One
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but it is ours and no one else’s for three days,
so the bugs, peeling paint, and
rusting pipes don’t really worry me very much at all.
In Bed
Tippi gets Yasmeen’s shoulder to lean on.
I lie next to Jon.
By candlelight he reads aloud from Ulysses,
words with a melody,
some unrecognisable gems glittering
in the gloom.
‘Pain, that was not yet the pain of love,
fretted his heart,’ he reads,
then seeing that both Tippi’s and Yasmeen’s eyes are shut,
stops and closes the book.
I rest a hand on his hand.
Hold his eyes with my eyes.
‘Please keep reading,’ I beg,
and he does.
Long into the night
it is the two of us alone
with Joyce’s voice between us.
‘You read beautifully,’ I tell him.
‘And tomorrow night it’s your turn,’
he says.
The book is closed with a gentle huff.
The candle is blown out.
Jon curls his body around mine
so that his breath is on my cheek.
‘Good night,’ he whispers
and within minutes is asleep
beside me.
To the Lighthouse
Salty eyed and stiff from the cold,
we wake in the dark and
tiptoe downstairs in our socks
to cook up a
tower of pancakes
which we eat with
so much syrup
my teeth ache.
Fishermen in waders stand on rocks,
the Atlantic Ocean enveloping them—
sloshing at their edges like
angry, fizzing soda.
And as they leave,
carrying buckets full of edible sea monsters,
a light beam punctures the morning.
The sky blushes, letting go of its darkness.
The fringe of the horizon is pink.
‘Sunrise,’ Tippi says.
‘It makes me want to believe in God.’
‘Me, too,’ Yasmeen tells her.
And no one else says another word
until the sun is an orange orb
and our asses are numb
from sitting so long.
Skinny-dipping
Skinny-dipping isn’t on either of our bucket lists
but Yasmeen says it’s on hers,
so that’s what we’re doing.
Not in the bitter sea
where the surf is high and threatens to
kidnap anyone silly enough to plunge into her,
but in a neighbour’s pool.
‘It can be heated, so she keeps the water
in it even in the winter,’
Yasmeen tells us.
‘But she’s only here on weekends.
We have all day.’
We sneak up the side of the cedar-panelled house
and unroll the pool’s plastic covering.
Leaves float on the water
like herbs in a clear soup.
Even before Jon has used a net to clear the leaves,
Yasmeen is in her purple bra and pink panties,
toes testing the water.
And then her underwear is off
and she
dives
like an eagle
into the deep end and comes up screeching
and blue.
Jon is next to take off his shirt and pants.
I look away
and only turn around when I hear his body
dive-bombing the water
and the profanities tumbling out of him
like urgent prayers.
‘What do you think?’ I ask Tippi.
No one except our parents and the doctors have
seen
us undressed before,
and I am terrified of
how I must look to others,
of how disgusted
a person
would be
if he saw us
stripped bare.
‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ I ask
thinking suddenly of our health,
of our hearts.
Then I throw off my coat.
Naked
we plunge feet first into the pool
and flail when the frost, like needles, meets our skin.
Jon cheers and swims closer.
‘Refreshing, huh?’ he says.
And just as we are about to get out,
Yasmeen shouts and points to the house,
where a face is plastered against the window,
the mouth a perfect zero.
‘Let’s go!’ Yasmeen yells.
Clumsily we climb from the pool,
grabbing our clothes and covering ourselves
with our coats as best we can
before plodding across the lawn
and
down the street to home.
‘Her expression was priceless!’ Yasmeen squeals,
pushing open the barn door.
A mouse scurries under the oven
and no one suggests we set a trap to kill it.
We just open the refrigerator door
and take out four bottles of beer.
No More
Mom sends a text.
Are you having fun?
She sends another.
Are you alive?
And another.
I’m worried.
And finally.
I’m going to call the cops.
So I text her back and warn her not to
send any more messages.
Number Four
Jon and I are the last ones awake again.
After we’ve read for an hour,
he stares up at the ceiling and says,
‘I feel bad about what happened
when you showed me the bucket list.’
I pretend I don’t know what he means.
‘I finished Jane Eyre.
And I love Mr Rochester.
I think that’s what Tippi and I need.
Blind men who’ve lost everything.’
I try to laugh but
nothing comes out.
Jon sits up
and lights a cigarette.
‘Grace …
… the thing is …’
I stop him.
‘I get it.
I really get it.
I know how I look
and what that means for my life.’
I touch the place where Tippi and I are joined,
where the doctors plan to place tissue expanders
that will make our bodies look
like we are covered in molehills.
‘I can’t explain what I feel,’ he says.
‘I read all these books,
so many words,
but I don’t own any.
I don’t know what’s happening
inside me.
I can’t get it out.’
He crushes the cigarette into a dirty plate,
puts a piece of gum into his mouth, and
shuts off the light.
He slides down next to me
and rests his forehead against mine.
‘Oh, Grace,’ he says,
and cups my face in his hands.
‘Jon,’ I whisper,
and
then
his mouth is on mine,
his tongue that tastes of watermelon gum
prying my lips open
and we are kissing—breath heavy,
and kissing—heart light,
and kissing and kissing
and all I can I do when he stops
is inhale deeply
and say,
‘I don’t know what’s happening inside me, either.’
Wat
ermelon
I wake up still tasting the watermelon
from his mouth.
After I’ve brushed my teeth the flavour fades so
I ask Jon for a piece of gum
and spend all day
with the taste
of his kiss
in my mouth.
Weirdo
‘He kissed me last night,’ I whisper to Tippi
when we are alone.
She looks at me sideways
as though I’ve offered her a rotten tuna sandwich.
‘If Jon’s seriously interested in you,
he’s a weirdo.
You get that, right?’
I look down at our shared legs.
‘I thought you were trying to be
less of bitch,’ I say.
She grins.
‘This is me trying.’
Planning
Yasmeen licks the tip of her pencil, finds a
clean page
in her notebook,
and waits for Tippi and me to outline our funeral
directions,
individual plans and a joint one, too,
just in case.
Jon has gone to the store for snacks.
He doesn’t want to hear any of this.
Says he can’t.
Yasmeen’s the only person who will
listen
and promise to carry out our wishes
without accusing us of being
morbid
or crying her eyes out at the thought of us leaving.
She’s the only person, like us, who’s
been coping with dying since she was born.
It doesn’t freak her out.
Not too much
anyway.
‘Music?’ Yasmeen asks, and without skipping a beat
Tippi tells her,
‘A lot of Dolly Parton for me.
“I Will Always Love You”
is a good one.
I like “Home”, too.’
‘Look, I love Dolly as much as the next person,
but you really want her at your funeral?’
Yasmeen asks.
She uses her hands to outline Dolly’s
curves in the air.
‘If people are thinking about Dolly’s tits,
they won’t be
thinking about mine,’ Tippi says.
‘And no hymns,’ I add. ‘I don’t want anything holy.
God is not invited to our funeral.’
Yasmeen nods and makes a note on the paper.
‘So something satanic? Not. A. Problem.’
We stuff cashews into our mouths
and Yasmeen goes on cheerfully.
‘Coffins. Joint or separate?’
‘Joint,’ we say together without having to confer
because what else could make sense?
‘Unless one of us lives, in which case,
separate would be the way to go,’ Tippi says,
and laughs though with very little verve.
And we continue.
We fully plan the services and burials,
and when we’re done
Yasmeen scrolls through her phone until she finds a Dolly Parton track,
and we all sing
as Yasmeen dances
around the kitchen,
repeating the refrain from ‘Jolene’ again and again,
like it’s the most cheerful song in the world.
The Promise
Despite Dr Derrick’s warnings,
we sit on the beach at night
smoking cigars and drinking
miniature bottles of gin,
a fire pit blazing
in the sand.
‘I’m drunk,’ Tippi says,
falling backwards,
taking me with her.
We stare at the sickle moon,
our heads spinning,
and without thinking much about it
I say, ‘Do you promise to live
without me, if I don’t make it?’
The sea stops roaring.
The fire puts a finger to its fizzing lips.
‘I promise to marry Jon,’ Tippi says,
giggling,
tickling my side with her fingers.
‘Seriously,’ I say.
Tippi pulls me to sitting and takes another slug of gin.
‘I promise, if you do.’
‘I do,’ I say,
and kiss her.
Last Night
‘I have a confession,’ Jon says
to the darkness.
I make my hands into fists
and ready myself for the worst.
‘I have no idea what James Joyce
is rambling on about,’ he admits.
I uncurl.
‘Me neither,’ I say.
‘But I love it anyway.’
‘Yes,’ he says.
‘Isn’t it funny how something
so abstract can still speak to us?’
He takes my hand and does not let go
until morning.
The Return
Pointe shoes hang from their ribbons on the coatrack.
Thick leg warmers are balled up by the radiator.
‘Anyone home?’ I call out.
‘Dragon?’
She skips from the bathroom
and throws two slim arms around us.
‘I missed you,’ she says.
‘I bought you Russian nesting dolls. They were cheap.
And I got a new boyfriend. His name is Peter.
He’s a Muscovite.’
‘I’m so sorry we dragged you back,’
I say.
Dragon shakes her head.
‘Russia’s freezing and Peter wanted to get into my panties.
Better to come home.
Besides, it isn’t every day your
conjoined sisters separate.
I wanted to be here when …’
She runs away and comes back with the nesting dolls.
I pull the first doll apart and then the second.
Layer on layer she is the same:
a perfect circular red blush, little coal eyes,
and delving into
smaller versions
reveals no more.
‘You’re looking for the symbolism, aren’t you?’
Dragon says.
She grabs the dolls and
stuffs them back into each other.
‘They’re about motherhood.
They aren’t about you.’
Tippi snickers.
‘And there was Grace thinking that
everything was about us.’
Christmas
We hang lights on the apple tree in our yard.
We eat too much turkey and stuffing.
We buy gifts.
It is Christmas
after all,
and at the end of the day
we’re no
different
from any other family.
New Skin
Dr Derrick introduces someone new:
Dr Forrester, an expert in his field.
He is the one who slides skin expanders
—small balloons filled with saline—
under our skin to stretch it out
so we will have enough to cover the
wounds of separation
when the time comes.
We are awake for the procedure,
under a local anesthetic,
blinking against bright lights and
watching the nurses and doctors
hovering above us,
noses and mouths hidden behind green surgical masks.
Hours later
Tippi groans and I clutch the bedsheets
to stop myself from screaming out.
‘We need Vicodin,’ Tippi mutters,
pressing the call bell.
My body throbs and burns.
A
nd these skin expanders are just the start.
‘Soon it’s going to look like you’re covered in
colossal tumours,’
Dr Forrester tells us the next morning,
the corners of his mouth crusted in dried white spittle.
‘But it will only be for a short time.
And you can go home while they work their magic.’
Without asking our permission, he presses his hands against
the incisions
—our bellies, backs, and sides—
and it is plain to me
that we no longer
own our bodies:
we have entrusted them to these men and women
who will inflate us and
shape us and
slice us apart
and never stop to ask,
Are you sure?
Jon
I know
he doesn’t mean to shudder as
he touches the bump on
my side where the tissue expanders are growing.
But
he does shudder,
he can’t help it, and for the first time I realise that
he is not perfect.
And
I hate him for it.
A Waste
We wait for our skin to grow
and the doctors to be ready.
All we can really do
is wait
and read
and watch TV
and comply
with the nurse
who visits every day
to check we aren’t overdoing it.
And I get to thinking
that all this waiting,
just waiting,
is a great big waste of
the last moments
of our lives.
Folding
One way or the other,
we soon won’t