A Charm of Finches

by Suanne Laqueur

  “I told him it was happening but he said he was doing…something. I don’t know.”

  He put his head down again and let his mind drift to the right, to the vague place where he stopped and his twin brother began. An imaginary land under a field of glittering stars, where two became one.

  Nos, he thought. It was the password to within.

  His head turned more to the right. Waiting for the reply which took longer and longer to come these days.

  Nos.

  Nos…?

  The Caan twins had been tangled so intricately in the womb, it took doctors half an hour to sort out arms and legs and cords during the C-section. Put down to sleep in separate swaddles, they worked their arms free while dreaming. Migrating, drifting and turning toward each other. Within minutes, they would be nose to nose, each with a little hand pushed under the other’s cap.

  Growing up, they spoke in first person plural. We went. We did. We want. We are. They patted heads to say hello, say goodbye, get each other’s attention. To say without speaking, Brother mine.

  Only in adolescence did their paths of interest diverge and their separate selves evolve. Carlos was purely visual, taking in life through his eyes or the lens of his camera. Geno was led by the ear, following talk radio and music and spending his allowance on MP3 players and expensive headphones. The world beckoned like a siren to Carlito, who kept a world map over his bed and stuck pins in the lands he wanted to visit. Geno got slightly anxious when the family traveled. He liked being at their destination, but getting there made him feel cut loose in space. For him, the best part about going somewhere was coming back home.

  Home was We. Although he and Carlos were in separate kindergarten classes, they came home with the same self-portrait: two boys, dressed alike, with a field of stars between them. The stars were their third entity. Their two states united in us-ness. They had a name for their shared space, and within it, they had secret identities. Carlos was Los. Geronimo was Mos. Los and Mos lived in the starry world of Nos, Spanish for we. Nos rhymed with dos, Spanish for two.

  “Nos,” one would say when they parted ways for the day.

  “Dos,” the other replied.

  They promised their mother no tattoos until they were in college, but they had it all planned out. A field of stars on their sides, creating Nos when they stood together. In a shifting, changing world, Carlito’s presence was constant and immutable. Either he was physically there, standing next to Geno. Or he was there as Los, tangible in the air to Geno’s right. He only had to turn his head the tiniest bit in that direction to dial into his twin.

  Nos, he’d think, and toss it into the star field. Carlito said he could sense it like a flickering light in his peripheral. He’d send his reply back and moments later, it would touch Geno’s ears like a single wind chime.

  Dos.

  Us two. Together.

  “¿Dónde están mis pollitos?” their mother would call when she got home from work.

  Where are my little chicks?

  Born in Mexico, Analisa kept her maiden name, Gallinero, which was Spanish for henhouse. Geno often envisioned his mother’s love as a little red house, nestled in a glade of trees. Golden light spilling from the windows like a beacon and Analisa waiting within, plump and warm and soft like feathers.

  Then she died.

  Cancer came the first time when the boys were eleven. Analisa made it a game, letting her chicks dye her hair pink and purple and shave it into a mohawk. Carlos was allowed to photograph her bald scalp close-up, to frame her lash-less, brow-less eyes and capture her hard days. Geno sat with her long hours, listening to NPR. Saturday afternoons with Jonathan Schwartz, who played the music Analisa loved—oldies and show tunes—but had the most God-awful delivery. A slow, gravelly drawl that tried to make everything deep and significant.

  As Analisa’s health deteriorated, Geno tried to be brave, but the lights were dim in the henhouse, filling him with anxiety. Of the twins, he was the more introverted and homebound. He’d always had his mother’s love of kitchens and food and hospitality, but when she became ill, the love became a purpose. He took over meals and shopping and laundry, fervently believing if he could keep things running the way they always ran, Analisa would get well.

  “You’re the only one around here with a lick of common sense,” she said, sitting in her clean kitchen with a cup of tea, watching Geno chop vegetables and stir soup, burn the rice and grate his own knuckles. Sometimes coaching him through recipes, sometimes too tired to do anything but watch him figure it out.

  He basked in the simple compliment, knowing it wasn’t lip service because he’d overheard her say it to a friend on the phone: “Nathan and Carlito are like two deer in the headlights sometimes. Geno’s the sensible one.”

  She went into remission and everything was fine again.

  Until it wasn’t.

  Until the cancer came back to finish the job.

  Until Analisa was too weak to sit in the kitchen and too sedated to make jokes about Jonathan Schwartz’s voice. Music made her fretful. Talk shows made her agitated and she couldn’t sip anything more than water.

  One day, Geno walked into geometry class a normal kid and walked out under the arm of the principal with bloodstains on his jeans.

  He discovered death hurt like hell. He was unprepared for the sheer physicality of sadness. His skin, bones, teeth, hair follicles and fingernails ached with the loss. Grieving was like being in a really bad car accident. All day long.

  Every day.

  It was in the midst of this physical ordeal that Geno realized Analisa was right: While he had sensibly braced himself for her death, his father and Carlos had stared into its blinding light and let themselves be sideswiped.

  Nathan Caan was there for his boys. Physically there, although overnight he seemed two inches shorter and twenty pounds thinner. His diminished body was present but his twinkling eyes had gone flat, burned out by death’s headlights. He stared into space for long stretches of time. His sentences trailed off as if he forgot what he was saying as he was saying it. Worst of all, he began to mix up the boys’ names. Once he boasted he could tell them apart blindfolded. Now he’d be mid-conversation with one twin and realize he thought he was talking to the other. It started out amusing. Then became disconcerting and finally, hurtful. Because after Analisa died, Geno and Carlos became utterly unalike.

  In the first months of mourning, Geno was afraid to leave the house while Carlos seemed afraid to be in it. Carlos threw himself into his photography. Disappearing until dinner, saying he had an after-school job. Busy, busy, busy. While Geno sat alone in blood-stained jeans, listening to the radio.

  He reached out. Nos.

  The reply took forever. It hit his ear like a squeal of tires or a needle-scratched record. A burst of static heralding a disinterested Dos.

  Geno wore his same jeans to death while Carlos was taking great pains with his appearance. Monopolizing the bathroom and taking innumerable selfies. He started dressing almost exclusively in black and sporting an expensive leather jacket.

  “Where’d you get that?” Geno asked.

  Carlos hitched it a little higher on his shoulders and turned in front of the mirror. “Bought it.”

  Everything was changing.

  The henhouse was empty and Carlos was harder and harder to find in the Land of Two. Only a few weeks ago, Geno was doing laundry, emptying pants pockets of loose change and other junk, and he drew a handful of folded-up notes from Carlos’ expensive jeans.

  Come see me soon.

  I don’t feel alive if you’re not around.

  —A

  I could barely let you go yesterday.

  My cells cried after you were gone.

  I love you so much, I need two of you.

  —A

  “Holy crap,” Geno said under his breath,
eyebrows raised. Carlos had a girlfriend? He was always surrounded by chicks at school, but he seemed unfazed by their company to the point of boredom. Had one of them broken through his aloof facade? Geno ran a roll call of female classmates with A names but none turned on a lightbulb. He couldn’t reconcile any of the Amys, Amandas, Andreas or Ariannas with these passionate sentiments.

  Your body is so beautiful.

  Your soul is a double helix.

  I want to gather it to both sides of me.

  —A

  Geno rolled his eyes. He was no poet, but he was sure he could do better.

  It hurts when you deny me

  What I want so badly.

  What I need if I’m to love you completely.

  It’s all or nothing.

  You know this yet you keep half back.

  Nothing is finished because you don’t love me.

  Don’t come here anymore.

  —A

  “High maintenance,” Geno mumbled. “And she definitely wants to get in your pants, dude.”

  His eyebrows wrinkled at the next bit of crumpled paper. Carlos’ handwriting this time:

  Please let me come back.

  I can’t live without you.

  You’re the only one who knows me.

  The only one who sees me.

  Please.

  Please.

  —C

  This one leaned on Geno’s stomach, like being punched in slow motion. I know you, he thought, wounded. I see you. I was born tangled with you. We started as one cell before becoming two.

  His relief was almost smug when he read the reply, written directly below:

  No.

  —A

  “Harsh,” he said. He stuffed the notes back in the jeans pocket and threw them into the washer. The ink would run and be rinsed away. The paper would disintegrate to shredded bits in the lint trap. Carlos would get over it.

  Until then, Geno would be waiting for him in the Land of Nos, keeping the lights on in the little red henhouse.

  Captain Hook laid down a strict no-alcohol rule for tonight’s shindig. Being no dummy, he also set up a bowl for keys and a breathalyzer.

  “Dad,” Kelly said, mortified but resigned.

  “Yes?” he said, standing in his shirt sleeves at the kitchen counter, mixing a gin and tonic. “Geno, we got a lime in the fridge?”

  Geno found one. His father liked a vodka tonic in the evenings, and Geno had learned how to score a lime with a paring knife, cutting off a spiral of peel to float among ice cubes.

  “Now that makes a drink handsome,” Hook said, holding up his garnished glass before taking a long sip. “You got some knife skills, kid.”

  Geno flipped the knife and caught the handle in his palm, then went back to cubing vegetables. Chris threaded the cubes onto skewers, alternating chicken and beef and shrimp. At the far end of the counter, Mrs. Hook was frosting a two-layered chocolate cake.

  “Where you boys headed next fall?” she asked.

  “Lewis and Clark,” Chris said.

  “Oregon?” Above his glass, Captain Hook looked impressed. “You’re flying far from the nest.”

  Chris gave a slow nod but made no other comment. Hook’s eyes flicked to Geno.

  “Brooklyn College,” Geno said.

  “Poor man’s Harvard,” Chris said.

  “Beautiful campus, I hear,” Hook said. “How about your brother, where’s he off to?”

  “He got into Parsons but he’s going to take a gap year.”

  “Geno, how’s your dad doing?” Mrs. Hook asked.

  “Good. Busy. He’s in Singapore until Monday.”

  The police chief raised an eyebrow. “Why isn’t the party at your house?”

  Geno pointed the knife at him. “Because you have the best breathalyzer in town.”

  Carrying the mixing bowl to the sink, Mrs. Hook brushed her lips against her husband’s broad shoulder. At the same time, Kelly passed by Geno and casually scratched his back. As if they were a couple. He looked around the domestic scene and a contentment drew the walls of his heart in, close and warm, like hands cupped around a flame.

  “You’ll find joy again,” so many people said after Analisa’s death. “You’ll smile again, feel good again, laugh with friends again. It will happen.”

  Chris definitely helped make it happen. He was largely responsible for breaking up Geno’s agoraphobia, getting him out of the lonely henhouse into other people’s homes. Sticking by him through nervous episodes, pushing him to keep participating in life.

  “You’re allowed to have a good time,” he said. “She’d want you to.”

  The truly good times happened in kitchens, Geno thought. Life was conquered and feted in the triangle of stove, sink and fridge. The room where people came both to cry and celebrate. Here he could be social while keeping a barrier of little tasks between him and the guests. Cooking and prepping occupied his hands and smoothed out his awkward, shy edges.

  Guests began to trickle into the Hooks’ house and yard. Mrs. Hook lit the grill and a meaty smoke hovered over the smell of the cut lawn and the chlorine haze from the pool. As dusk fell, Captain Hook lit the tiki torches. Three guys brought out guitars, and singing wove with the laughing and splashing. Flames danced in Kelly’s eyes and made her perfect skin glow as she and Geno fed each other cake, laughing between chocolate bites. They shared one lounge chair while Chris occupied the other, the besotted Stacey at his feet. He was kind and attentive to her, but a blind man could pick up the He’s just not that into you vibe. Finally, with a dignified hair flip, Stacey moved on.

  Kelly heaved a sigh, threw Geno an apologetic look and then followed her friend, leaving the boys alone.

  “Not feeling it?” Geno said, scraping the last bit of cake frosting off his plate.

  Chris made a vague noise, half apology, half explanation.

  “What about Jenny Steenberg?”

  Chris cracked his knuckles. “I don’t know.”

  “She totally digs you. Never understood why you didn’t ask her to prom. You could’ve—”

  “Dude, stop.” Chris’s voice split open on the word.

  Fork poised in the air, Geno froze, staring, realizing his friend was practically in tears. Chris seemed to realize it, too, and with a scrape of the chair legs on concrete, he bolted, striding toward a far corner of the wide lawn. Geno set his plate aside and went after him. “Yo. Chris, wait up.”

  “Just leave me alone.”

  “Hey. Come on. Talk to me.”

  With a small groan, Chris leaned on the split-rail fence at the far end of the property. Fireflies lit up the scrub beyond. “Just fucking leave me alone, G.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You gotta back off with that shit. Enough already.”

  “What shit, what did I do?”

  “Just…” Chris squeezed everything. Eyes. Face. Fists. Wringing the answer out of himself. “I don’t like any of the girls at school, okay?”

  “Okay, I just—”

  “I don’t like girls, G.”

  The confused moment twinkled with fireflies.

  “I don’t like girls,” Chris said again.

  “You’re…?” Geno couldn’t get his mouth to wrap around the word.

  “Gay.”

  “You?”

  “Yeah. Me.” Chris crossed his arms, jaw tight and eyes narrowed. “I’m gay. The date I wanted to bring to prom was impossible. Okay? I just… I can’t take it anymore. I can’t stand this town and this school and this fucking act I have to put on for everyone. I can’t be me anywhere I go. It’s like I want to kill myself sometimes, my life is such a phony crock of shit. Jesus, I can’t wait to get the hell out of here. Start somewhere new.”

  “Dude, I—”

  “Do
n’t.” Chris held up a palm. “If you’re gonna walk away, do it now. I get it if you feel threatened.” A snorted, resigned chuckle made his shoulders hitch. “No offense, man, but you’re not my type.”

  Geno blinked a few times, wetting his dry lips. “Nobody knows?”

  Chris shook his head.

  “Only me?”

  “Yeah.” A bit of soft laughter. “I always thought if anyone would understand, it would be you.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “Because of Carlos.”

  The lawn seemed to expand, growing longer, wider, leaving Geno a small speck in the center. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No, not nothing. What?”

  Even in the dimness, he could see Chris had gone pale. “Oh fuck, I really put my foot in it now.” A hand through his hair, a rough exhale. “Shit. I thought you knew. I mean…”

  “Carlos is gay?”

  Chris’ hands lifted, then fell. “I thought you knew.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, I—”

  “You’ve talked to him about it? He told you?”

  “No,” Chris said. “But I saw him once… Couple weeks ago. I was getting some stuff at Target. And… Oh man, I feel like shit now. Fuck.”

  “Tell me,” Geno said.

  Chris’s face twisted up with something that looked like shame. “You don’t understand. Outing someone is so fucking uncool.”

  “You saw him with someone?”

  Chris groaned. “It was a crowded day, I was parked around the side. Walking back to my car I saw him. Actually…” He gave a weak laugh. “For a second I thought it was you. Then I saw the leather jacket. Anyway. They were standing together by the loading dock. They were, you know, making out.”

  Silence, punctuated by peepers and splashing and laughter.

  “Who was it?” Geno said, his voice dry.

  “I don’t know. No one from around here. He looked like an older guy.”

  A hand slipped around Geno’s chest and squeezed.

  Come see me soon. —A

  “I almost wondered if it was that photographer,” Chris said. “The one your parents had some kind of trouble with? All those years ago?”