Part of me wants to believe in that superstition about twins hearing each other’s thoughts because there’s no way you can’t hear mine screaming in your head too. Dad used to always call us his twin girls—remember? It didn’t matter that you were eight months younger and much shorter than me. He said we shared the same soul.
Carolyn, I know you’re ignoring me. I’ve been calling you all night, but you won’t answer. I’m sitting at my kitchen table, phone in hand, TV blaring, eyes awake and burning from all the tears because you think I’m a thief when I’m really not. I’m sorry I took your little girl’s necklace. I’ll find a way to get it back, I swear. Just please call me back.
Don’t tell anyone this, but I know that woman from Dorchester who killed her mom. Aida Something. Bushy eyebrows, Monroe piercing, a shrewd-looking face like Mom’s except lighter, just about white almost. We were at the Peruvian chicken place, the one by the clothing store where Mom used to get our school shoes. She’s all in the news. You’ve definitely seen her picture. I bet you’re talking about her with one of your girlfriends from work. Whatever happened to that one secretary from your job? The one who likes talking about murders instead of doing any work? I bet she already knows more about Aida than I do.
Aida sat down at the table next to mine. I was busy trying not to think about you hating me. She was carrying one of those oversized mixed drinks that come in fishbowl glasses. She smelled like eucalyptus and was dressed like she was going to the club. Her nails and hair looked so perfectly done that I can’t help but wonder now: Had she gotten ready before she committed murder? Or after?
Aida started chugging as soon as she sat down. She was so close that I could hear her gulps over the sound of some Spanish song I couldn’t understand. At that time, I’d been sober for a day and a half. She made me want a drink.
I scooted out of her way. “Sorry,” I said because my chair was really close to her table. You know how small that place is—no room to breathe.
“No worries,” Aida said.
I tried to smile even though I wanted to die. You’d just started giving me the silent treatment, and though I knew why, I didn’t understand.
Every part of my being felt tender. I ate steak tacos and drank strawberry lemonade out of a sippy cup because it was cheaper that way and also nostalgic. The past was crushing me. Across the street was the bowling alley where I’d met Blake. (Remember the bowling alley? I worked there for a week after graduation, trying to find myself, handing out bowling shoes to people and spraying the used ones with Lysol.)
I tried calling you again for the millionth time, praying you’d at least explain yourself.
Rob picked up. “What’s up?” he said.
I heard your TV playing on the other end of the line. Football was on. I could just make out the televised cheers. Were you in the room with him? You never liked football, but you loved Rob and knew you wanted to be with him since you first started dating in high school. I imagined you now: arms crossed as you sat in the massage chair and pretended to be interested in a sport you once said was for the dumbest type of jocks. You’d do anything to have your dream marriage with him, even if it made everyone miserable. At senior prom, I told him that he looked hot, and you refused to even look at us for the rest of the night.
“It’s my sister,” I told Rob. “She won’t talk to me.”
“Yeah,” he said. “She thinks you took a bracelet or something.”
A necklace! I wanted to scream. At least Rob was being impartial. That’s why I think you and so many other women like him: his neutrality, which you found wise until you needed someone—me—to vent to about your most annoying coworkers. I could never tell how many of our secrets you told him. He feigned ignorance so well, barely contributing to class or lunchtime discussions in high school. I thought you were joking when you said he was actually really smart.
“Why would she think I’m this horrible monster all the sudden?” I asked. “It isn’t like her.”
“Dunno.”
“She knows I’d never hurt her or Eloise. I love Eloise. Blake and I bought her so many toys—she could open a whole store! And her daycare. Remember? You and Carolyn were still in law school and couldn’t come up with the money. I’d still be helping you guys now if I could.”
“D’you ever think maybe you and your sister need some space?”
I laughed. “No way. We’re sisters. This isn’t some failed marriage we’re talking about.”
For a long time, Rob said nothing. Then: “If she wants, she’ll call. If not, well. . . .”
“Bye, Rob.”
“Bye.”
He hung up first. I was too shocked to move. How could you think I was guilty? Carolyn, you hadn’t seen me take anything. You can’t just judge me like that. It doesn’t matter that you were right. You shouldn’t hold me to such a high standard when I’ve forgiven you for worse.
Aida had been eavesdropping on me. The scandalized look on her face made me wonder if she could hear my thoughts too. I felt exposed. If perceptiveness were a color, it would be the same shade of green as her eyes.
“You okay?” Aida asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “My sister’s ignoring me.” I rolled my eyes, blotting away tears with a dirty napkin. “She says I stole from her.”
“I mean, did you? Don’t worry, I don’t care if you did.”
I was going to tell her to fuck off, but then I saw my phone and the lack of notifications on the screen and remembered: I was alone. There was no you, no Eloise, no Rob; no more late-night phone calls, no more gossip. Ever since Blake passed last year, I’d started fearing the idea of isolation. It didn’t matter that our loveless marriage was the root of my drinking problem. I could sense that there would come a day when I wouldn’t be able to call you up to whine about my life. Relationships never last. Doesn’t matter the type. Even Mom and Dad got sick of each other. They were forever calling each other fat up until they died. I wasn’t any better. I only just found out on Facebook that my old boyfriend from high school is a woman now.
“It’s complicated,” I said. “I’ve been going through a lot. My husband died. He was the breadwinner. He helped my family a lot, my sister especially. But then he got sick. Cancer.”
“So you did steal.”
I pursed my lips, trying not to cry. I wasn’t an adult woman anymore but a little girl listening to bullies who knew me better than I did.
“I wanted to pawn the necklace,” I said. “I was gonna get it right back as soon as I figured out some expenses. I thought my sister wouldn’t mind since she’s more financially stable than me now.”
“For someone who used to gladly take from you,” Aida said, “your sister sure likes to judge.”
“I don’t know.” I sighed. “All I can say is don’t marry a rich old white guy for his money if you don’t want to be stuck with the medical bills.”
Aida laughed so hard that she coughed on her spit. I giggled, my body relaxing as I thought about all the ways I could defend your honor if I felt inclined (yell at Aida, pull at her hair, throw her against the counter). The source of my relief was shameful. I was grateful that at least one person was on my side. Life didn’t feel like such a burden. Your silence still stung, but I wasn’t obsessing so much over Blake’s—my—townhome possibly getting foreclosed.
“I don’t get why she ignores me,” I said. “We’ve always been inseparable. Same schools, same major, same everything. We take care of each other. I don’t think I would’ve studied chemistry if it weren’t for her.”
“Maybe she hated you the whole time and just didn’t tell you,” Aida said.
“You think?”
Aida shrugged. “Sounds like it to me.”
The validation she’d given me fizzled into more hurt. I wondered if I’d be alone for the rest of my life. My nose burned. I could feel my vulnerability drawing Aida closer. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to hide or embrace her.
“I’ve been through so much with her,” I said, “but you probably don’t want to hear.”
“Shoot,” Aida said, winking. “I have all the time in the world.”
After a few minutes of coaxing, of me saying “don’t worry about it” and her going “I really don’t mind,” I told her everything out of order, jumping around in time. I started with Eloise’s fifth birthday party, her necklace, and my desperation. I’d spent so many hours helping you put up all those pink decorations in your new condo in Jamaica Plain. You never said thank you.
I spotted the necklace on the coffee table while you were in the bathroom. The T-shaped, eighteen-karat charm shimmered (the store you’d gotten it from had run out of Es, which you said was fine because Eloise was going through a phase where she wanted to be called Tallulah). I thought about putting it in her jewelry box until I looked around your living room and realized just how far you’d come since you and Rob finished law school. The secondhand Roche Bobois Mah Jong sofa was gaudy but gave off an expensive aura. Regret weighed on me. Why hadn’t I done as well as you? I heard the toilet flush and felt disgusted.
It was easy talking to someone like Aida because I didn’t care about her—not in a meaningful way; I just wanted her attention. I didn’t care what she thought of me or what she might tell her friends. I didn’t worry about hurting her. Slowly, I found myself gravitating closer to her.
I couldn’t stop talking. I was throwing bad memories down an open hole, watching them disappear into unknown darkness, and waiting to hear a reverberation.
“Our parents were so poor, we sometimes didn’t have heat in the winter.”
Plunk—another memory.
“Rob has fertility issues. I think it devastated my sister even more than him.”
Plunk, plunk.
“Carolyn and me both studied chemistry at BU. I wasn’t as smart as her, though. I gave up on my academics when our parents died in a car wreck.”
Plunk, plunk, plunk, plunk.
I felt my soul emptying out and got sadder. “Sometimes I don’t trust my sister,” I said. “I still haven’t confronted her about what happened between her and Blake.”
Aida raised an eyebrow. “What d’you mean?”
“She called me one night crying, telling me my husband cheated. She wouldn’t say how or who he’d been with, just that the woman had been desperate. I didn’t understand because she’d met him and said I was probably the only woman in the world crazy enough to even touch him. But she was pregnant, so I figured, you know: hormones. I didn’t really care about Blake. He was just using me as a personal nurse, so the idea of him being unfaithful wasn’t heart-shattering, just funny.”
“Sounds like you care a lot,” Aida said.
“I think the issue’s that my entire world was just Carolyn for so long. Nothing else had meaning. Blake, the ring—all that stuff was meaningless to me until it became about her. I was neutral about Blake until it dawned on me that Carolyn had a kid with him for the money. Then I didn’t know what to think. But I didn’t love him. I just couldn’t figure out why my sister would lie to me like that.”
Aida’s eyes widened. “Wait, what?”
She was so close that her scent choked me. I hated myself for telling her all my business, but it was too late to go back, and I was way too lonely to end the conversation. I realized that she’d barely said anything about herself. I didn’t even know her name, which was fine because I was afraid of her asking mine. I could sense cruelty hiding just underneath her freckled skin. But I couldn’t judge her. I was convinced that we were both mean people. Maybe we’d become friends, I thought. The idea gave me hope, which made me think that maybe she wasn’t all bad and that maybe I wasn’t either because bad people weren’t hopeful.
“Eloise is my late husband’s kid,” I said. “Her mom’s my sister.”
Aida’s mouth dropped.
“Yeah,” I went on. “The affair was going on during my marriage. I didn’t realize he was paying child support on top of everything else until I discovered the paperwork when he died. He was good at putting up airs.” My throat felt tight. I took a sip of lemonade and forced it to go down. “But I don’t fault Blake for showering her with gifts. It’s not like the kids from all his other marriages were lining up to see him. And I like Eloise. If I wanted kids, I’d want them to be like her: real. And pretty. She makes Blake’s terrible features look cute.”
“Why’d you let a homewrecker take all your money like that?” Aida asked.
“She’s my sister, okay?”
“Your sister’s twisted.” Aida finished the rest of her drink. She slammed the glass down. “For real.”
“No,” I said, stifling giggles.
I tried to say more, but all I could do was laugh. I wanted to ask Aida if she was an only child. (Does she have siblings? The news hasn’t mentioned anything. Maybe they’re in hiding.)
“I’m gonna get you a drink,” Aida said.
“I can’t,” I said. “I’m a recovering alcoholic.”
Aida rolled her eyes. “The world would be better if everyone stopped pretending to be so good all the time.”
Before I could stop her, she was at the register. “Four beers,” she said to the cashier. “No, wait, make that six.” She struggled to carry everything back to our table.
I told Aida that I shouldn’t be drinking as I struggled to twist the cap off of my first bottle. “Wait, wait, wait,” I said right as she was about to start downing hers.
“What?” Aida snapped.
“We need to cheers to something.”
“Fine.” Aida smashed her drink against mine. Beer splashed everywhere: on my face, the floor, the table.
“Fuck Carolyn!” Aida yelled.
We both cheered so loudly that one of the workers threatened to kick us out. I didn’t care. I finally had what I wanted: an anonymous connection—no responsibility, no heartbreak, not a single stale secret lingering between us. I was finally rediscovering the freedom that I’d lost taking care of Blake and you. I wasn’t someone’s widow or sister. I was just another girl in her twenties getting smashed, and Aida was some other girl I’d met.
We drove around the suburbs in the same banged-up Ford Fiesta that Aida had run her mom over with. All the windows were down. Top 40 music blared from the radio’s speakers. Aida picked up speed as she rapped along to Eminem and Dr. Dre. She flashed made-up gang signs, her goldilocks hair flying all around her face.
The light turned red. She slammed on her brakes. My head almost struck the dashboard.
“Dude, slow down,” I said. I wanted to be serious, but everything I said felt so funny that I couldn’t help but laugh until I could hardly breathe.
Some guys pulled up next to us. Their car had a Harvard bumper sticker (remember when we both got rejected from the College?). Aida motioned for the driver to roll down his window. I thought that he wouldn’t, but he did, smiling sheepishly. It was a late night, Friday. People were out to have a good time.
“You gentlemen from Harvard?” Aida asked.
“Yeah,” the driver screamed back. His grin widened. He was really cute: white teeth, flawless skin, and a soft fade. His friends were too.
“You smart?”
“Dunno.”
“What d’you study?”
“Chemistry.”
Aida slapped my shoulder. “Think of a question. A hard one.”
“Ugh,” I said.
Aida rolled her eyes.
“What’s kinetic isotope effect?” I blurted out.
“Kinetic isotope effect?” the cute driver asked.
The light turned green. People started honking, drowning him out. I could just barely hear him mention something about the vibrational frequency of a chemical bond.
Aida shot through the intersection. We lurched forward, both of us screaming and laughing some more. I struggled to put on my seatbelt. I was so drunk that my hands felt unreal. My wrists were light, but my fingers were heavy. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the buckle to snap in place.
“It’s broken,” Aida said.
I grabbed onto the inside door handle as hard as I could. Your favorite song came on, the one where Lil Wayne talks about banging a hot police officer. I tried singing along. I didn’t know the lyrics well, so I just kept saying, “Wee-o wee-o wee!” over and over until Aida told me to shut up.
“What’s wrong with you?” I said. “Jesus.”
My voice came out whiney. I’d gotten too close to a stranger, and now she was breaking me. Somehow, Aida had transformed into a friend that I didn’t know as well as I thought I did—the most dangerous kind of person.
I thought of getting out but remembered that the car was still in motion. The crowds around us had gotten denser. We were downtown. Aida picked up speed, racing the out-of-service MBTA bus as it tried to merge into our lane.
“Slow down,” I said.
The speedometer crept dangerously close to fifty.
“I said slow down!”
Aida bugged her eyes. She was starting to hate me—I could sense an intense rage burning her alive—but I didn’t mind because I was starting to hate her too.
My thoughts became a scattered mess. The only thing connecting them was anger. I remembered you poking fun at me and my messed-up marriage, calling me an elderly sugar baby because I was close to thirty. I should’ve called you out, should’ve punched you in the face like I had when we were ten and not as grateful for the other’s company.
“Stop the car,” I said.
“What?” Aida asked.
“I’m leaving. You’re crazy.”
She went faster. I lost all control and started slapping her. The car swerved. She punched me so hard in the chest that I thought I’d die. When she hit the brakes, my head hit the dashboard for real this time. I tasted blood. Its warmth spread across my face.
We’d almost struck a lady. She was screaming at us from the crosswalk, an old white woman with a walker calling us the N-word while passersby gawked. She was so close, her body must’ve been touching the grille. I could see her shaking.
Aida laid on the horn. “Move!” she yelled. “The fuck.”
The lady wouldn’t budge. Aida and I cussed her out together. We went back and forth with her until we had the light. My vision swam. We were flying through the intersection. The lady hurried out of our way. For a second, she was so close that her scream sounded like it was coming from somewhere inside the car. The wheels crushed her walker. I heard the metal crunch. Aida just kept driving. We went silent for a while.
I didn’t know what to say. Aida pulled into a gas station. She put the car in park, but it felt like we were still going in my head.
“Out,” Aida said. “Now.”
Before I could get up, she started dragging me out of the car, calling me all sorts of names. I called her names back until I threw up on the pavement.
“Damn,” said a random guy coming out of the convenience store. “It’s getting crazy up in here.”
Aida pushed me so hard that I fell backward onto my butt. When I tried to get back up, she threw things at me. Something hard struck my head. My vision blurred. I heard the rumble of her car’s engine growing more distant until all that was left was the distant rush of traffic coming off the expressway.
As I went to collect my possessions that she’d thrown out, I realized that they weren’t mine. I didn’t own knock-off Gucci glasses or a knock-off MGM purse. And my iPhone didn’t come in a SpongeBob-shaped phone case. Everything Aida had left me was hers.
The reality of my situation overtook the warm tingles of the alcohol. Aida’s phone read 1:03 a.m. I was miles away from home, and the wallet I had—Aida’s—only had five dollars in cash and an expired Victoria’s Secret gift card. I felt like I was going to throw up again, but there was nothing left in my stomach but an unshakeable, empty feeling. I’d experienced decades with Aida in the span of a few hours. Attraction, hatred, sadness, disgust—an entire lifetime. She was gone, but she haunted me. Her loudness echoed in my ears.
I don’t know how, but I managed to walk all the way back to the townhome and wake up to another day. I saw the news, saw Aida’s stuff on the table, and felt weak. Aida killed her mom, Carolyn—pulled out of their drive, ran her over a few times, and kept going. And all because she wasn’t allowed to smoke weed inside her mom’s house. Now she has all my things, my phone and everything, even my ID. She has Eloise’s necklace too.
Aida’s still out there. That’s what the authorities are saying. Maybe she’s using my name. We look similar enough. All of us could pass for fraternal triplets from a distance. When I close my eyes, I can see us reunited in Aida’s car: long-lost sisters sharing purses and secrets, one guilty of murder, the others of God-knows-what else, our motives all stupid.
***
Illustrations by itay sapoznikov
