by Geonn Cannon
“How did she look?”
“Not like she was sleeping. People always say that...”
“Couldn’t be less true. You didn’t pick out some fancy-schmancy outfit she never would have worn if she’d had a choice, did you?”
Molly shook her head. “I didn’t pick the clothes.”
Shane nodded. “Oh, I’m sorry. Your parents?”
“No, they passed away a while back.” Her brow furrowed as she speared a lettuce leaf. “I don’t know who picked her clothes.”
“Was she married?”
Molly’s expression tightened slightly. “No.”
Shane frowned. “Well, someone had to pick out her clothes and her casket.”
“I guess someone in Montana did all that.”
“It’s kind of peculiar, isn’t it?”
Molly shrugged. “We don’t have any family in Montana. Maybe she had a friend or something who knew her wishes.”
“Maybe,” Shane said, but she sounded dubious. She shook her head and waved her hand. “Ah, it’s nothing.” She pushed herself up and gestured at the kitchen door. “I have to get back to my post. Enjoy the rest of your lunch.”
“I will. It was a great choice.”
Shane leaned down as she passed Molly’s seat, lowering her voice. “I took care of the check for you. Don’t worry about it.” She squeezed Molly’s shoulder and hurried off before Molly could argue. Resigning herself to leaving a big tip for the waitress in lieu of paying for her meal, Molly sagged down in her seat again and looked back out at the water.
Shane’s questions had just been made out of idle curiosity, but now Molly couldn’t stop turning them over in her head. Who had picked out her sister’s casket? Who had picked that silly blouse with the pearl buttons? Surely it hadn’t been the funeral home. And she couldn’t picture her sister dying in something like that...the phrase “wouldn’t be caught dead in” suddenly made more sense to her.
Where had that blouse come from?
##
The rain that had been threatening all week finally arrived on the day of the funeral. Standing at the podium in a tiny, yet still only half-full church, Molly said a few words in her sister’s memory. When she finished, the pallbearers -- hired by the funeral home, since Molly hadn’t had time to get anyone -- carried the casket out to the hearse. Molly rode in the family car, and a handful of cars fell in behind them.
December Harbor was not a large town. The cemetery was only a few blocks south of the church so, had the procession been a little longer, Molly could have arrived at the burial site before the parking lot of the church was completely empty. The sedan parked next to a plastic cover that would have looked more at home at a state fair or church bake sale. Folding chairs were set up in several rows facing a brutally bare hole in the earth. James Rausch stepped up to her door with an umbrella extended and helped Molly from the car. She thanked him and followed him down to the gravesite.
The priest who had officiated the funeral service caught up with her, his patent leather shoes squishing on the wet grass. “Will you be wanting a prayer?” he asked.
“We...weren’t religious,” Molly said. “I guess, though. Something simple.”
He nodded and continued on. Molly looked over her shoulder at the other people coming down the hill. Her eyes scanned the row of cars, counting how many people had come to say good-bye to April. She started at the sight of a small red sports car parked near the back of the procession. It was the same one that had passed her house several times the day before and, given time to think about it, she thought she might have seen it at the funeral home as well. She turned to Rausch. “Is that your car?” she asked.
The funeral director looked at her to make sure she was speaking to him and then followed her gaze. He shook his head. “All our cars are black,” he said.
“Oh,” she murmured.
He led her under the forest-green covering and left the umbrella by her side. He turned around and went back into the rain unprotected to help the pallbearers.
Slowly, the chairs next to the grave filled with other mourners. Molly stared, not hearing the priest’s words, at her sister’s final resting place. There was a headstone at the head of the cavity: Julianne Leigh Page. Maxwell James Page. April Polly Page. And one blank space reserved for her. Molly May Page. She swallowed hard, felt the tears in her eyes as the priest bid them to go with God and dismissed the service.
She stood and used Rausch’s umbrella to protect herself from the downpour. People passed her, shaking her hand and giving her their condolences.
“So sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.”
“If you need anything...”
“I’ll call. Thank you.”
She waited until everyone had dispersed and stepped up to the casket. She rested her hand on the cold wood and brushed the condensation away. Her fingertips left ghostly imprints as she moved it back and forth, her hand slowly getting wetter as she felt the rain hit her face. It washed away her tears, which she was grateful for. She took a deep breath, released it, and stepped back. “Good-bye, April.”
She turned away from the casket, holding the umbrella low as she headed for the incline where the cars were parked. Rausch had promised to drive her back to the church so she could get her car, and she also needed to return his umbrella. Her hand gripped the curved wood handle as she tried to crest the hill on rain-wet heels. What the cemetery needed were stairs. Stone steps, leading up these horrible hills, since it always seemed to rain during funerals.
She was halfway to the car when a woman behind her said, “Excuse me. I’m sorry, are you the sister?”
##
Robin Fraser had planned to attend the service, but so few people had gone into the church that she assumed it was restricted to family and close friends only. So she’d sat in the car, the stupid sporty red car that was all the agency had left. Stupid summer months. She hated that the car was a luxury, hated how much it would have cost (they, naturally, gave her a discount since they’d lost her reservation for the moderately-priced sedan). It felt like she was celebrating when the truth was she could barely get behind a steering wheel without flashing back to...
She closed her eyes. Push that out of your mind, forget about it entirely. Just for right now. When she looked again, the congregation was slowly trickling out into the humid rain. She started the car and joined the procession when it began.
The cemetery wasn’t far, and Robin pulled to the shoulder of a gravel-marked road. She saw a blonde woman dressed all in black and lagged behind a group of mourners. She couldn’t face the sister. Not yet. She took one of the folding chairs in the back, struggling to listen to the minister but finding her eyes drawn again and again to that familiar blonde hair. April had never worn her hair up, but it was unmistakably the same. Blonde curls must run in the family, she thought with a sad smile.
When the priest gave the final prayer and dismissed them, the sister stood and moved closer to the casket. Robin started to move forward then, but a steady stream of people soon engulfed her. So she waited. She left the security of the covered seats and walked out in the rain, deciding to wait until the sister was more alone. She fiddled with the clasp of her watch, not caring as her short, dark hair was plastered to her forehead by the rain.
Finally, the sister left the casket and started up the hill. She walked towards the funeral director’s black sedan, her head bowed underneath the umbrella. Robin fell into step behind her and hesitantly called, “Excuse me. I’m sorry, are you the sister?”
##
Molly closed her eyes at the sound of the woman’s voice. She despised herself for the thought even as it formed, but she was starting to feel the burden of being the survivor. Accepting handshakes from strangers, looking into faces she hadn’t seen in years and seeing them torn apart by grief. How could they hurt so badly? How dare they? She felt a selfish urge to yell at them, tell them that all the grief was hers. April was her sister, her ot
her half, and now she was gone forever. Part of her was gone, and she could never recover from that. She would never want to recover from that.
But it was her responsibility. As the sister, as the survivor, it was her duty to be the focus of everyone else’s grief. “Yes, I’m the sister,” Molly said without turning.
“My name is Robin Fraser. I didn’t want to disturb you during...but I just wanted to let you know how much I’m going to miss April.”
Something about the way the stranger said April’s name struck a chord in Molly. She planted her feet to make sure she wouldn’t slip on the steep hill and turned at the waist to face the other woman.
Robin Fraser, the stranger, was standing a few feet behind Molly at the base of the hill. She wore black slacks and a red blouse, her black hair cut in an extremely short, boyish style. With her stance, clothing, and that hair, she would have looked like a man from a distance. But her eyes, those lips and those curves left no doubt about her gender from this close.
Unfortunately, Molly didn’t have time to absorb all of her observations. As soon as Molly turned, Robin Fraser’s face contorted in a mixture of shock, terror, and disbelief. “Oh, my God,” she gasped. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she stumbled back a few steps. “Oh, my God, April!”
Robin fell to her knees. Molly dropped the umbrella and hurried to the woman’s side. Rausch had also heard the wail and was running down the hill, but it was too late. The mysterious Robin Fraser had fainted dead away.
Chapter Three
By the time Rausch and Molly had helped the woman to her feet, she was conscious again. She assured them she was fine, but Rausch insisted that she sit down and take a few moments to regain her bearings. He placed her in the passenger seat of his sedan and draped his coat around her shoulders. With Molly holding his umbrella and his jacket now around Robin Fraser’s shoulders, his white dress shirt quickly got soaked in the rain. He didn’t seem to notice as he watched the woman for signs of a second fainting spell.
Robin sniffled and wiped at her eyes, not looking at either of the people standing a respectful distance away. “Sorry about that,” she finally said, tugging at her slacks and trying to clear the grass stains on the knees.
“Don’t worry about it,” Rausch said. “My name is James Rausch; I’m the funeral director. This is April’s sister, Molly.”
Robin looked up at him and saw the sister from the corner of her eye. She licked her lips and nodded. “I’m Robin Fraser.”
“Did you know my sister?” Molly asked.
Robin tried not to cringe at the voice. The timbre, the body of it...so familiar and intimate and yet...not. She cleared her throat and nodded. “We were teachers at BFH...a-at the same high school. I was Algebra, she was English. She told me she had a sister, but she never mentioned...”
“That she was a twin,” Molly said.
Robin finally looked up and faced April’s sister. There should have been differences, something more than the fact that this woman was wearing her hair in a ponytail. April had never worn her hair up. Other than that, there were no differences. Her eyebrows arced in the same place, giving her the same slightly cynical look April had. Her eyes were the same ice blue, her cheekbones just as high and pronounced. It was like seeing a ghost, and Robin had to turn away. “I...I’m sorry.”
“I’m used to it, trust me.”
“Yeah, but I’m not,” Robin said softly. She took a deep breath and stood up, shrugging Rausch’s jacket off and returning it to him. “Thank you.” She swallowed and faced Molly. “I’m sorry if I–”
“No, please,” Molly said. “I apologize. It must have been quite a shock.” She hesitated, sucked in her bottom lip, and said, “If you’d like, we could get together later and talk.”
Robin nodded slowly. “I...think I would like that.”
Molly reached into her purse for her wallet to find something with her phone number on it. As she dug through her things, Rausch asked, “Do you need a ride anywhere?”
“No, I have the rental,” Robin said with a gesture towards the small, red car parked a few spaces back.
Molly looked at it and said, “You’re the one who drove by my house a couple of times.”
Robin nodded. “I knew April had a sister on the island, so I looked you up in the phone book. I was going to stop in and...I don’t know, say hello or pass along my condolences. But every time I started to slow down, something made me keep going. Maybe I should have gone ahead and dropped in. Saved both of us a little embarrassment here.”
Molly smiled politely. “As long as you’re okay.”
“I’m fine.” To Rausch, she said, “Thank you for the loan of your coat.”
“It was my pleasure, ma’am.”
Molly handed over a business card. “This is my cell number and my home number. I’d give you my work, but...you’d probably never find me free to talk.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a chef.”
Robin’s smile widened, and she said, “Oh.”
“What?”
“April, she...she used to joke that her sister was Martha Stewart. She never explained what she meant. She didn’t...like talking about you.”
A cloud passed over Molly’s face, and she nodded.
“I’ll definitely give you a call.” Robin extended a hand, her fingers trembling slightly as Molly wrapped hers around them. So damn much like April, she thought with a shudder.
If Molly felt the shudder, she gave no indication. She stepped back, and Robin walked along the gravel shoulder to her car. When she glanced back, she saw Rausch close the passenger door on Molly. He tilted his head to Robin in a slight bow and then rounded the front of the car to get behind the wheel.
Finally alone, Robin exhaled and closed her eyes. She felt dizzy, like she’d slipped into a science-fiction movie. April’s sister. April’s twin sister.
And to think...she'd thought she couldn’t possibly hurt any worse.
She walked back to the rental car and waited until the sedan pulled away before she started the engine. Her hands were still shaking, and she gave herself a moment to still them before she started driving. She left the cemetery, driving carefully through the unfamiliar streets to the bed-and-breakfast she’d checked in to.
The tidy, yellow house had a small carport with enough space for three cars. A sign declared it to be “Appleton Guest Parking Only” with a small drawing of an apple dressed as a police officer to enforce the decree. She parked and went in through the kitchen door.
The well-meaning owner, a widow who had tried to wrangle Robin into eating breakfast with her every morning she’d been staying there, was nowhere in sight. Robin breathed a sigh of relief and hurried upstairs. The woman was kind, but Robin got the feeling she was lonely. Even at the bright and shining start of the summer tourist season, Robin was the only guest in the house.
She made it to her room without running into Mrs. Appleton and ducked inside. She closed the door and sagged against it, covering her face with both hands as she let the shock of the afternoon settle. As soon as April’s sister had turned around, it was like the world had tilted. She was only just starting to feel the solid ground under her feet again.
April was a twin? How could she never have said anything? How could something so monumental just...slip her mind? Right, she thought with a sneer. It didn’t slip her mind. It was just one of those things April conveniently forgot to bring up. April’s philosophy had always been that it was easier to ignore something difficult than try to explain it. “Well, April,” she whispered. “You left quite a fucking surprise without anyone to explain it to me.”
She walked to the bed and sat down, reaching for her address book on the nightstand. She thumbed to the back where an eight-by-ten photograph was tucked under the plastic. It had been taken at a school play, backstage and framed by the red velvet curtains of their high school’s theatre. Someone had asked them to pose for the school yearbook, and April had leaned in, reste
d her cheek against Robin’s, and puckered up to the camera.
Robin, embarrassed and wearing a white suit jacket, had simply smiled and wrapped her arms around April’s waist. The white suit had been Robin’s costume to play the Stage Manager in Our Town. Robin smiled at the memory. How April had talked her into doing that, she would never figure out.
The picture had been trimmed and sized-down and Photoshopped into a collage for the yearbook, but somehow April had gotten hold of an original. Robin ran her fingers over the lines of her lover’s face. It was the exact same face she’d seen at the cemetery. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought April had come back from the dead. In fact, even though she did know better, she was having a hard time convincing herself of the truth.
She’s not April, she told herself. I’ll bet she’s never even heard of the Shuffle Shuffle Boom.
The memory made her laugh, and she covered her mouth with her hand. Tears slipped free and slid down her cheeks as she remembered the first time she’d seen the apparently insane English teacher’s dance...
...Robin reluctantly stepped out of her classroom and looked down the long hallway. She needed to run to the office, but couldn’t convince herself the class would behave if she turned her back. She hesitated a moment longer and then headed to the classroom across the hall. She hadn’t had time to meet the other teachers, but the nameplate sticking out from the doorframe said Ms. Page, English. She opened the door and poked her head inside.
The teacher was walking down the aisle between the desks, her back to the door. She had a stack of flashcards in her hand, shuffling them as she moved towards the back of the class. “Shuffle, shuffle,” she said. “Shuffle, shuffle...”
Robin forgot the reason for her interruption and watched the teacher with a half-smile. She met the eyes of the closest student, who rolled his eyes and shrugged in Ms. Page’s direction. Robin chuckled quietly and turned back to the game.