Twins
Image by Kimberly Summers
Afterbirth
They’re born a week apart—a medical phenomenon doctors call a “delayed interval delivery.” Her sister Brooke arrives first, several weeks premature. She bursts forth into the world, blue-faced and screaming. She has the doctors and nurses hovering overhead with oxygen tanks, creating a stir, which is just like her. Esme bides her time and slips out a week later, lungs fully developed, with very little fanfare.
The afterbirth.
The In-Betweens
They gloss their lips with Kissing Potion, but still ride their bikes around with the neighborhood kids, playing flashlight tag and building forts. It’s summertime. Dusk. A group of them huddle inside a fort they made from old Christmas trees. The air smells of pine, sweat, and dirt. There are five of them all together: Esme and Brooke, Cecille and her older brother Tom, and Leonard from the next street over, who’s annoying, but they can’t seem to get rid of. Leonard’s a year younger. He wears his pants too short, which is a known crime. Floods they call them. Mostly he does a lot of repeating of whatever Tom says.
Cecille suggests they play a game called “Categories.” A topic is given, like breakfast cereals, and then someone names a type that represents a person in the circle. The group has to guess which person they were thinking of. Brooke gets called Lucky Charms, and for a while afterwards, that becomes her nickname in the neighborhood. It’s a good nickname. Esme can tell she likes it.
When they get to dinners, Brooke says “meatloaf” and everyone guesses right off the bat that it’s Esme. Brooke and Cecille burst out laughing. Their faces go beet red and tears stream down their cheeks. Why is it so obvious that she’s meatloaf? Esme wants to shrink inside herself, but as the laughter dies down she hears him.
It’s a murmur, but she can just make it out. “I like meatloaf,” Tom says.
And she never forgets.
Holes
Brooke enjoys the attention of boys and starts stuffing her bra with tissues, but doesn’t need to for very long. She gets her real breasts before Esme—like God knew she wanted them more. Esme does care about these things; people think she doesn’t because she’s good at school, but she actually does care. Her sister has already been awarded boxes of pads and tampons. She’s had the special talk that comes with tea, and for some reason, strawberry rhubarb pie. Esme checks her underwear every day, waiting for the blood, but it doesn’t come. She stares in the mirror at her own flat chest—imagines what the boys say about them—that Brooke is the hotter twin. People can’t help but compare twins.
Her own mother does it all the time. “Brooke is the confident, brave one,” she says. “Esme is more of a wallflower.” She says these things right in front of them, over and over, until they’re true. Maybe they were always true. Esme can’t remember.
“You shouldn’t pigeonhole the girls,” her father reminds their mother.
***
There are some pigeons that live in a brick wall across the street. It turns out they actually do live in holes.
Brooke spends a lot of time exploring her own holes. So do the boys.
Esme’s afraid to look for hers.
Wake of the Flood
In ninth grade their father drops dead at the dinner table, in the middle of telling a good story. He is a great storyteller. His rhythm is always perfect. He tells his stories in English, but throws Spanish words in here and there, without missing a beat.
One minute he is gesturing with his hands and the next he is lying face down in his mashed potatoes—his perfect rhythm interrupted.
He died of a massive heart attack caused by a blockage in an artery nicknamed the widow maker. It’s a terrible nickname.
Esme gets her period that same night.
***
Esme doesn’t know how she will ever survive this—living without the parent who loved her best.
Her father used to take the family on hikes. Her sister and mother would often turn back halfway, but Esme always followed her father to the summit. He called her “La Pequeña Guerrera,” The Little Warrior. He was the only one who ever saw her that way.
“Quiet people can be strong, you know,” he used to say.
If he were here now, he’d remind her of that. Tell her she can get through anything. But he’s not here to tell her, so she’s not sure.
***
Kids from the neighborhood attend their father’s wake. Leonard rides to the funeral home on his bicycle, wearing a suit. They see him ride up. Brooke points to him through the window and snickers under her breath. Esme’s not in the mood to laugh at Leonard today.
Tom comes. He arrives with his parents, but his sister Cecille isn’t with them, so maybe his parents gave them a choice and he came because he wanted to. A girl can hope. At one point during the wake, Esme goes outside to a back courtyard to get some air, and Tom follows her. Nobody else is out there. They sit on a stone bench together. Tom takes a cigarette from his jacket pocket and lights it. He offers a drag to Esme, who takes it, just so their hands can touch. The filter is wet from his mouth. Tom tells her he’s really sorry about her dad. That it’s probably not the right time to tell her, but that he really likes her. Esme’s too full of feelings about her dad and about Tom to answer quickly. When she finally starts to say something, Tom’s mother comes outside, so they both jump up, snuff out the cigarette before they get caught, and the moment is lost.
Later, in bed, she thinks of everything she wishes she’d said to Tom and feels a low ache.
Then she feels guilty for thinking of anything but her beautiful father.
The Ties That Bind
They’re sophomores. Brooke gets invited to three proms. Their mother says she’ll only buy her two dresses. That’s it. They’re on a budget since their father died.
Two of the prom invitations come from guys from neighboring towns, but she also agrees to go to their own school’s senior prom too—with Tom, who Brooke never seemed to like, until Esme did.
“What could I do? He asked me,” she says shrugging. Like it’s nothing. She knows perfectly well how Esme feels about him.
Esme does not get invited to any proms.
****
That night Esme dreams that she and Brooke were born conjoined. Her mother arranges for the surgical separation, and when the doctor arrives, it turns out to be Tom. He’s wearing a white coat and his scalpel is razor sharp. The surgery is messy, and Esme’s not left with many body parts when it’s complete. She’s surprised to find that even though she’s a stump of a human, her overwhelming feeling is one of relief. The relief of being free of her twin.
***
On the night of the senior prom, Tom comes to the door with Brooke’s corsage. He won’t look Esme in the eye. His bowtie’s crooked, and Esme has to watch as Brooke fusses with it. Rests her hands on his shoulders. Touching him right in front of her.
Esme has to get out of the house. She excuses herself from the picture taking and goes for a bike ride. Stops by the gazebo in town. Sits on a bench to watch the sunset. Leonard is there. He asks her about prom and how come she wasn’t there.
“Nobody asked me,” she tells him. She’s too tired to make up a lie.
“I would have asked you,” he says.
Esme offers him a grateful smile. Wonders if she needs to re-think Leonard.
Pomp and Circumstance
After their graduation ceremony, their mother takes them to The Elbow Room, where, if they get there by 5:00 everything’s buy one, get one free. It’s just the three of them, because that’s their family now, so they won’t get the full benefit of the deal. Brooke insists on wearing her cap and gown into the restaurant.
An older woman sitting at the next table leans over. “Looks like somebody’s graduating,” she says.
“Two of them, actually!” her mother offers and Esme winces.
For the millionth time they’re asked about their plans for the future, and Brooke announces that she’s going to school in Boston. She’s not telling the whole truth—the school is actually in Chicopee, Massachusetts, which is almost two hours from Boston, but whatever.
“Wow—Boston,” the woman says. “Great college town.”
“Totally,” Brook says back.
When Esme is pressed, she shares that she’s going to the local community college and the woman is so overly enthusiastic, that it’s embarrassing.
“Good for you!” she says, as though Esme is a toddler who just finished her vegetables.
Her mother pats her leg. “My little homebody.”
Esme’s not staying, as Brooke has suggested, because Leonard still has a year left of high school, and she’s not, as her mother assumes, afraid to leave home. The truth is that Esme is a pragmatist and doesn’t want a lot of debt. With her father gone and no real financial assistance available, she simply made a plan to fit her circumstance—one that involves a full scholarship and finishing up her bachelor’s at the reputable state university. It’s a perfectly reasonable plan, but for some reason, Esme finds herself needing to explain it over and over again.
***
On the day Brooke is leaving for college, Esme helps her sister pack the car. It’s a lot of trips back and forth, and by the time they’re finished, it looks as though a Bed Bath and Beyond exploded in the trunk.
They sit on the curb, waiting for their mother. Across the street two pigeons are fighting over a peanut butter sandwich.
Their mother finally emerges from the house and wants to take a picture of them hugging goodbye.
“Take care of yourself, you idiot,” Brooke says, squeezing Esme tight.
***
When the car is a speck on the horizon, Esme waits for the wave of relief to wash over her, but is surprised to find a tender soreness welling up instead.
Like after you take a splinter out, but it still hurts.
About the author
Alison Bullock's short fiction has appeared in The Coachella Review, The Writing Disorder, Halfway Down the Stairs, Anti-Heroin Chic, Bright Flash Literary Review, Every Day Fiction, Boston Literary Magazine, and The Momaya Annual Review. She lives in Massachusetts.
about the artist
Kimberly Summers is a Designer, Painter, Potter, Engineer, and Maker. She shares her home in Orange CT with her husband, a pair of tabby cats, and an impractically large dog.