by Carrie Arcos
I groan. “When? Like I have time.”
“Early, then. Before school. Or on the weekends.”
“We’ll have to get started. It’s already September.”
“What do you mean?”
I point to the title of the list. Top Five Things to Do This Year. “We’ve got three months.”
“Can I borrow this?” She holds up the journal.
“Sure.”
Hanna beams at me and takes my hand. “Thank you, Mark.”
“You’re welcome.” I squeeze her hand, but quickly begin to second-guess what I’ve just agreed to and let go. Holding her hand makes me feel things I don’t deserve. Not now. Not like this. “We should put everything back. I don’t want my parents to see all this stuff out.”
Hanna folds the shirt and places it at the bottom of the box. I don’t tell her it’s mine. It’s probably best to return everything just as it was. Before putting it away, I look inside Grace’s purse. It’s filled with her wallet, receipts, makeup, lip gloss, a stain-removing pen—that one makes me smile. She said that pen saved her clothes all the time because she was always spilling things on herself. Opening a side pocket, I find a bracelet. It’s silver with small hearts like dewdrops hanging from it.
“She loved that,” Hanna says.
I stuff the bracelet inside the front pocket of my jeans, knowing what I should do, but not wanting to have a conversation with River. I’ve dealt with enough today. Hanna watches me, and I can tell she wants to say something.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say. “We just do the list, okay?”
“Okay, you don’t have to talk. Only when you’re ready.” Her eyes are kind and deep and threaten to pull me under.
I almost respond with a biting remark, but I resist the urge to lash out at her.
We leave the box by the front door. I ask Hanna if she wants to go to the skate park, more out of politeness than out of actually wanting her to come. I kind of need to be alone. Thankfully she plans to start researching 5Ks.
“Oh, and I’m glad you survived your first day, Mark,” she says before turning to go. “It can only get better, right?” She tosses the last word over her shoulder as she crosses the street.
“Right,” I say back, and grab my board.
• • • •
I skate for a couple of hours. No one bothers me. I see a few guys I know and we greet each other with nods and barely audible hellos, but I like it that way. No one talks to me, except through their boards. We have an understanding. Like them, I just want to skate.
I’m in my head with the familiar sound of the wheels thrashing concrete, trying to perfect moves I’ve been doing since junior high. I want to forget everything, everything except for this moment, me on my board in the park. But even here, where Grace’s footsteps have never tread, I feel her absence, which makes her more present than ever.
Seven
It’s only eight on a Friday night, and I’m already bored and lying in bed. Pathetic. I glance at Frankenstein on my table, but I have no desire to read. I hear Hanna playing her violin from across the street. I haven’t heard her practicing in a while. She’s efficient, but she’ll never play in an orchestra. She doesn’t have the discipline, not that it fazes her. She likes playing when she wants, and it doesn’t matter if she only plays for herself. She told me once that if she had to practice every day for hours like I do, it would kill the fun for her.
I told her it would kill me not to.
My phone rings. I check the number and let it go straight to voice mail. Mom’s persistent. I’m not sure what she expects from me. Like we’re supposed to have phone conversations and send each other text messages with smiley faces because I’m her only kid left. Not going to happen.
The last time Mom and I spoke was at Grace’s funeral. She clung to me, her eyes red and swollen from crying. She acted as if she cared so much, as if she and Grace were so close, and I just couldn’t take it. I told her to leave me alone. Mom was hurt, but I didn’t care. She rejected me first, years ago.
She leaves a message, but I press delete.
I log into my account at Twinless Twins, a group for people like me who have lost a twin. Carol, the nurse at school, told me about them last year when I was sitting in her office, refusing to be in class. She was having trouble with a crossword puzzle and I gave her the answer: Brandenburg Concertos. She had smiled, given me a lemon lollipop from the jar she kept on her desk, and told me about the website. After lurking around the site, I became a member about two months ago and have met some people. We message one another every now and then.
One’s this older lady, Sandy, who lives in Detroit. She lost her twin when she was a kid. She told me how, for a long time, she could only fall asleep with one of her dead sister’s shirts by her pillow. She still has these moments when she’s in the house and has this feeling as if she’s lost something, like her keys or jacket or glasses.
I picture her, short gray hair, chunky in a blue tracksuit, getting on her hands and knees, looking underneath her couch, opening her drawers. Finally she stands in the middle of the room and realizes she’s looking for Stephanie, her twin. Sandy says she used to cry, but now she smiles and says things like, “Oh, you got me that time, Steph. Always playing tricks on me.”
Even though I think Sandy’s a little crazy, I get it. I have that feeling all the time, like I’m this walking jigsaw with a missing piece. Sandy told me that I have to remake the puzzle.
Don from Providence, Rhode Island, is a little closer to my age. He’s twenty-six. He told me he had to learn to breathe again after his twin, Seth, died. Don would get these terrible chest pains, especially at night, as if he’d forgotten how to breathe. He started counting: breathe in, one, two; breathe out, one, two. This helped him get the rhythm right.
Tonight I have a couple of messages in my box.
Mark,
I had this dream. In it I saw Seth again. We were at the cabin my family had when we were kids. We were outside playing, throwing around the football. I told him to go long and he took off running, not even looking over his shoulder. In the last second, he turned and the ball slid into his hands. It was beautiful. Seth jumped up and down and kept saying, “Did you see that, Don? Did you see me? Who’s number one?” He smiled so big as he ran toward me. I woke up. It was a good dream.
Don
I haven’t told anyone about the group. I’m not sure what they’d think. I like that it’s my own thing. Maybe it’s weird to be talking to total strangers, but at the same time it makes perfect sense. They get me in a way that my parents, Hanna, even Sebastian can’t.
Mark,
To answer your question with another question, are we ever really whole? We’re all broken in some way. Tell anyone who wants you to get over it to go to hell, sorry for my language. Kristen died five years ago, and I wanted to kill everyone who told me I just needed time. You know what time does? It makes me older when Kristen isn’t. You know what’s the most tragic thing? Getting older than your twin. But you’re not alone. There are people here who get you.
Are you coming to the LA meet-up next month? If so, I’ll see you there.
Greg
Twinless Twins hosts these meet-ups once a month in my area, and then a big conference in the summer where they talk about dealing with loss and grief and anger. I’m thinking about going. It’s also for family and friends. Maybe Hanna or Sebastian would come with me.
I write Greg back and tell him maybe.
I get into bed and try to go to sleep. One, two, breathe in. One, two, breathe out. After what feels like a couple of seconds, I hit the vibrating alarm next to my head—12:01 a.m. I listen for noise in the house, but there’s nothing. I grab my shoes from the floor next to the bed, knowing now to wait to put them on after I’m out the front door. I made the mistake of wearing them down the stairs one night, and Jenny pushed open her door and peeked out into the hallway. I froze halfway down the stairs, hoping that the darkness
covered me. I waited until she slowly closed her door, then kept going.
Outside, the air is warm with a hint of the approaching fall. Apple-picking time. Every year we go to the mountains to a farm where we each get a white paper bag with a little handle and pick as many apples as we can fit into the bag. It’s kind of cheesy, but Grace loves it. She loved it.
We always stop at the same restaurant on the way home. We drive to it with the windows down because you can smell the baked apple pie from, like, a mile away. Grace, Jenny, Dad, me, even Fern, each get our own slice with a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream. It’s hard to find moments when everyone’s happy, but this is ours, our snapshot as some magazine family.
This year none of us has mentioned going. It wouldn’t really be the same. We should probably cancel Thanksgiving and Christmas too. I can’t imagine trying to sit through turkey and green-bean casserole without Grace.
I’m sitting on the front steps, lacing my shoes, when a car pulls up in front of Hanna’s house. The passenger door opens, and I hear Hanna’s laugh. She gets out and stands on the sidewalk, waving as the car drives off. She watches the car until it turns at the end of our street. Then she looks at my house, and I lower my head, hoping that she won’t see me, but no such luck.
“Spying on me now?” she says quietly as she approaches.
She’s wearing one of her best outfits: black skinny jeans and a tight striped shirt. It’s the same outfit she wore to the concert we went to over the summer when she was on one of her Let’s go and do something fun to try and act normal missions.
“You wish,” I say, and stand. I meet Hanna by my dad’s car. “Who was that?” I nod toward the end of our street.
She hesitates. “River.”
As soon as she says his name, I’m angry and something like shame rises in the back of my throat. Because now I’ve got this picture of the last time I saw him. He was lying on the ground, not even fighting me back as I pummeled him. He looked at me with pity, and that’s worse than anything.
“I don’t want any shit tonight, okay?” The words are out before I can think through what I’m saying.
She tenses and puts a hand on her hip. “You don’t get to do that.”
“Whatever,” I say, and brush past her to open the car door.
She blocks me. “You act like I’ve done something wrong.”
“Move,” I say.
“Make me.”
She glares at me, and I can see she’s going to start crying.
I want to tell her I’m sorry. I don’t want to be this person. I want to say that I don’t know why I’m being cruel, but her tears just piss me off even more. Why does she always have to cry?
“Hanna, please move. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Too late,” she says. She walks away. I touch the handle, but I don’t open it yet. I know that if I drive away, something between us will break. And I don’t have many relationships that aren’t broken. I hate to admit it because I don’t even know what it means, but my relationship with Hanna is one thing that I can’t have broken.
“Wait.”
Hanna stops in the middle of the road.
“Come with me,” I say.
“What?” She turns but not before I see her wipe a tear from her eye.
“You want to know where I go, right?”
She nods.
“I’ll show you.”
She folds her arms across her chest. “Say it first.”
“I’m sorry.” I don’t really feel sorry, but Grace said that sometimes saying it is a good first step. Sometimes you say the words because it’s the right thing to do for the other person. And standing here in the middle of our dark street, Hanna needs to hear the words.
I move toward her and touch the side of her arm. “I’m sorry,” I say again. I search her eyes until she drops her gaze.
“Okay,” she says. “Where are we going?”
I put my finger on my lips and lead her to the car.
Eight
I park in the usual spot, along a quiet street near the base of the bridge.
I turn off the engine, and say, “Surprise.”
“I thought . . .” Hanna’s voice wavers like she’s on the verge of crying again.
“What?” I don’t let her finish. “Disappointed I’m not hiding out at some strip club?” My tone is harsher than I intend, but I can’t stand the crying.
“Sort of,” she says, and sniffles. “Or that you were part of some secret spy ring.”
I laugh. “Let’s go.”
I lead her to the top of a narrow path that takes us to the bridge. It’s easy to miss. I drove by it the first couple of times I came.
The trail is only wide enough for one person, so I go first. It switchbacks through bushes and thick trees.
“I’ve never been down here,” Hanna says.
I shine the light from my phone at Hanna’s feet. “Watch your step. There’s a big rock.” I reach out and take her hand to help her down.
“Thank you.”
She lets go as soon as she gets her footing. I kind of wish there were more rocks. I’m not used to having anyone with me, so I feel the pressure of being a tour guide.
“Lots of people run or walk here. The path connects to the Rose Bowl. Of course, most people come during the day.” At the bottom of the hill, the pathway opens, exposing us to skinny trees whose pale bones cast eerie shadows. At night it’s creepy, a perfect spot to set a horror movie or Stephen King novel. I almost expect a zombie to jump out at us.
Our feet crunch on decaying leaves as we walk, making it impossible to hide our presence from anyone within a mile of hearing. I notice Hanna walks very close to me, as if she’s a little scared, though she wouldn’t tell me that. Hanna is strong for a girl. She doesn’t let much bother her, except maybe her mom. They’ve had some killer fights. I can hear them sometimes through my open window. The next day Hanna acts like everything’s fine, even though it isn’t. She used to come talk to Grace about it.
I’m beginning to regret bringing Hanna here. I don’t want to have to explain myself.
“Wow,” she says. “It’s so big.”
She’s referring to the base of the bridge. She’s right. The bridge’s chunky legs are curved like the base of a very old grandfather clock. The design looks like it could be in 1920s Paris or something. The globed street standards, which line both sides of the bridge in clusters of five every thirty yards or so, look like small floating full moons from where we are.
There’s an old walkway lined by a stone wall that we take. We climb the crumbling rock steps and make our way to the concrete slab of the bridge’s foundation and dam for the Arroyo Seco riverbed. Behind us, there’s a spot where the water pools before it moves down into the channel. Most of the time there’s hardly any water here, except for during rainy seasons, when flash floods can come through. Tonight the water trickles from the pool.
I sit down on the ledge. The concrete is cold through my jeans.
Hanna sits next to me. “So, what do you do here?”
“It’s just a good place to think. Listen.” The cars speed by in a kind of syncopated rhythm above us. The water moves below. Sometimes the leaves on the bushes rustle. “People say there’s ghosts here.”
“Have you ever seen anything?”
“No, but I read about how ghost hunters have come here to try to catch them on film. It’s stupid.” Ghosts are just pieces of memory. They haunt us because we don’t want to forget. We are the ghost makers. We take fragments of the dead and project them onto shadows and sounds, trying to make sense of loss by assigning it a new shape. Ghosts aren’t real. Dead is dead. There is no getting someone back.
I’m starting to forget the small things. The way Grace smiled at me. How her voice sounded when she was angry. What color nail polish she wore. Her smell. Smell is supposed to be our sense with the strongest ties to memory. Sometimes I pull out one of her shirts to remind me of her scent because I can feel Grace
slipping from me. And I’m terrified of what that means.
“He just wanted to talk,” Hanna says.
“Who?”
“River. It’s hard on him, too.”
I can’t remember Grace’s laugh correctly either. Did she let it out all at once or did it build? I picture her playing tag with Fern. Suddenly I can hear it again. Her laugh came in quick spurts, like a motor being revved before it gets going.
“You should talk to him,” Hanna says.
“Maybe,” I say, though I have no intention of speaking with River again. Our last encounter, even if it was my fault, hadn’t gone well. With Grace dead, I figured I’d never see him again. I didn’t count on Hanna bringing him back into the equation. I didn’t count on finding the bracelet. I get up. “Let’s keep moving.”
We make our way back to the arroyo and walk along the pathway, following it to the top of the bridge.
The air up here is cooler with a thin layer of fog. As far as I can tell, we’re the only ones on the bridge. Hanna has her arms wrapped around her middle, so I take off my jacket and put it over her shoulders. She starts to protest.
“Stop it. You’re cold. No arguments.” I rub her arms.
“But now you’ll be cold.”
“I’m fine.”
She leans in and rests her head against my chest and I wrap my arms around her. My heart races, and I try to remain very still. The last time Hanna and I hugged was after Grace’s funeral. She was the one who reached for me, and I just stood there.
She starts to shake. And I can’t tell if it’s because she’s upset or cold.
“You okay?” I ask with my mouth close to her ear.
“All good,” she says, and pushes away. We start walking again.
“This is amazing at night. This bridge makes me feel like we could be in London.” She lowers her voice. “As if Jack the Ripper is going to walk toward us.” She grabs my arm. Hanna’s like that. She’s always pretending, making up scenarios. Most people stop that when they grow up, but not Hanna. She’d probably be a good writer one day—well, if she actually liked to write. Writing, of course, makes me think of Grace. Everything leads to Grace.
