah each ended up with a three-inch-long scar; Jane’s on her right hip and Leah’s on her left, that would one day shrink to the size of lima beans. Neither their spines, internal organs, nor arteries were involved. They were extremely fortunate.

Growing up, the girls did almost everything together, like many, but not all, twins. They both loved exploring the outdoors, dressing up in costumes, and riding bicycles. They were both adept at drawing and coloring, climbing trees, and playing the recorder. They sometimes played duets. Their tastes in movies and TV, books, and music overlapped broadly.

Unlike many twins, they sometimes even dreamt the same dreams. It only happened once in a while, and to them, sharing dreams was perfectly natural, not unusual or noteworthy. Once, when Jane and Leah were four years old, Megan was passing by in the hall and overheard Leah say, “The monster was scary, but we flew away.”

“Yeah, then we woke up and stopped flying,” she heard Jane reply. “I hope we do it again – not the monster. The flying.”

Megan, astonished, closed her mouth, composed her face, and tried on a relaxed smile before crossing the threshold of her daughters’ bedroom.

“What were you two talking about?” she asked as if she were just making casual conversation.

“We dreamed it,” Jane said.

“We dreamed it,” Leah echoed.

“A monster chased us. We flew away.” Leah explained as Jane nodded in agreement.

“You almost left me,” Jane pointed at Leah, an accusation.

“No. Well, yeah, but I waited. We flew away together.”

“Yes, we did it together.”

Later that evening, when Jonathan got home, Megan could hardly wait to tell him about it. “Jonathan, the girls had the same dream last night!” Megan expected her husband would be as excited about this discovery as she had been. “They’re having shared… mutual dreams!”

“Not necessarily,” he said. “I mean, it’s not surprising that their dreams are very similar.”

“How do you figure?”

“Well, when we sleep, we subconsciously process the day, and our girls spend almost every waking minute together, so it makes sense that their dreams would often be similar.” Jonathan was satisfied that he’d found a rational explanation. Nothing weird going on with his girls.

“Maybe,” Megan said, the wind leaving her sails, “but they were awfully specific…”

“We dreamed together,” Jane told him.

Jonathan said, “Wow, that’s cool!” But she sensed that he was only humoring her. She and Leah didn’t care. They knew the truth.

They maintained their exceptionally close bond all through grade school, though they were also well-liked within their group of friends. Being identical, they stood out among their peers and were sometimes the object of some good-natured teasing, but they didn’t mind. They never mentioned to their friends that they had once been conjoined.

As toddlers, they would point to their identical but opposite-sided scars (Jane’s on her right hip, Leah’s on her left), and ask, “What dat?”

At that age, Megan would tell them, “You both had boo-boos, and the doctors had to patch you up. Good as new!” That satisfied them until one day a couple of years later, when she was driving them home from elementary school.

“Mom?” Leah asked. “Our scars: I know we both got hurt and had to get stitches, but why? What happened to us?”

“Actually, you didn’t get hurt,” their mother explained, “I just didn’t know how to explain it to you when you were little bitty. You see, when you were inside of me, you were once just one person. Then you gradually split into two people. That’s the case with all identical twins. But in your case, you weren’t quite finished splitting up when it was time to be born so there was a little skin bridge between you.”

“We were one person?” Leah asked, smiling.

“Cool!” Jane was obviously delighted.

She knew that some conjoined twins were connected at the skull, the spine, the chest, some severely or even fatally malformed, but Megan didn’t feel the need to go into that much detail.

Now they were sixteen, both had just passed the test for their driver's licenses and were eager to drive. They were saving up to buy a used car. This summer, they were cleaning pools in their neighborhood. They had purchased their own equipment and supplies and learned how to do it by watching YouTube videos on pool maintenance for beginners. They felt like entrepreneurs.

“There is nothing we can’t do together,” Jane laughed, her enthusiasm contagious.

“Right!” Leah said as they fist-bumped.

One sweltering Wednesday in July, they were scheduled to clean the Schumachers’ pool. They usually worked together, of course, but today Jane was at home recovering a stomach virus, so Leah was on her own. She braided her long black hair, got dressed, and loaded her equipment, bottles, and buckets into the car. Megan dropped her off in front of the house with her gear. “Call me when you’re ready to be picked up,” she said and drove away.

Mrs. Schumacher had mentioned to the girls that she and Mr. Schumacher would be on vacation at a rented cabin in Breckenridge, Colorado. Leah used the key they’d given her to open the latch on the gate and carried in the equipment, bottles, and buckets. Leah emptied the skimmer baskets and pump basket then skimmed the leaves and debris out with a leaf net. She unscrewed the net and replaced it with a brush, then scrubbed the walls, the steps, and the ladders. She didn’t need to vacuum the pool because the Schumachers had purchased a robotic vacuum that ran constantly. Leah used a test kit to check the pH and alkaline levels in the water. The last thing was to shock the pool with chlorine.

Leah filled the bucket with the liquid, then approached one end of the pool and slopped about half the contents in, then walked down to the other end and did the same thing. Instead of just holding the bucket up and pouring the chemical into the pool, she held it by the rim with one hand with the other hand on the bottom, and swung the bucket up and out in an arc toward the pool, using the momentum to pitch the chlorine out. Since the bucket was only half full, the fluid inside swept up the front inside wall of the bucket and back at Leah in a wave, directly into her face and her open eyes.

Immediately, her eyes began to burn, and she couldn’t make herself open them again. She knew she had to wash them out, but in her shock, she couldn’t remember where the water faucet was on the Schumacher’s house. Was it by the patio? She searched where she thought she remembered it, but it wasn’t there. Was it closer to one of the corners of the house? She couldn’t remember. She tried the Schumachers’ back door, but it was locked as she knew it would be. She thought about using the pool water, which was full of chemicals but also diluted, while the chlorine in the bucket had not been. She decided she needed tap water and medical help. On the way out through the gate which was still unlocked, she searched for the faucet the best that she could, although she couldn’t see at all. Her eyes were squeezed shut, the burning pain in them was almost unbearable, and though she was still crying, her tears were fewer and fewer. She never found it. She was starting to panic.

“Help! Somebody! I need help!”

She snatched her phone out of her pocket but when she pressed the Home button and said, “Call 9-1-1!” nothing happened.

Oh, God, I forgot to charge my phone! Now she was having a full-blown panic attack. She was breathing great gulps of air, but at the same time, she felt as if she weren’t getting enough air. She felt hot, and her hands perspired profusely. She thought she might vomit. And still, her eyes burned and the pain was enormous.

Somehow, she managed to find her way to the Schumachers’ next-door neighbors’ house. She banged on the door with her fists. “Help! Please help me!”

No one was home.

“Oh, no, no no no no…” Leah broke down in sobs, but stumbled away, trying to find someone else – anyone to help her. One more time, she screamed “Help!” before her equilibrium slid away and she passed out on the grass.

At home, Jane was in a panic, too, only she didn’t know why. She only knew that Leah was in trouble. Something was wrong, wrong, wrong! She tried calling Leah’s cell, but it went straight to voicemail. She guessed what had happened. Both of them were terrible about keeping their phones charged. Jane told her parents that they needed to go check on Leah right away, that she was in trouble and not answering her phone, and she was coming with them. She couldn’t get them to take her seriously. They kept insisting there was no way she could know, and that they were sure Leah was just fine. Jane was just being paranoid because she couldn’t reach her. Jane gave up, and changing quickly into shorts and a t-shirt, she jumped on her bicycle and rode to the Schumacher’s house as fast as she could go.

Long minutes passed before another neighbor lady, just home from the grocery store, found the girl and called 9-1-1. The ambulance rushed Leah to the hospital, doing what they could for her on the way. In the ER, Leah woke up and cried. She wanted Jane. She wanted her parents. She didn’t want to go through this alone. She was scared.

Jane arrived at the house and found the gate standing open, which didn’t make sense. She ran into the backyard, calling for Leah, but she wasn’t there. Their pool cleaning gear was there, but not Leah. As they came back out, Ms. London ran across the street toward them. “Are you looking for a teenager?” she asked.

“My sister,” Jane answered, sick with dread. “Do you know what happened to her?”

When Leah’s family made it to the hospital, descended on the information desk, and eventually found her, they were forbidden from seeing her until medical staff finished flushing and treating her eyes, then applying a salve and bandaging them. She would retain scars on her eyelids and around her eyes, and the skin was slightly melted together at the edges, but she could still open and close her eyelids. The scars were livid now, but they would fade over time. Beneath the girl’s eyelids, too much damage had been done. Her corneas were gone, and even a corneal transplant wouldn’t work at that point.

One of the ER doctors sat alone with Leah’s family in a small waiting room. He looked incredibly uncomfortable, but he managed to break it to them that even with the best treatment for her injuries, Leah could never expect to see again. Her blindness was irreversible. Jonathan didn’t cry often, but he did now, running his hands through his thick black hair, his lanky frame seeming to collapse in on itself.

Megan's heart broke for her daughter, but she comforted Jonathan and Jane, trying to be strong and positive –faking it to a great degree. When Jane was alone with Leah again, the two held each other and cried, although only Jane was able to produce tears. Emotionally, Leah was still in shock and couldn’t grasp the enormity of what had happened and how it would affect her life. She knew would adjust and adapt – she was no quitter – but things would never be the same again. Try as she might, she just couldn’t wrap her head around it.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she sobbed.

“Whatever lies ahead, I’ll help you.” Jane grasped both of Leah’s hands and kissed them. “I’ll be your eyes,” she promised. “I’ll be your eyes.”

A doctor appeared in her hospital room, dropping by to check on her and to explain that Leah would eventually receive new prosthetic eyes, shells that would cover the tissue in the eye sockets, allowing her to look more normal, but they would be, of course, purely cosmetic. Nothing could be done, though, until her wounds healed. Meanwhile, the nurse would change the dressings and while the bandages were off, he wanted Leah to practice opening and closing her eyelids each time. Jonathan didn’t think he could stand to look at his beautiful daughter’s ruined eyes, but mom stepped up and took Leah’s hand and steeled herself for what she would see. She knew it would not be pretty. Jane wanted to be brave like her mom, but she didn’t feel quite ready. It would devastate her to see the face she loved, the face that was her own mirror image, ravaged and distorted. She turned away to offer her support to her dad.

“Now open your eyelids,” the doctor instructed.

Leah slowly opened her eyes and was stunned to realize she could see her father’s face clearly. “Dad!” she cried out.

“What?” Jane and Jonathan turned toward her reflexively, and all of a sudden, she was looking at her own face.

“Oh my God, my face!” she said, “It’s so awful!”

Jane, upset at the sight of her sister’s burnt face, and by her twin’s erratic behavior, started crying and threw herself across Leah’s torso, closing her eyes. For Leah, the room suddenly canted and turned sideways, then went black.

“What the hell?” Leah shrieked. The doctor was nonplussed, desperately trying to assess the situation but not quite being able to get a grasp on it.

Dad was terrified, “Honey, what is it? What’s happening?”

It was Megan who put it together first, her mind feeling brittle like it might break if she asked any more of it. It was like having to suspend her disbelief. “Jane,” she said. “Look at me. Look at me.”

Jane sat up and turned to look at her mother.

“Mom! I can see you!” Leah said.

“You can see through Jane’s eyes!” mom said. “How is this possible?”

The doctor, a man of science, looked fundamentally rattled. “She must be hallucinating,” he said.

Leah didn’t know how to feel about this development. It was better than not seeing anything at all, but she couldn’t help but feel like a freak. Then it hit her: she and her sister would both be freaks, studied and tested, and put through experiments like lab rats. And if the public found out, it would be a sensational story, it would go viral.

Leah forced herself to laugh, “We got you!” She grasped her sister’s hand tightly, praying she would take the hint. “Of course, I can’t see anything!” The adults relaxed. Megan laughed and said, “Man, you kids! Shame on you – you scared us! But I guess it’s good you have a sense of humor.” The doctor chuckled with relief. Jane stayed quiet, trusting that Leah had good reasons for denying the reality of what was happening to them. After a nurse replaced the bandages, he and the doctor left to attend to other patients, and Megan and Jonathan went to get coffee from the cafeteria, saying they would be right back.

Now they were alone again. Leah thought that once she got home, she and Jane would have to practice this new magic trick, both of them seeing through the same set of eyes, without letting on. It wouldn’t be easy, but they would learn. Whenever they were apart and the shared visions were too confusing for her, Leah had only to close her eyes and she was blind again. Leah hugged Jane to her and whispered, “Mom was right. I can see through your eyes.”

“Life is about to get interesting,” she said, but we’ll figure it out like always: together.”

“Together,” Leah echoed.