My Sister's Voice

by Mary Carter

  “Now that’s hope, darlin’,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m Henry,” he said. “But most folks call me Doc.”

  “Nice to meet you, Doc,” Monica said. “I’m Monica.”

  “So what’s your job?” Doc asked.

  “I’m a motivational speaker,” Monica said. She burst into tears again. Doc just nodded.

  “You want to know a secret?” he said. Monica sniffed, nodded. “Ain’t nobody got nothin’ figured out. Nobody.”

  “That’s oddly comforting,” Monica said.

  “Don’t I know it,” Doc said. “Don’t I know it.” He offered her the sandwich again. This time, she took it.

  “So how’d you lose a sistah?” Doc asked.

  “I don’t know,” Monica said. “She’s mad at me in a way, I guess.”

  “Well, now, everybody gets mad. I get mad all the time. Don’t worry, I ain’t mad right now. But I get mad. I sure get mad.”

  “Me too.”

  “Don’t worry, she’ll get glad again.”

  “I hope so.”

  “You know so. You bettah know so. Whatever you gotta do, you do it.”

  “You’re right,” Monica said, pulling the folded easel paper closer. “I think you’re right.”

  “I is,” Doc said. “I sure is. Except when I’m wrong. Problem is, I don’t always know the difference.”

  “Me neither,” Monica said, handing him back the rest of the sandwich. “Me neither.”

  Chapter 22

  When she first found out they were going to have the twins, Katherine Bowman vowed never to dress them alike. But soon the gifts poured in. Matching booties, onesies, bibs, and caps. It was a losing battle; she just couldn’t let them go to waste. Sometimes, late at night when the world fell dark and Katherine tortured herself with decisions of the past, she wondered if it could have been that simple. If she’d just refused to dress them alike, would they have been healthy and independent? She knew logically that was foolish, but she visited questions like rosary beads, turning them over and over again in her mind as she said a little prayer. But one thing she knew for sure. The real trouble started with the blue shoes.

  They were going out, and they couldn’t find Monica’s right blue shoe. Instead, Katherine slipped brown ones on her little feet. Monica looked over at Lacey’s feet. She was wearing the little blue shoes. Monica lasered Katherine with a look of pure hatred, then became a shrieking, wailing ball on the floor. She didn’t stop until Katherine removed one shoe on each girl and traded. Monica stopped crying long enough to look at her feet. One brown shoe, one blue. She looked at Lacey’s feet. One brown shoe, one blue. She squealed and she and Lacey raced out of the room and down the hall.

  I can’t take this, Katherine thought as she hurried after them. I’m going to lose my mind. She’d had these thoughts often lately, but told no one. The twins were a blessing, a miracle. She couldn’t let anyone know she was feeling ungrateful and exhausted, wishing in fleeting moments that she didn’t have them, that she could go back to a life with just her and Richard.

  One day Katherine laid out a blanket near the edge of the woods where the front line of trees could provide protection and shade. Soon the girls crawled off the blanket to explore a small patch of dirt behind them. If Richard had been there, he would have immediately scooped them up and scolded them. But Katherine wanted the girls to get dirty, touch the pungent grass, feel the grain and soot beneath their fingers. The dirtier the bath water was at the end of the day, the better the day.

  They sat on the ground, heads bowed so close together it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended. The game had been going on for a week now. Katherine tried to figure out the rules as she watched them, but it was impossible. Who dug the deepest, the fastest? Whose nails and cheeks were caked with the most dirt? They’re so adorable, Katherine heard all the time. They’re so close, aren’t they?

  Yes, they were very close. Too close. Whenever Katherine tried to tell Richard there was something wrong with the twins’ behavior, he dismissed her as a worrywart. He just didn’t want to face it, she knew that now. What did either of them know about twins? Maybe all twins wrapped themselves in a cocoon and shunned the outside world, became members of a club nobody else could enter. Whenever Katherine tried separating them, Lacey would play happily and bond with her caretaker, but not Monica. Monica would get so upset she would become physically ill. She’d claw, and cling, and scream. One day, when her wailing failed to immediately summon her sister, Monica crawled over to the nearest wall and began to bang her head against it. Soon, she was wearing a helmet on the days when Lacey would go with the neighbors. It was then Katherine insisted on bringing Monica to see Dianne.

  She came highly recommended, a child psychiatrist specializing in toddlers. Most of the children she saw were victims of abuse. Things you could hardly believe. Four-year-olds threatening to kill younger siblings. Covering their brothers’ or sisters’ mouths with pillows while they slept. One child, a boy, dropped a hair dryer in the bathtub where his brother was happily playing. They used foul language, hit, bit, kicked, screamed. Katherine knew she was a failure as a mother. But there was no abuse in their home. Richard was a strict disciplinarian, but he never raised a hand to the twins.

  And they were good girls, they really were. As rambunctious as boys, but Katherine didn’t mind. But when Richard came home and saw two-year-old Monica wearing a helmet, banging her head against the wall, he finally agreed. Dianne Wells, head psychiatrist at the children’s psychiatric unit at Boston University School of Medicine, agreed to see them. They were told to bring the twins together for the first visit. Later she would work with Monica alone.

  The first visit, Katherine sat in the waiting room while Dianne observed the girls at play. She didn’t realize how stressed she’d been until that moment when someone else, a professional, was there to help. After thirty minutes, Dianne called Katherine into the room. It was a large, comfortable space, like a living room with a desk in the corner. The girls were playing with a red ball in the middle of the floor.

  “They’re so adorable,” Dianne said. Katherine’s heart thumped. Was she going to be snowed like everyone else? “Their play is slightly advanced for their age,” Dianne continued. “Two and a half years old, correct?” she said as she flipped through a legal pad. Katherine nodded, afraid that if she opened her mouth to speak, she was going to have a breakdown. Dianne motioned for Katherine to sit. If the twins noticed she had entered the room, they gave no sign of it. “They certainly seem capable of sharing,” Dianne said, sitting on the arm of a chair a few feet from the girls. “Monica mirrors everything Lacey does,” Dianne noted. Katherine scooted to the edge of the couch.

  “Yes,” she told Dianne. “She can’t make a single move without Lacey.” Lacey dropped the red ball and picked up a yellow one. Monica dropped her red ball and found a yellow one.

  “That’s actually very normal,” Dianne said.

  “Give Lacey the red ball,” Katherine whispered. “But take away all the other red balls so Monica can’t get one.” Dianne glanced at Katherine. Terror clutched Katherine as Dianne hesitated; they couldn’t leave the session without her seeing what she was going through every single day, what the girls were going through. They had to get help. “Please,” Katherine said. “Please.”

  Dianne leaned forward, picked up a red ball, and handed it to Lacey. Lacey happily dropped her yellow ball for the red. Monica’s head snapped up. Dianne quickly picked up the other red balls. Monica dropped her yellow ball and crawled to Lacey. She held her hand out for the red ball. Lacey put it in her mouth. Monica opened her mouth in a soundless scream, and swiveled her head around to glare at Katherine, as if she knew this was all her fault. Katherine put her hand over her mouth; did Dianne see that? Did she see the anger and hatred in Monica? Monica wasn’t wearing her helmet. Katherine reached to the side of the couch, where Dianne insisted she hide it. Monica began to wail.
Katherine held the helmet to Dianne. Dianne waved it away. Monica began to shriek.

  “She’s going to bang her head any minute,” Katherine said.

  “Put it away,” Dianne said, grabbing the helmet and hiding it behind her back. “You may have created a trigger,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” Katherine said as Monica headed for the nearest wall. Katherine knew she’d reached a cutoff point. It didn’t matter which ball you gave her now, she was going to start banging her head.

  “The helmet could be a trigger, a stimulus to start the headbanging,” Dianne explained. Seconds later, Monica reached the wall. She put both hands in front of her and pulled back her head. Both women leapt to their feet, but Katherine got to her first. When Monica’s head made impact, it was with Katherine’s soft palm instead of the hard wall. She continued to pound her head into Katherine’s palm.

  “See?” Katherine said, tears filling her eyes. “See?” Lacey dropped the red ball, toddled over to her sister, and hugged her around the waist, swaying with her like a drunken dancer until she stopped.

  Chapter 23

  “What do you mean, you quit?” Joe followed Monica into the bedroom. She wished he would go away. She needed to concentrate, needed to figure out exactly what she was going to do. She’d finally treated Joe to every single detail of her day with Lacey, and he just didn’t get it. Oh, he politely listened at first, murmured “oh really” or “that’s nice” a couple of times, but then didn’t flinch when Monica told him Lacey ended the relationship just like that. He said he should give her time, they were adults now, with their own lives. That’s when Monica knew for sure. It was over with Joe; he wasn’t the guy for her, he never had been. She didn’t need him, she didn’t need the book, she didn’t need to make another stupid blueprint to know what she wanted. She wanted Lacey. She wanted her twin.

  It had been seventy-two hours since she was thrown out of her sister’s art studio. Seventy-two excruciating hours. Joe was the least of her worries. If not for the promise she’d made to her sister, the one and only promise she’d ever made to her sister, she would have been at her parents’ doorstep in an absolute rampage. She wanted answers and she wanted them yesterday. But for now, she would keep her promise. She and Lacey would confront them together, side by side. But first she had to get her sister to agree to see her again, and for that she needed time to think. She wandered their condo, looking at it with new eyes. It was so generic. So plain. So un-artistic. Joe had this theory that clutter “cluttered the mind,” but after seeing Lacey’s studio, Monica now hated her sterile environment. Lacey was so expressive, so colorful, so alive!

  “What are you looking at?” Joe said.

  “I hate those pillows,” Monica said. She walked over, grabbed a drab, gray pillow, and hurled it to the floor.

  “You picked them out,” Joe said.

  “And now I’m throwing them out,” Monica said. She examined the walls. Decorator’s white. Cream. Taupe. Whatever. “I’m going to paint,” she said. “We need color in here.”

  “Monica,” Joe said. “What are we going to do about next weekend?” Next weekend. The big San Francisco workshop. She couldn’t go to San Francisco. Not now.

  “You do it,” Monica said. “Call it quitting. Call it a break. I don’t care. I need some time off.”

  “We’ve been over this,” Joe said. “I have a job. I can’t take time off my job to do your job!”

  “ ‘When things are crumbling down around you, don’t duck, get out of the way.’ ”

  “Don’t do that,” Joe said. “Don’t quote me.”

  “Aha!” Monica said. “Don’t quote you. Admit it. You wrote the book. Not me.”

  “I helped—”

  “I helped,” Monica said. “You wrote it.”

  “So what? You’re the face of it. You’re the one people come to see. You didn’t even ask me how the rest of the workshop went.”

  “How did it go?” Monica began to strip the bed. What was she thinking, shades of gray?

  “It was a total disaster. I stumbled over my words. I forgot huge chunks. I sounded like a total idiot. People walked out, okay? They didn’t like me. They like you.”

  “I can’t go to San Francisco,” Monica said. “I need to be here.” What if something happened to Lacey while she was gone? She couldn’t lose her now, she couldn’t let anything happen to her.

  “Bring her with you,” Joe said.

  “What?” It was the first thing he’d said in a long time that didn’t make her want to hit him.

  “She could be your new assistant.” Monica stepped over the pile of bedding on the floor and walked over to the painting on the wall. It was a reproduction. A generic rendering of a girl standing on the beach.

  “Where did I get this piece of shit?” Monica said.

  “How do I know?” Joe asked. “Bed Bath and Beyond?”

  “Exactly,” Monica said. “Some generic superstore.” She took it off the wall.

  “Monica,” Joe said. “What are you doing?”

  “Giving the bedroom a makeover,” Monica said. She let the painting drop to the floor.

  “So what about it?” Joe said, picking the sheets and comforter off the floor and tossing them back on the bed. “Take her with you.”

  “She doesn’t want to see me,” Monica said.

  “So give her some space, then,” Joe said. “Send her a postcard of the Golden Gate Bridge.” That was the dumbest thing Monica had heard in her whole life. She wanted to push him off the Golden Gate Bridge. He didn’t understand, she was different now. He didn’t feel the same rage and betrayal. He defended her parents. Maybe they’d done the best they could for Lacey by sending her to a “special school.”

  There’s a difference, Monica told him, between sending someone to a special school and abandoning them. Burying them. Erasing them. Tearing them apart. My twin, my twin, my twin. Why, why, why? Joe, of course, couldn’t answer her.

  There was nothing else she could do with the bedroom right now. She opened the closet, took out her suitcase.

  “Oh, thank God,” Joe said. “But aren’t you packing a little early?”

  “I’m going to Philadelphia,” Monica said. “And I’m going to stay there until I have my sister back.” She hadn’t planned on doing this. But it made so much sense. Lacey had been abandoned; of course she was scared. Monica needed to prove she would never abandon her again. If that meant making some sacrifices, so be it. She would take sign language classes too, private lessons if she had to. She would take Snookie. That was it. Lacey couldn’t say no to Snookie. She clapped her hands.

  “Snookie!”

  “You can’t be serious,” Joe said. “Monica, you can’t be serious.” Snookie came racing in, jumped on the bed, slid off the pile of sheets, and landed belly up at her feet. Monica laughed and picked him up.

  “Can you believe it, Joe? Rookie, Snookie? Both puggles?”

  “It is weird,” Joe said. “It would make a good book.”

  “Is that all you ever think about?”

  “At least I think,” Joe said. “You’re just reacting. You know that’s not the best approach.”

  “I’m going to Philadelphia. I’m taking Snookie. And I’m not putting him in a stupid crate either.”

  “I’m going to call your parents,” Joe said. He pulled out his cell phone.

  “Don’t you dare,” Monica said. “Or you and I are over.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I mean it, Joe. I’ve never been more serious in my entire life. If you so much as dial the first number, you and I are through.” Joe snapped the phone shut. She’d never seen such a pained look on his face. She was surprised how little it moved her. He was plain too—the serious professor type. It wasn’t his fault, it was hers. He was the boyfriend version of her Bed Bath and Beyond painting. Nice-looking, but generic. No originality whatsoever.

  “You’ve had a shock,” Joe said. “I get that. I really do. And I’m so proud
of you for wanting to reach out to her—”

  “Proud of me? Why? Because she’s deaf?”

  “No—because she’s being a bitch—” Monica put Snookie down, walked over to Joe, and slapped him across the face. The sound of it made her cry out, as if she were the one being hit. His cheek was red. Joe didn’t move, or yell, or even put his hand up to his face. Monica stared at her hand as if it had done it without her.

  “Joe,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

  “I don’t even know you,” Joe said.

  “I know,” Monica said. “I’ve been having sexual fantasies about another man. A lot of them. Several a day.”

  “Jesus, Monica.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t help what I fantasize about.” Joe moved closer.

  “Is this all about sex? You want it, fine.” He pulled her to him and started unbuttoning her shirt. Monica pulled away.

  “Stop it,” she said.

  “I thought it’s what you wanted.”

  “Not like this. Not anymore.”

  “Who is he, huh? Who is this guy? Oh—wait—let me guess. This wouldn’t have anything to do with Mike ‘I’d like to see your sculptures’ Dawson, would it?”

  “No,” Monica said. “It’s no one.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Joe.” It was funny; this was what she wanted from him just a short while ago, a little passion, a little flare. Only it was too late. She knew that as she watched this man before her: It was too little too late.

  “It’s not important. It’s just a fantasy. But my sister isn’t. My sister is real.”

  “She’s a total stranger, Mon. A total stranger.”