TWINS

                                                      1240wds

TWINS

Walking on legs like a zombie, eyes clouded with the film of tears, throat with a large pit stuck inside causing me to swallow over and over, I moved slowly toward the casket shrouded in white gauze and stared down into what was my face. There was the same dark curly hair, pinned back and, by some mortician’s handiwork, face powered white, lips like a slit on a red dress. Janice, my twin, the other part of me, lay there with eyes closed in a purple dress that had been her favorite, saved for special occasions. She had suffered an aneurysm when she fell down a flight of stairs two days earlier.

We had shared fifty-two years of happiness and angst, growing up in a home with a sickly, raging mother, cold, indifferent father. We clung to each other like two rabbits in a cage. And what had now separated her from me—death—the great separator of all things. Flashes of when we were young—clinging to one another when we hid in the bedroom, trying to drown out the noise of our parents fighting with the sounds from the black & white TV of the fifties, tying our pigtails together to feel what it would be like not to be able to separate.

We had been born only 1 minute apart and identical, except for the arch of our eyebrows—mine being slightly higher and then, along the way, slight scars marked our bodies in distinct ways so one could tell us apart. One above Janice’s lip when she had tripped and fallen on a broken sidewalk. Our mother went screaming upstairs to her sister, Aunt Bea, who called the family doctor. In those days they would come to the house and while he was there, check anyone else in the family with a medical issue. He stitched her up with the expertise of a modern day surgeon and the scar was hardly visible. There was one under my breast from a biopsy in my thirties, another on the lobe of my ear from a piercing that went wrong.

We were separated in kindergarten, the principal thinking it would be confusing to have us both in the same class. Janice was more studious then I and excelled in almost all her subjects, while I, suffering from anxiety, found it difficult to concentrate, except for English, which I loved and began writing at any early age. But my lack of confidence and lack of perseverance only left me with the ability to type and so I spent my years at dull, clerk-typist part-time jobs. Janice, instead, became a legal secretary and worked through her married years until both her son and daughter were out of the house. We had different taste in men so we never really played any jokes on our boyfriends. But Janice had more common sense, marrying a kind, devoted accountant, while I picked a handsome, irresistible alcoholic who made our days and nights similar to the ones of wine and roses. He eventually died, not of alcohol, but cigarettes, while Janice’s husband succumbed to a mal-functioning kidney.

We both loved scrabble and spent many a night over the board searching for the best spots to place our tiles. I did win most of the time since my writing had broadened my vocabulary. And then there were Brooklyn street games like Hit the Penny and Hopscotch. And we were never lonely—always having someone to confide in, laugh with and, of course, cry with.

 “Aunt Clare.” I felt two hands on my shoulders and turned around to see my niece, Lydia, black mascara running down her cheeks, and my nephew Steven, next to her. As we clung to each other it passed through my mind—how would they ever be able to keep looking at me and not see her?  How would they bear it? Would I lose them as well? Then I noticed my daughter, Katy, who had now joined us, sobbing, and holding on to Lydia and Steven. Their tears were mingling and so fluent it could have filled a small pitcher.

After our mom passed from a congenital heart condition some 7 years ago, dad had remarried—a wealthy woman in Palm Beach, Florida, and was having the time of his life living it up at her expense. I kept watching the entrance, wondering if, and when he would show. Just then I saw him walk in with a buxom lady that had the brightest, reddest hair I had ever seen, a flabby arm dangled through his. He was wearing a dark navy blue suit and matching striped tie and appeared so much younger. He waved but I didn’t wave back, thinking a wave was not a proper greeting at such a time. I still had feelings of animosity toward him, remembering what a cold, angry father he had been to both of us.

The priest of no domination came toward us and then turned to all the mourners. “Friends and family,” he began, swinging a ball of incense from his hand, “we are gathered here today to honor this life that at so young an age has passed into another.”  Being an atheist, somehow I still managed not to smirk. This was definitely was not a time for smirking. “So we pray for our sister who has left us today….”  I felt the priest’s hand on mine. It was very warm, almost burning. “We pay homage,” he continued, “to the twin of another dear sister.”  My father’s face got lost in the dim of all the other faces.

Why was I feeling so light, as if my body might be able to float?  It was a strange sensation, like being covered in bathwater. Lydia and Steven had moved back a little and I couldn’t seem to reach them. Katy was still close enough for me to grab her bag. Her face grew dimmer as I tried to pull her closer.  “Father,” I said, “something strange is happening.” “Oh my dear, of course it is—you just lost a piece of you—a big, big part of yourself.” I nodded. I needed to lie down as I was feeling quite dizzy, but there was no place to lie. I moved closer to the coffin for something to hold on to and then…I began to feel myself slipping forward. I saw Janice, no, myself—or was it Janice? walk over to the priest and place her head on his arm, her shoulders trembling against his body. His face was lit, amplified, by the plentiful of candles around the pulpit and the thought of the Wizard of Oz crossed my mind. Perhaps I was feeling dizzy from all the incense.

 “So today,” he said, in an echoing sort of tone, the words reverberating into each other, “we say our goodbyes to Clare, the beloved twin sister of Janice.”  I felt myself slowly, very slowly,  slipping into the coffin, white satin caressing my bare arm, feet pressed against it.  I wanted to cry: “No, no, it’s a mistake!” I wanted to establish who I was, who the real sister in the coffin was. But my lips were sealed, sealed with the silence of the non-existent. And the last thing I thought before darkness totally engulfed me—the last thing that seemed to make any sense out of it all—What did it really matter?