The Girls

by Lori Lansens

“We’re going all the way to Slovakia to find an apple tree?” Ruby asked in the quiet moment that followed.

  Our wise Aunt Lovey pressed her cheek to Uncle Stash. “You,” she whispered, and never said another word against the trip.

  Not only did Aunt Lovey not speak against the trip to Slovakia but she threw herself into the adventure with a fair bit of gusto. She and Ruby went to the Sears in Chatham (I went along—ha ha) and bought a brand-new travel wardrobe for all of us. The travel wardrobe, I had to admit, was thoroughly practical, but the not-identical-but-close-to-it tracksuits and accessories were simply embarrassing. “We’re Team Darlen!” Aunt Lovey had gushed, spreading the stuff out over the long pine table. “Yeah,” I said, waving an imaginary banner.

  UNCLE STASH SNAPPED a family portrait of us Darlens that morning before we left for the airport. It was the last picture on a roll. In the picture, you can see the snow clouds in the distant sky and six crows balanced on the branches of the maple where we stood. Uncle Stash is frowning because the timer on the camera seems to be taking longer than it should, and there’s a deep crease between Aunt Lovey’s eyes as she strains to smile. We accidentally left Uncle Stash’s expensive camera sitting on the picnic table and noticed only as we were pulling out of the drive. (See? Too many portents.)

  It had started snowing before we hit the Detroit/ Windsor tunnel, and by the time we got out of the tunnel, Uncle Stash had to put on his windshield wipers. “It’s a blizzard,” Uncle Stash said ominously. Aunt Lovey laughed, trying to be optimistic. “I make a bigger blizzard when I beat the rugs!”

  “Least it’s not sticking,” Ruby said, watching the large wet flakes splash on the cold ground. (The early French explorers had an expression for this—one they made up during their first winter in the country—“bordée de neige.” They also made up the word “poudrière” to describe a blizzard.)

  Aunt Lovey was checking the rearview mirror. “I just can’t stand it when they tailgate,” she said.

  “It’s slippery today the road,” Uncle Stash said. And I got the chills.

  Then Uncle Stash started to cough. A short barky little cough, as though he had something stuck in his throat. (He had no fever. Aunt Lovey would have seen the fever. She could see a fever from the far end of a long hall. She’d seen a thousand fevers and could always guess within half a degree, without even touching. She said she read fever in the eyes. If Uncle Stash’s fever had come then, in the car, or before we left the house, or anytime before we boarded the plane, Aunt Lovey would have seen it and known it was serious and canceled the trip.) Aunt Lovey found a throat lozenge in her purse and unwrapped it for Uncle Stash, who let his wife feed him, rather than take a hand off the steering wheel. But just as Aunt Lovey let the lozenge drop, a cough roared up in Uncle Stash’s throat and made his tongue snap back, launching the thing into his windpipe. Coughing, choking, he lost control of the vehicle, and we slid on the shoulder of the road. The car behind us connected with our bumper. There was an awful grinding sound. Uncle Stash was swerving and swearing. (I remember this with some terror, but it could have and should have been worse.)

  The tailgater spun around a few times and stopped in the center of the two-lane highway, blocking the traffic and clearing the road for our careening vehicle, which Uncle Stash wrestled from one gravel shoulder to the other, then steered toward the center lines, and finally found his place in the right lane. It was over in a minute. Seconds. (And, of course, Ruby and I didn’t see any of it, and had only Uncle Stash’s and Aunt Lovey’s versions to go on.)

  Aunt Lovey whispered, “Girls?”

  “Fine. We’re fine,” Ruby said. “God, though.”

  A few more miles with no one speaking, then Aunt Lovey turned to Uncle Stash. But before she could say anything, he said, “I’m not going back.”

  Aunt Lovey nodded. Uncle Stash coughed. And coughed again.

  ABOARD THE AIRCRAFT, Ruby and I had the seats directly behind Aunt Lovey and Uncle Stash. The armrests, as we’d been assured, did fold up to allow comfortable (relative to traveling in a cat cage) seating for Ruby and me. The flight to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, would take about eight hours. Ruby had done well nausea-wise in the car (even with the near accident), having had a bolt of children’s Dramamine before we left the house (we were nineteen years old at the time, but Ruby never could tolerate an adult dosage). She was in need of another bolt about an hour into the trip. Aunt Lovey searched her huge purse again and again.

  “Well, the bottle couldn’t get up and walk away on its own. Good God, did someone take it? Would someone steal my Dramamine?” she wondered.

  “Yes,” I said. “I read about this pediatric-meds theft ring in the Detroit Free Press. They think it’s gypsies.”

  Aunt Lovey didn’t think I was funny, and Uncle Stash didn’t say anything, which should have alarmed us. He had fallen asleep while nibbling a pretzel, after insisting for weeks that he wouldn’t get a wink of sleep the whole flight. If Aunt Lovey hadn’t been so worried over our well-being, she might have questioned why her husband fell asleep so quickly and deeply, when it was his habit to struggle for sleep and to stay in the shallow end when he got there.

  I got the window seat because we were on the left side of the plane, and Ruby complained like a child. Aunt Lovey promised we could try for seats on the other side of the plane for our next flight, from Bratislava to Kosice in Eastern Europe, where we’d spend the night before heading into the mountains for Grozovo.

  Uncle Stash and Aunt Lovey and Ruby slept through most of the long, turbulent flight, but I couldn’t or, rather, wouldn’t. I thought something might happen on board that I should bear witness to, something that I might one day write about, but I was in a bad spot for observing. I’d have been better off on the aisle.

  I can’t crane my neck. It’s not simple for me to move my head. What I saw, what I see, with my sister in periphery, is limited. From our spot in the back of the plane I could see only Uncle Stash’s bald head pressed against the window, wrinkles sliding down his thick neck like the shar-pei puppy that Mrs. Merkel’d once wanted. (I’d overheard her tell Aunt Lovey with some bitterness that her husband didn’t think a shar-pei would make a good farm dog.)

  I contemplated Uncle Stash’s moles. I examined his skull. I closed my eyes and tried to read his mind. After a while I turned to the dark sky, took out my notepad, and jotted some lines for a poem I’m still working on about the night flight to Eastern Europe. (I was going to challenge myself with that poem by not referring to the stars or moon.)

  It was obvious, watching Uncle Stash stagger down the aisle on his way to the washroom, his camera heavy on his neck, that his illness was more than just a cold. We still had another flight to endure, but at least, once we got to Kosice, we could relax and get a night’s rest.

  I hardly remember the airport in Bratislava. Aunt Lovey took us to the washroom, swiftly removed the catheters, and helped us freshen up in the handicapped stall. When we returned to where we’d left Uncle Stash with the luggage, he waved brightly and made us hopeful, then he started coughing again. It wasn’t long before our flight to Kosice was called. I was relieved, imagining that the air in his birthplace would restore Uncle Stash, and I thought, selfishly, that a fancy hotel (Aunt Lovey said it had five stars, and we’d only ever stayed at Comfort Inns before) would revive me and Ruby.

  The traveling was more stressful than I would have admitted then. Ruby was frightened and singing Christmas carols to distract herself. I pinched her to make her stop, and said I’d strangle her if she sang “Holly Jolly Christmas” one more time.

  Waiting to board the flight, I saw an elderly couple on the other side of the glass partition. The wife was white haired and stooped, thick around the middle. The husband was shuffling, like he needed a cane. His hat fit strangely. I don’t know why they caught my attention. The couple moved forward in line, and I realized it was not a glass partition I was looking into but a smoky mirror, and the couple I was wat
ching was Aunt Lovey and Uncle Stash, out of context here, in their matching tracksuits. Team Darlen. It hit me, for the first time in my life, that our parents would not live forever. Leaning heavily on Aunt Lovey, Uncle Stash made it to the gate. When the immigration people asked him why he was traveling to Kosice, Uncle Stash opened his mouth, but no words came out. I thought he’d been choked by emotion. But he’d completely lost his voice.

  Aunt Lovey explained to the officials that we were going to the Tatras Mountains to visit Uncle Stash’s brothers’ graves. Then she shot Ruby and me a look, in case one of us was thinking about mentioning Mother Darlensky’s ashes.

  The officials looked up from the desk and saw Ruby and me. “Twins?” one of the men asked in English as the other man prodded a woman beside him to look. “Join twins?” He laced his fingers and rose from his desk for a closer look. “Two girl. One head,” he said, tapping my forehead, then Ruby’s, then laughing hoarsely. There was the dimmest of lights in his pupils. He had white foam in the corners of his mouth. I could feel that Ruby was smiling politely. I couldn’t, so I avoided eye contact altogether. “Yes,” I said acidly. Then I remembered our detention at the border to Detroit and added a note of respect—“Sir.”

  On board the next aircraft, which was much, much smaller than the one we’d flown in across the Atlantic Ocean, we were amused to find that, according to our tickets, Ruby and I had seats at opposite ends of the plane. The astonishingly lovely flight attendant shrugged when we explained our situation. “Ask someone to move,” she growled, before turning to address the next complainant.

  Ruby was outraged by the flight attendant’s indifference, but I admired the woman, with her gathered gold hair, her shimmery pink mouth, and her indiscriminate contempt. (I wonder if all women secretly fantasize, like me, about what it would be like to be an extraordinary beauty and bitchy as you wanna be.)

  The passengers on this small aircraft were Slovak, with the exception of three—Aunt Lovey, Ruby, and me. They did not stare, which we found disturbing, but whispered among themselves as they cast furtive glances. I wanted to say, “Stare. It’s okay. You won’t turn to stone.” But I wasn’t so sure.

  (Aunt Lovey liked to tell the anecdote about the old Slovak man at her wedding to Uncle Stash. As was the custom among the rural French in Baldoon County, the dessert table was put together by the four ladies attending the bride. Ladies who competed fiercely to present the best berry tarts, pecan squares, chocolate bombs, angel cakes, butter cookies, cherry drops, coconut crisps, and lemon meringues, arranging the plethora of sweets on elegant pink Depression glass and their granny’s three-tiered porcelain. Mr. Lipsky, the old Slovak man who’d subsidized the Darlenskys’ apartment when they first got to Windsor, had joined the bride in admiring the offerings on the long dessert table. After a while he sighed very loudly and, squeezing Aunt Lovey’s fingers in one hand, swept his free arm over the tableful of dessert. “When one sweet there is, I know what to take,” Mr. Lipsky said. “When so many there is . . .” He shrugged tragically. Aunt Lovey nodded, watching the old Slovak return to his table, weary and woeful, with no dessert at all. Uncle Stash would laugh when she talked about Mr. Lipsky and say, “Lovey, not all Slovaks are like Lipsky.” And Aunt Lovey would laugh too and say, “No, hon, just all the ones I’ve met.” And they would both say, in unison, which was too cute, “Present company excepted.”)

  The journey to Kosice was short but turbulent. Ruby had nothing in her stomach to heave. I comforted her, because it was in my best interest, but I secretly thought she was whiny and weak when she said she felt so sick she just wanted to die. The pilot, competing with the buzzing speakers, made an announcement in Slovak. There was a hush as the passengers turned to look at one another. “What did he say, Uncle Stash?” Ruby whispered across the aisle, but Uncle Stash only shook his head. Aunt Lovey was holding an airsick bag. I’d never seen Aunt Lovey ill before, and the single fact of it scared me more than the thought of a crash, which would be mercifully swift. (I’d been worried, since Aunt Poppy had died of ovarian cancer just before the trip, that the same thing would happen to Aunt Lovey.)

  Suddenly, the left wing of the airplane dipped, then the right, then the left, then not dips but full banking dives. The banking and diving went on for some time. My ear was popping. So was Ruby’s. The pressure was unbearable. (Did I have the aneurysm then, ten years ago? Did I get it because of the pressure in the cabin?) Ruby started to sing, which may have relieved the pressure in her ear but did not relieve mine. I shouted for Ruby to stop singing. “Stop singing!”

  I was shocked when the wheels (which I hadn’t felt release from the plane’s belly) hit the tarmac. I was not an experienced flier, but I was sure the descent into Bratislava had not felt as wonky and perilous as this one into Kosice. I don’t remember much else about the flight, except that they served uncommonly delicious yogurt.

  Ruby here.

  I haven’t written in a while. I’ve had a few headaches, not bad ones like Rose gets, but bad enough that I’ve felt depressed for a few weeks and haven’t wanted to do much. That’s frustrating, because there’s so much to do. But as of today, my depression is over.

  Rose has been depressed too. She says she’s not depressed. She says she’s serene. Who calls themselves serene? Especially when they’re depressed? Anyway, I can tell she’s depressed because the Athens Olympics have come and gone, and I was more interested than she was. She didn’t even pick up a sports page! She hasn’t even checked out her Tigers! If that’s not Rose being depressed, I don’t know what is.

  As of today, Rose’s depression is over too. Or it seems to be.

  I had this strange feeling when I woke up this morning that something was going to happen today. We were still asleep when the phone rang at around nine o’clock. Rose answered. She was very groggy and she just grunted, which I thought was rude. The person was saying something and Rose was grunting, and I didn’t know who it was or what was going on. She put down the phone and said there was some kind of surprise and that we should get up and get dressed. She said she didn’t know what the surprise was, but I didn’t believe her.

  She made me wait while she brushed her hair. Rose? Brushing her hair? Then she completely freaked me out by putting in a hair clip. So of course I’m thinking, whatever this surprise is, it is huge, because my sister put in a freakin’ hair clip!

  There was a sound on the front porch, but the doorbell didn’t ring and then there were keys in the door. It was Nick. He uses his key so we don’t have to get up. I was very disappointed that it was just Nick, then I saw that he was hiding something big behind his back. The surprise. He moved away so we could see, and it was—actually it’s hard to describe what it was—a black leather bar stool from Nonna’s rec room that Nick welded with some other parts and made into a customized wheelchair. It’s not exactly a wheelchair, though, because, first off, it’s a stool, but it does have wheels. He extended the length of the legs so it’s at a height where I can sit comfortably or stand if I want to. And he even welded some bars around it for security, and as an armrest at the back for Rose. So Nick brought this wheel/stool/thingy into the living room, and I didn’t even know what to say because I was just so surprised. And Rose was surprised too. And disappointed.

  Rose can be selfish. Sometimes she forgets who we are. She forgets that we are we. Well, she doesn’t forget really, she just conveniently ignores the fact that we are conjoined and does what she wants to do. She wasn’t moving toward the stool thing, and I just about had to kick her to get her to step forward. I’m sure Nick was wondering what that was all about. She embarrassed me by saying, Don’t buck me like a bronco! Which is what she always says when I want to go, but she wants to stay.

  Finally she went closer, and we got a good look at the thing. It just made sense. It made sense to the way we move and the way we’re joined and the way our weight is distributed. Nick never measured us. That I know of. So I figure he must be some kind of savant. The stool
would mean that Rose wouldn’t have to carry my full weight. If it works at all, it’s going to make life way easier for Rose and me at a time when we need it to be as easy as possible.

  I looked at Rose’s face in the mirror, and she looked strange. Like she wasn’t even there. I said, Thank you, thank you, thank you, and Rose said nothing. Nick must have been pissed off, because he said, Hey, I made it for you too, Rose. Then he whispered, thinking I couldn’t hear, but I did hear. He whispered this—I made it mostly for you, Rose.

  Rose just said, Yeah. Then she said she had a headache and we should lie down. Nick said he’d sit with us, but she said no. Then he said he’d come by later and watch us try it out. But when he left, Rose didn’t want to lie down and she didn’t want to try out the stool.

  So we sat on the couch. She didn’t want to talk. She said if I put on the television, she would blow a jet. After a while I got bored and I just watched her in the mirror.

  I’ve said that I can’t read Rose’s mind, but today I think I did. I think she was remembering a long, long time ago when the doctors told Aunt Lovey and Uncle Stash that we would need to have a special double wheelchair made and that’s how we’d have to get around. The doctor didn’t say we couldn’t walk. He said we shouldn’t. He advised that we should not be ambulatory. Aunt Lovey said we were already ambulatory. Uncle Stash swore in Slovak and left the room while Aunt Lovey explained to the doctor that Rose’s legs were perfectly fine and that she would continue to use them for walking. The doctor said Rose just wasn’t strong enough to support me and couldn’t possibly be expected to spend a lifetime carrying me around. Aunt Lovey said that Rose could and would spend a lifetime doing just that, and over her dead body would these girls end up in a wheelchair. We went back to the farmhouse, and Aunt Lovey made Rose cry, saying, One more time, carry Ruby to the creek and back one more time, until Rose was strong enough not to feel the effort anymore. It’s just who we were and it’s just what we did.