“Very Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray,” Evelyn said. “I like it.”
No one else would have said that. Not Sean, certainly not Stephanie. Maybe Nicky would, some day. But not for many years.
She said, “You’re totally insane. But wait, wait a second. I think I’m getting the picture. The signal’s coming in . . . It helps you, if I die. You can pretend you’re the dead one. A win-win situation. We both win. Right?”
“How can you even think that?” She was the only person who knew me.
“Because I know what you’re thinking.” She laughed. “I love that I’d be dying for you.”
“That’s not true,” I said.
“Joking,” Evelyn said. “Why were you always the one supposed to have the sense of humor? This is really rich. Perfect. Now we both get what we want. For the first time ever, maybe.”
I said, “Do you know that fifty percent of twins die in a few years after the death of their twin?”
“I do know that,” she said. “We read that on the internet together in your college dorm. And I’m sorry. You’ll survive. One of us is enough.”
“I always found you,” I said. “I always tried to help. You could find the right group and get sober and—”
She said, “Fuck you. You make amends. For crowding me. Since before we were born.”
“My God, you sound like Mother. Blaming me for what happened before we were born.”
“Don’t play dumb,” Evelyn said.
A silence fell. Evelyn wanted to say something else. She flexed her wrists and put her palms outward, as if pressing against something, and rocked back slightly. It was a signal we’d had as girls. We could send an SOS from across the room. Rescue me from this parent, this party guest, this guy.
She said, “If I had some horrible cancer or ALS and I asked you to help me die, I know—I know—you would. Well, the pain is as bad. It’s just not visible on the MRI.”
I said, “Okay. Enough. I’m tired. Will you promise me not to do anything crazy tonight?”
“Crazy?” she said. “I won’t drown myself, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I love you,” I said. “But I need sleep.” I pushed Evelyn over and climbed into bed beside her. She smelled a little like a horse stable and a little like how she smelled as a kid.
I didn’t sleep. Or maybe I slept a little. I kept waking up and putting my hand on her chest, the way I put my hand on newborn Nicky’s chest to make sure he was breathing.
I missed my child. If Evelyn had a child, she wouldn’t talk like this. But plenty of mothers kill themselves.
Evelyn was snoring lightly, a semi-peaceful alcohol-soaked snore. Her breathing was regular and shallow, broken by occasional hiccups.
For years all my feelings about my sister had tracked toward dread. It was as if I’d been preparing with endless rehearsals. I couldn’t stop thinking about our childhood, and about her saying that I would help her if she had a fatal illness. I tried not to dwell on the fact that her death was what Sean and I needed for our crazy plan.
It was morning when I woke. It took a while to remember where I was. I reached my arm out for Evelyn. I slapped the bed. She wasn’t there.
I ran into the kitchen. Evelyn was awake, sitting in the living room, nibbling a cookie.
She said, “Do you have any idea how loud you snore? You always were the loudest. Okay, good news, bad news. The strange thing is, it’s both. Good news: I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided to live. Bad news: I’ve changed my mind and decided to live.”
My first response was pure joy. My sister would survive! I could put her into rehab, the right one this time. I could fix things so they would stay fixed. I’d introduce her to Sean and Nicky. Meet your sister-in-law. Meet your aunt.
“I’m so happy.” I hugged her.
She held on longer than I did.
That’s when I had a feeling I still can’t explain. It was as if, almost as if, I felt disappointed. Cheated. The most upset I’ve ever seen Nicky be, the closest he’s come to a tantrum, is when he expects something to happen, it’s all planned out in his head. He’s imagined the whole scenario. He’s practically lived it. And then it doesn’t happen.
That was how I felt about my sister’s death. I had imagined the whole thing, what I would do and say, up to and including the feelings I would have. I had it all worked out.
And now it wasn’t going to happen.
I should never have told her about the insurance scheme. We were sisters, after all. She could be doing this just to mess with me, because she could. She knew how. She was my sister.
“I’ve got a suggestion,” I said.
“You always do,” she said.
It was as if I heard someone else talking. Someone who wanted what I wanted but wasn’t afraid to say it. That person said, “Let’s have one last total blowout before we get clean forever. You and me. Sisters. Like the old days.”
Evelyn gave me a quizzical smile. I still loved her, but the missing tooth was a bad look, and if she lived, I was going to have to fix that too.
“One last time,” I said. “Let’s get totally blasted. Let’s get that demon out of our systems forever.”
“Now that’s a suggestion,” my sister said.
When I thought that my sister was calling on me for comfort in her last hours instead of discovering (partly thanks to me) a reason to live, I’d brought along three bottles of designer mezcal.
I found two shot glasses, lacy with white cobwebs and speckled with mouse shit. I hadn’t thought about it last night, but I was struck—as I had been last summer when I came here with Sean—by the fact that the water was running and the electricity on. Did Mother—that is, Bernice—pay the bills and hire someone to keep the pipes from freezing? I washed out the glasses.
I said, “Let’s sit at the kitchen table.”
The kitchen was full of ghosts. I was right about the cabin being haunted. Grandma and Grandpa, Dad and Mother were all there in the kitchen, watching Evelyn and me pour shots and drink at eight o’clock in the morning. If this wasn’t bad behavior, what was? Evelyn was so happy to get her hands on a glass of something—anything—that she hardly noticed I was pouring only a fraction of that amount for myself. Or maybe she was thinking like a twin: less for her, more for me!
After four, maybe five shots, Evelyn said, “Do you have any memories from before we were born?”
That was how I knew that she was on her way to being drunk. She often asked me that when she drank. She would forget she’d asked before.
I said I didn’t. She said she remembered being kicked.
“Oops.” She made a screeching-tires sound. “Let’s talk about something more friendly.”
I said, “What kind of pills have you got?”
She said, “Yellow and orange and white ones.”
“Let’s do one,” I said. “One apiece. That’s all. No more.”
“You’re twisting my arm,” she said. “Doctor, it’s not my fault! My twin sister is an enabler.”
I followed her into the bedroom. There was already a slight pitch and stutter to her walk. She dithered over the pill bottles on the dresser like a pharmacist, or like a bartender with mixological ambitions. At last she decided and dispensed two pale yellow pills, one of which she gave me and one of which she kept.
“I’m saving mine for a minute,” I said.
“I’m taking mine now,” she said. “If you don’t mind.”
“Go for it,” I said.
“Actually, I think I’ll bring Mother’s Little Helper into the kitchen. Less trekking back and forth. Save on the wear and tear.”
Evelyn took the pill bottles. I could have stopped her, but I didn’t. And finally that’s all that matters: I didn’t kill her, but I didn’t stop her.
She lined the bottles up on the kitchen table. She said, “I really shouldn’t,” and then was silent for a while, as if to give that thought time to wash over her and leave. “My medication regimen.” She opened the first bottle and took a candy-blue pill shaped like a tiny heart.
My sister grew more mellow, even sentimental. After a while I had the sense that she wasn’t really talking to me. She was passing the time, waiting. She was already on her way.
“First memory?” I said.