The Stolen Twin

by Michele PW (Pariza Wacek)

  “There’s no reason why you can’t live a relatively normal life,” she would tell me over and over. “CF patients are living longer and longer. You just have to know how to take care of yourself.”

  Last but not least, she home-schooled me – doing such a good job I ended up ahead of my class.

  Actually, everything she did was a total success. The doctors marveled about her management of my health. For someone with CF, I was in extremely good shape.

  My mother was able devote so much time to me because she worked at home as a freelance writer. She had a few high-level corporate accounts that paid well and gave her plenty of flexibility to take care of me. My father held the lofty position of vice president of sales at Duncan Industries – an international company, one of the largest employers in Riverview other than the university. Together, they brought in a sizable income, and as their only child, I benefited from all the privileges income could buy: travel to exotic places, plenty of extracurricular activities, full ride to college.

  From the outside, we looked like the perfect family. Both parents with highly- successful careers, a lovely home, a beautiful, bright child. What more could anyone want? Yes, indeed, we had the perfect life all right, to match our perfect house. Our elegant, tastefully-decorated house my mother loved to show off to anyone who came by. Just don’t look too closely at the door in the corner, back where the light bulb has long since burnt out and the spiders have taken over. No, that door certainly does not lead to a stinking, rotting carcass masquerading as a daughter dying of CF and another daughter’s ghost. No, no door at all. Just like no photos of Cat, anywhere at all in that lovely home.

  And now, facing one of the worst situations of my life, I had no one to turn to. Trying to talk to my parents now, after all the things we had never discussed? How could I go to them, when I was the “wrong” twin? Forget it.

  I especially couldn’t let my mother know how badly my health had deteriorated. Having three violent congestion attacks in two weeks wasn’t good. Normally my attacks mirrored asthma attacks, not these congestion-filled embarrassing episodes accompanied by green-tinged mucus. Because of the nature of my attacks, I had always been able to pass them off as severe asthma. In reality, I had mild asthma and mild CF. Together, I could call it bad asthma.

  Other than my childhood near-death experience, there had been only one other seriously ill episode. It was also the night I knew my sister had died.

  It was April. I was sixteen. I woke with a start – the fairy dream again, but it was different this time - more intense. I sat up in bed, gasping and coughing, tears cascading down my cheeks, when I sensed a presence in the room. Not a person – a presence. I felt the distinction.

  Tears drying on my face, I worked to get my breathing under control while scanning the room. Nothing out of place, nothing I could hear beyond my own loud gasps, but I knew something was there. Watching me. Waiting for me to calm down. I was no longer alone, yet I detected no sense of threat.

  Then I smelled it. Chlorine. So strong and sudden I ended up coughing again. My room smelled exactly like an indoor swimming pool - exactly like that day so long ago at the YMCA, when I was six. Cat.

  I’ll always take care of you, Kit. Except she didn’t. The fairies took her.

  Sitting in my bed, tears still drying, I felt a feather-light touch stroke my cheek, my brow – a kiss, faint, but full of power. And I knew, in that instant, a secret I couldn’t voice.

  Cat was dead.

  The fairies took her and now they killed her. I knew it deep within my bones. My sister had come to say one final farewell, the farewell that had been denied to her so long ago as I lay dying in the hospital room.

  I also knew, in that moment, that I should have gone first. I should have been there to welcome her. I should have been the one taken – death had been standing right by my bedside, waiting for me to take my final gasp.

  Yet something had diverted death, caused it to move on, to find someone else to caress in its cold, hollow arms. And somewhere in the confusion, the fairies had snuck in and snatched my sister. Just as death had been sidetracked, death had sidetracked everyone else – leaving my sister vulnerable to the fairies and leaving me behind, trapped in a damaged, dying body. Death didn’t do anyone any favors that day.

  The night I knew my sister died, the night she came to say goodbye, I cried as I never had before. I cried for the guilt, the loss, the could-have-beens, the should-have-beens. I cried until I could no more. Then I lay there, head pounding, chest aching, until my alarm went off and I could safely get up and take my shower.

  I had to take special care with my appearance. I couldn’t let my mother know how little I slept, or how much I cried. I couldn’t tell her Cat had visited me. I couldn’t tell her the Golden Twin was dead.

  Banging down my breakfast plate, she hovered above me, arms crossed. “What’s wrong? Didn’t you sleep well?”

  I picked up my fork. “Nothing’s wrong. I slept fine.”

  Her eyes bored into me, small gray stones, almost as if she could look right through me. “You’re getting sick, aren’t you?”

  I filled my fork with eggs. “No. I’m fine.”

  With sudden, jerky movements, she uncrossed her arms and slapped her hand against my forehead.

  My fork hit my plate with a clatter. “Mom.”

  She ignored me. “You don’t feel warm.”

  I wrenched myself away. “Because I’m not.”

  She put her hand under my chin and yanked my face up. “Was it clear or was it tinged green or yellow?”

  Why do you care about the mucus, I wanted to scream. My sister is dead. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bear to see her face collapse again, the way it had when she told me Cat had been kidnapped.

  I could feel her distancing herself from me. The wrong twin had been kidnapped.

  “God, Mom. Will you leave me alone so I can eat? Everything’s fine. Everything’s normal.”

  She didn’t believe me. But she let me eat.

  I wished I could tell her. Tell someone, anyone. But who would believe me?

  Instead I internalized it. Brooded over it. Dwelled on it, and nothing else.

  Grief became my constant companion. I went to school and came home. I did nothing else. I stopped eating, stopped sleeping.

  A part of me, the intellectual part, insisted I was overreacting. For all I knew, for all anyone knew, Cat had been murdered long ago. If she hadn’t been, why would she have been killed now, at this particular time? Even if she had been killed now, why would she come visit me? How would I “instinctually” know about it? We were fraternal, not identical twins. Those kinds of eerie “knowing” things only happened to identical twins. Besides, whatever kind of bond we had would have been broken long ago. We hadn’t seen each other for nearly ten years.

  No matter how logical my intellectual side was, it couldn’t persuade my emotional side. I knew. Simple as that. Never mind that I found nothing about it in the newspaper. I knew. Cat was dead. She had died that night. No amount of arguing could persuade me otherwise.

  So, after two weeks of not eating and not sleeping, I ended up with a 102 degree fever, hacking up green mucus.

  “I knew you were getting sick,” my mother muttered triumphantly as she pumped me full of antibiotics and the richest food she could find – I had lost almost ten pounds.

  “What did I tell you about controlling stress?” she said, taking my temperature. “You can’t afford to let stress get to you. I don’t care what’s going on in your life. Stress will kill you. You have got to keep it under control.”

  I nodded, too sick to argue. Life is out of our control. How could I possibly keep stress under control when the fairies could appear at any time and steal someone away?

  Ever since then, I had believed Cat to be dead. Yet someone who resembled her had spoken to me
at the Halloween party. I had seen that same person at least one other time on campus. I had even asked the woman in student services to look up Cat’s name. Why would I have done that if I thought she was dead? Was I starting to question myself after all these years? Better yet, why did my heart sink when Eileen confirmed what I already knew?

  Maybe because I didn’t want to believe it. Maybe because in my entire life I never wanted to be more wrong about something. Maybe because I wished more than anything to see Cat again, or if that weren’t possible, to at least know what happened to her.

  The fairies are evil. Pure evil. Could that be true? Oh, God, what if it was? All these years my sister had been trapped by evil, and all because I didn’t have the good sense to die when I was supposed to.

  The Jack Nicholson line from the movie A Few Good Men flashed through my head: “You can’t handle the truth.” Could I handle the truth about Cat? Did I really want to know what happened to her? Was the truth even being offered to me? Or was it only an illusion, simply a coincidence that I met two of my tormentors on the same night?

  As I started coughing again, I wondered if perhaps I had missed the most fundamental question of all: would I even live long enough to get to the bottom of all of this?

  Chapter 21

  Lunch tray in hand, I searched the packed Union for a place to sit. I chose the Union specifically because it would be crowded, and it didn’t disappoint. Of course, now the problem became finding an empty table. Constant challenges.

  Ducking through the crowd, I spotted Brandi with three of her sorority sisters. Since Brandi and I hadn’t spoken since the kitchen encounter, I thought it best to eat somewhere else. As luck would have it, Tammy, one of the sisters, saw me and waved me over. Reluctantly, I returned her greeting. Now I had to sit with them. If they saw me sitting alone, they would think I was snubbing them.

  “Hey.” I nodded to Brandi, Tammy, Bridget and Jamie as I dropped my tray next to Tammy. While the others greeted me in return, Brandi studied the salad on her plate.

  Oh well. I doused my fries with ketchup before biting into my fish sandwich, only half listening to the conversation.

  “So,” Tammy turned to me. “How are you doing, Kit?”

  I shrugged, my mouth full of fish. “Fine.”

  “No, really.” Jamie’s black curls danced as she tossed her head. “How are you doing?”

  I swallowed, eyeing them. “Fine. Why, don’t I look fine?”

  The three sisters exchanged a look between them. “We heard you have Cystic Fibrosis. Is that true?” Tammy asked.

  Oh, God. Like I needed this. I stared at them – eyes bright, curious, yet with an edge. Almost predatory. “Yes.”

  All three spoke at once.

  “I can’t believe it, you look so healthy,” Jamie said.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Tammy asked.

  “We could have helped you,” Bridget said

  I put my sandwich down. “Look, I didn’t tell anyone. It’s not something I like to talk about.”

  “Well, yeah,” Tammy said. “But we’re your friends. We want to help.”

  Were they? The thought appeared out of nowhere, shooting through my mind like an electric shock. I tried dismissing it. Of course they were my friends. I’ve known them for the past three or four years. But the longer I studied their sparkling, edgy faces, the more I wondered.

  “It’s not personal. Me not telling you, really. I just got into the habit of not telling anyone. Since sixth grade I haven’t talked about it. But maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I should have said something.”

  That look again. Then Jamie faced me, her smile just the tiniest bit patronizing.

  “We were talking, the four of us.” She nodded around the table, although Brandi had yet to look up from her salad. “And we thought maybe this year for our spring community project, we could raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.”

  I felt my face freeze. Oh, God, I was about to become a sorority house’s cause. This was exactly the reason why I begged my parents not to tell anyone I had CF in high school. Visions of me being splashed on posters danced before my eyes. I saw myself being trotted out for press conferences, surrounded by the sorority sisters, all with sympathetic and pitying expressions on their faces. “Kit is so sweet, so special,” I could hear them saying. “I just can’t believe she has such a horrible disease. Of course once we found out, we just had to get involved.” Could my life possibly get any worse?

  I forced my stiff face to smile. Focus on the fact they want to raise money for the foundation, I ordered myself. “I think that would be great.” I hoped I sounded at least somewhat pleased.

  Brandi glanced up, caught my attention and rolled her eyes. I raced to cover my mouth with a napkin, hiding my grin. At least Brandi understood.

  Apparently I hid my feeling better with the others, because they enthusiastically started to outline their plans for me. Only half-listening, I nibbled on my food and tried to think of a plausible reason why I couldn’t be a part of their fundraiser. Health problems? How ironic would that be? At least my mucus didn’t look greenish this morning. Maybe last night was a fluke. Or, better yet, maybe I imagined it. Well, I wouldn’t take any chances – before going home I planned to purchase a bunch of over-the-counter cold remedies. Even without the green mucus, I didn’t like the heaviness I now felt in my chest.

  I selected another fry to smother in ketchup, nodding all the while, when out of nowhere came, “Hello, girls. May I join you?”

  I froze, the fry hovering somewhere between plate and mouth. David stood there, holding a tray of food and smiling, as though everything was just peachy in the world. Yes, apparently everything could get worse. A whole lot worse.

  Brandi whipped her head toward me, eyes accusing. “David, how nice to see you.” Her voice was sugary sweet, but her eyes continued to bore into mine. “But you don’t want to sit here. Girl-talk, you know. You wouldn’t be interested.”

  “Of course I’d be interested,” David insisted. “I’d love the chance to get to know Kit’s friends better.”

  Bridget, Jamie and Tammy sat there as motionless as I was, their eyes round and perplexed. I could almost see the questions written on their faces: “Isn’t this the guy who crashed the party and attacked her in the library? What’s he doing here? Is she still dating him after all that? What does Tommy think about all this?”

  I couldn’t move, couldn’t react in any way. My emotions had taken over – rage, fear, helplessness – so powerful in their intensity they had paralyzed me. It didn’t help that I found myself strangely fascinated at the interplay between Brandi and David.

  David moved to the empty spot and set his tray down. “You don’t mind, do you?” he asked warmly.

  Brandi’s arm shot out, knocking his glass of Coke all over his food. It was a good shot, she even got soda on the chair.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Brandi said, still in that sugary sweet tone. “This chair is taken. You don’t mind, do you?”

  David fixed his gaze on his burrito now soaked with Coke. An angry red flush began creeping out of his blue turtleneck shirt and up into his face. A vein throbbed at his temple. “You stupid … ” he began, his voice soft and menacing, still staring at his ruined lunch.

  That broke my paralysis. “David, it’s over. I already told you it’s over. Find somewhere else to sit.”

  His chin jerked up, fixing his hot eyes on me. “I need to talk to you,” he hissed.

  “We have nothing to talk about.”

  He pounded his fist against the table. Plates and silverware rattled together. “I say we do.”

  His eyes tore into mine. Suddenly my anger took over, sweeping aside the other emotions like rafts in a storm. How dare he talk to me like that?

  I folded my arms in front of me. “I’m not going anywhere with you. We�
�re done. If you don’t leave right now, I’m going to call campus police.”

  His eyes glittered. “Empty threats. You didn’t before.”

  I returned his gaze, matching rage for rage, before bursting from my seat. I ran toward the cashiers. “This man is threatening me,” I yelled. “Call campus police. He won’t leave me alone.”

  Behind me, I heard David swear, but I kept going, yelling the whole time, my voice echoing crazily against the decorative arches. People had started to look up, mouths gaping open, words drying up. Finally I reached one of the cashiers. She had frizzled brown hair and dark-framed glasses and looked unable to deal with this situation.

  “What?” She sounded like I had just woken her up.

  “Call campus police. That man is threatening me.” I turned to point at David, but he had already disappeared into the crowd.

  “Good, he’s gone now.” I faced the cashier.

  She eyed me cautiously. “Do you still want me to call campus police?”

  Suddenly I realized everyone around me was wearing that same cautious expression. The other cashiers. The African-American man, his money in hand, waiting to pay for his lunch. The group of Vietnamese students standing by the condiments. Nobody spoke. An eerie silence descended, broken only when a new song started. Barenaked Ladies. Appropriate.

  “No, that’s okay. Thanks anyway.” I slunk back to my table, careful not to make eye contact.

  “What was that all about?” Tammy asked, her voice sounding more gossipy than quizzical.

  Brandi was more to the point. “What the fuck was he doing here? I thought you were going to report him.”

  Conversation resumed in the dining hall as I slid into my seat. “I did report him. Yesterday. But I have to go back today because he told me the wrong name.”

  Brandi looked like she might burst. “What? I didn’t get that.”

  I now understood the saying about wishing the floor would open up and swallow you. “He told me his last name was Naughton. It’s Terry. I need to fix that today.”