I was too happy to have my special day ruined by their bickering, and I knew the start of an argument when I heard one, so for the rest of the afternoon I wandered around the trailer park, waving happily at other kids, and enjoying the sun on my face. Eventually I walked over and plonked myself down on the swings, where Melody was pushing herself back and forth, higher and higher, until she was slicing through the sky.
“Stop it, Melody – you’re going to hurt yourself!” I called out, but she wouldn’t look at me. She just kept pushing higher and higher, her face frozen in place.
“Melody stop, please….”
As I watched her soaring high into the blue, it was like an invisible hand was driving her forward. Pushing her harder and higher. “Melody, you’re going too high!”
She only leaned back and pushed into the swing, propelling herself forward.
“Melody…,” I called again. “What’s wrong?”
Eventually, she ran out of puff, and the rusty chains softened, the swing lulling to a stop.
“Melody—”
“Don’t. Alright? Just… don’t.”
“What’s wrong? Why are you so upset?”
“Your periods came?” she asked.
“Yeah, finally,” I smiled. “Yours too?”
When she shook her head, the rock in my stomach told me exactly what was wrong. “I’m sorry, Melody, I thought—”
“You thought what, Madelyn-May?” Her face snapped around, sharp and angry. “That you were his only special girl? Well, you’re not, and why would you be? You’re not special, obviously.”
I swallowed hard, and told myself she was only being mean because of him. “I don’t like it either,” I tried. “I hate it.”
She didn’t answer, and instead dug the toe of her sneaker into the dirt.
“I’m sure you’ll get yours too,” I said. “I mean, you have to, right? We’re twins.”
A soft breeze picked up the loose strands of hair around her face, then dropped them. “Don’t know. Guess he’ll only be coming to see me, now you got yours.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean to.” I touched my hand to my stomach, the twisting cramps no longer feeling so miraculous. “I could maybe….”
“You could maybe what?”
But I just shrugged, and stared at the ground. “I don’t know.”
It felt like forever that we sat there, the two of us contemplating a horror no child should ever have to face. “We could kill him,” I said, hoping to break the tension.
But Melody didn’t meet my gaze or return my smirk. Instead, she stared straight ahead, and whispered, “Yeah, we could.”
Chapter Fourteen
Sophie
Until the night it happened, I had no idea a single thought could physically pull the air from your body. It was only days after the accident, and I had been drifting, far away inside the ethereal space that lingers between slumber and awareness. Lost in a place where, just for a moment, my brain had forgotten they were gone. Then I opened my eyes.
It hit with such intensity that I gasped and clutched at my throat. The room spun, and my entire body froze. A hundred invisible fingers pulled at my skin trying to yank me up from the bed. Caught inside a dazzling confusion of wanting to die and being desperate to survive, the room warped. I clawed at my chest. I sucked in air, too fast, and too shallow. I hyperventilated, the tingles like electricity along my arms. It lasted less than half an hour, but felt like an eternity. When it was over, my knees were jelly, and my hands felt like they belonged to somebody else.
When it happened again the next night, and the one after that, I called a doctor to the house. He told me it was a panic attack, a normal and natural reaction to grief. He said contacting a counselor and talking it through would help. Unfortunately, on my way to the first appointment, I got no further than three blocks down the road before another attack took hold, so debilitating that I had to pull over. When I tried to get out, my balance faltered, causing me to trip and hit my head on the gutter. At the hospital, a duty doctor in blue scrubs administered a local anesthetic and three stitches. She also advised that keeping sedatives on hand during the initial stages of my “situation” might be a good idea. I thanked her, and tucked the prescription inside my jeans pocket. By then I no longer cared. I took the pills, and then some more, and hoped they would cure me or kill me. Either would suffice. When they did neither, I accepted my fate of working from home, buying basic groceries from Joe’s, and eating out at the corner sushi bar, but only when Bastian could come with me.
Small miracles and little wonders formed the fabric of my day-to-day life. A perfect spiderweb in the back garden. The tapping of rain on my window. Tiny birds hopping from branch to branch, and onto the feeder I hung on the tree outside. In the past five years, I have never ventured further from home than I can cover on our afternoon walks, except for when I adopted Miss Molly from the shelter over in Fishtown. On our walks, I’m grateful that she never lets on to the fact that we pass the house at least four times, and I’m always amazed how she finds new smells to sniff on every lap. Our world remains minuscule because my anxiety is monumental.
It feels weak to admit, but I hate being alone in times like this. To be frightened of your own body is a unique form of fear that most people will never understand. Every tingle, pain, pinch, and palpitation sparks a flow of terror through my nervous system. Each pulse alerts another part of my body to danger. It’s fight or flight, but when your enemy dwells within, it’s difficult to throw up your fists ready for battle. Outrunning yourself is also an impossible task, so what do you do? Put simply, you implode. I know most of the sensations are nothing more than natural shifts of my body, the way an old house moves on its footings after too much wear and tear. Even houses that weather the greatest of storms can suddenly begin to sprout cracks and leaks. They appear out of nowhere, tiny at first, then quickly become catastrophic divides that threaten to tear a home in two.
As I sit alone, terrified of every rise and fall of my chest, I think of Bastian, and wonder if this is happening to him as well. Is he also watching his life split in two, his wife on one side, he on the other, and his children stretched out across the divide, their tiny fingers desperately linked and trying to hold on? He speaks so little of his home life that it’s been easy for me to push the idea of her all the way to the back. If I were honest, in my mind I’ve almost created a world where she doesn’t exist at all. Sometimes, I wonder if that makes me a bad person, or if I can go with the excuse the marriage is his responsibility, and not mine? I could tell myself that if it weren’t for me, he’d be cheating on her with someone else, but deep down I don’t believe that’s true. In my heart, I know if I wasn’t in his life, he would be a faithful but empty husband, doing all he can to be a great—but almost single—father.
According to the doctors, long, deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth, are the key to calming an anxious mind. But outside, the light is slipping away, and being alone at night does nothing to help my sense of unease. I pad over to the kitchen, and take out my bottle of pills. In the past year, I have trialed a rainbow of different anti-depressants, but found they all escalated my anxiety to an unbearable level. I’ve never managed to get through the standard two-week period before they ‘kick in’ and start doing whatever it is they are supposed to do. Instead, a single bottle of Diazepam sits on my shelf. I use them when I need to, which unfortunately seems to be most days.
Aside from the medication, there is one other thing that calms me on nights like these. With Miss Molly on my heels, I climb the stairs, and pause outside his bedroom door. It is only on the worst of days that I contemplate turning the handle and going inside. If it were to become a habit, I fear I would end up living my entire life in a room that time forgot, my knuckles white around the doorframe should anyone ever try to pull me out.
I crack the door, and gingerly peek inside, as though there’s a chance I might still catch hi
m off-guard, his shoulders hunched over a coloring book, his tongue twisted in concentration. But as always, the room is empty, and only the framed image of his smiling face stares back at me.
After he died, it was therapist number three who told me that it would be of benefit to pack Josh’s things away, and turn the room into a space that didn’t tug at my heart. But the two times I tried to fold his clothes into a box, I ended up down on the floor in the fetal position, sobbing and gasping until the night sky swallowed the sun.
Miss Molly is so close that I can feel her fur against my leg. She senses my mood, and understands what sadness feels like. Love is not something afforded only to humans. It is universal, and I know without a doubt that Miss Molly has felt loss. When I found her a year ago, she had been in her own darkness, alone and without a family.
The trip over to Fishtown Animal Shelter had not been without its hiccups; if I hadn’t been so determined, Miss Molly and I would never have met. At the time it had taken 10 milligrams of diazepam and a lot of internal dialogue to turn the key of my Mini. Throughout the entire trip, my speedometer never broke 30, and the chorus of horns behind me was louder than what the Liberty Bell in 1776 must’ve been, celebrating the Declaration of Independence. Still, it was the first time I had driven in over a year, so it seemed fitting a celebration of self-governance should ring out from the brownstone-lined streets of Fairmount.
When I eventually reached the shelter, and stepped inside, the corridors were so dark I could barely see a foot in front of me. I squinted, and lifted my forearm across my nose to try and block out the smell, but it did little to stop the biting stench of urine. A lanky kid in grey overalls told me that they had all kinds of dogs at the shelter, but that “none of them were real good,” whatever that was supposed to mean. He shoved his shoulder against a heavy wire gate, and I followed blindly to a brick shelter filled with cages. Inside, dappled sunlight filtered in, and I could finally start to see. In the first cage, half-hidden in shadow, was a dog the color of butter and sunshine, cowering down, her hip bones protruding like question marks. When I asked her name, the boy told me in no uncertain terms that there were no names in the shelter, only serial numbers. Aa wet patch had formed, right beneath her nose, and in the corner was a pile of feces. Without moving, she looked over at me, and the ache of her loneliness reached my heart.
When I paid her adoption fee, and bundled her into the back of my car, I realized she was a lot bigger in my tiny backseat than she seemed in the cage. I wasn’t sure bringing a dog into my already messed-up life was the right thing to do, but instead of worrying about it, I turned, and said, “Maybe we can save each other, hey, Miss Molly? What do you say?” It was the first time she lifted her head and looked at me. The name stuck.
Miss Molly surprised me on our first night together, when right after dinner she went to the open back door, and looked at me expectantly. After glancing back one more time just to be sure, she took the stairs down onto the grass, and I caught myself instinctively leaning against the door frame to watch over her. She sniffed the ground, and crouched to relieve herself, then surprised me a second time by walking gently over to the couch and laying down where my feet would go. She had been part of a family, that was obvious. Somewhere in her mind, the memory of eating, of going outside, of relaxing at her family’s feet remained, and I wondered what had happened so that she ended up terrified and alone in a dirty cage at the animal shelter? What had been her car crash?
I lift the teddy bear up to my face and breathe in Josh’s scent. Powder, cinnamon, and daydreams. A childish bouquet so pungent I can almost feel him wriggle in my arms.
Beside me, Miss Molly lifts her head and nudges my hand. Her way of pulling me back. Taking the cue, I rest my hand across her back, and as our breathing falls into rhythm, slow and steady, I wonder again where I would be if it wasn’t for her. Since the day I found her, Miss Molly has learned to embrace her new life. She is a calm, quiet, and loving dog, who somehow understands that while she has become whole, I remain in pieces.
Chapter Fifteen
Sophie, 2006
Our lives were falling to pieces. For as long as I could remember, Mom had been mine and my brother’s full-time cheerleader, encouraging our wild ideas, and picking us up when we fell. Now she needed our help, and I had no idea what to do. Without the money for a palliative care nurse, she would have no choice other than to depend on us. We wanted to be there, we wanted to do all we could, but what the hell did we know about end-of-life care? Dad was drunk more often than not, my brother was in the middle of a war zone, and I could barely stop crying. My mother was a strong, independent, and proud woman. She had spent her life teaching grade school to gaggles of loud and ill-prepared seven-year-olds, who cared more about which of their classmates had just farted than anything she ever had to say. But her patience was as wide as the horizon, her kindness brighter than the sun. She remembered all their names long after they graduated prep school, and I could still recall her greeting a former student, Scott Hansen, by name, despite the fact he was working as a bank teller, and she hadn’t seen him since he switched schools in the eighth grade. Now she needed someone to assist her, to help her navigate the unimaginable with dignity and self-respect. What she didn’t need was to feel like a burden, and without a professional carer that’s exactly what would happen. If my mother spent her last days feeling like anything other than our north star, we would all lose our way, forever lost in the shadow of our failure.
The walk from my classroom at Penn had taken a little over half an hour, but Love Park was my favorite place in the city to go and think. Its bright red sculpture, the letter O in LOVE famously tipped on a precarious slant, reminded me how easily we could lose our balance when it came to matters of the heart. I never knew for certain if that’s what the artist had intended, or if I was always coming at love from the wrong angle, but either way, something about looking at that sculpture made me feel less alone.
I found a bench and pulled my knees up to my chest. All around me, fuzzy, grey squirrels raced from one tree to the next, and back again, their bushy tails and animated faces a welcome distraction. Where could a student with nothing of value to her name, and no skills worth a damn, come up with $17,000?
As I sat and pondered, people came and went. They ate sandwiches, played with dogs, lay down on checkered blankets, read books, and stared in vague wonder at the clouds above. I wondered if any of these people, even one, was going through anything as painful as me. Better still, could any of them tell me what the hell I should do?
It was that thought that filled my mind when I saw her. Two benches away, she sat hunched over, her dark hair falling toward the ground like a weeping willow. She was staring intently at a couple swinging a small child as they walked, their fingers interlocked like three shapes in a paper chain. As I watched, it was hard to decipher the look in her eyes. Was it sadness? No. Frustration? Not quite. Was it jealousy? Closer, but still no. And then it hit me. Helplessness. The very same emotion I saw in my own eyes, every time I looked in a mirror. Welcoming the distraction, I wondered about her story. Was she having an affair with the man? Or maybe it was with the woman? Was she a long-lost sister? Had she lost a child of her own? What could have her so tied up in knots over two parents and a child in the park? Then, to my surprise, she turned and looked right at me. Caught off-guard, I forced a smile, the kind that purses your lips but doesn’t reach your eyes. The kind that says, ‘I get it – but don’t know what to say.’ She blinked slowly, took one last look at the couple, then got to her feet. I scolded myself for staring. It had made her uncomfortable. But instead of leaving, she came right over.
“You were looking at me.” It wasn’t a question.
“I was, and I’m so sorry,” I mumbled. “I was… looking for a distraction I guess.”
She nodded, and motioned to the space beside me. Even though there was more than enough room for her sparrow-like frame, I made the obligatory sliding motion, and s
he sat down.
“Do you think they’re happy?” she asked, looking over at the family.
I followed her gaze, and thought for a moment. “I think everyone is happy sometimes.”
“Are you?”
“I was… before.”
She nodded, and folded her hands carefully into her lap. Her fingers were long and slender, almost elegant, except for the jagged edges of her nails. “Can I ask what happened?”
I couldn’t say why I answered, but I did. “My mother is dying. I have no money for her care. I feel like…”
“…a failure,” she finished.
“Yeah, pretty much. And you?”
“My husband wants children.”
“And you don’t?”
She slid her gold wedding band slowly up toward her knuckle, then back again. “It doesn’t matter whether I want to or not. I can’t.”
“There’s other options,” I offered.
“Not to him.”
She looked about ten years older than me, and I found it ironic that had it not been for the doctor’s advice, I may have found myself in the same situation myself later down the track. “And your husband, he can’t accept the idea of you guys not having kids?”
She rubbed her wedding ring back and forth like Aladdin, and I wondered if she was hoping a genie would pop out and magically fix all our problems. I held my breath, and watched in the hope it might work.
“He doesn’t know, and I can’t find the words to tell him that I can’t fall pregnant,” she said. “Having a baby is all he cares about.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
“You don’t know him.” She paused. “And your mother? There’s no hope?”
I shook my head and gazed out over the park. “Not for recovery, no. I want to take care of her until it’s time. She’s always taken care of me, my brother too. I just… don’t know how to give that back to her.”
The Secrets We Keep Page 7