If things had been different, my twin sister and I might have supported each other during this difficult time. We might have comforted each other with childhood memories and heartwarming anecdotes about our mother. We alone would understand our shared grief, and we could have found solace in each other. We would have known that, no matter how much worse things got, we would always have each other.
But as Reverend Glover spoke in uneasy generalities about my pagan mother’s prospects for the afterlife, Lanie and I sat on opposite ends of the small row of chairs. She looked pale and exhausted, her under-eyes hollow and bruised. As she shook, her daughter, who looked so much like a miniature version of my sister that I startled, wrapped her arms around Lanie’s waist, steadying her. Lanie clasped her daughter against her, closed eyes leaking tears, mouth moving in a silent whisper I could not decipher.
I wondered if Lanie remembered the last thing she had said to our mother, the violence she had inflicted on her. I wondered if that was on her mind as she stared down into the grave, wondered if Lanie worried that she had been the one to drive our mother away.
The night before our mother left us was a warm Saturday in early June. Lanie and I had just finished our sophomore years, and Warren Cave had been sentenced to life in prison a month earlier. We had expected the conclusion of the trial would lift our mother’s spirits, but she only retreated further into herself. The trial had given her a reason to get out of bed each day, to shower and put on clothes; without that motivation, she had stopped bathing regularly and rarely left her bedroom. We saw her only on her occasional trips to the kitchen, where she would pour scant bowls of cereal that she would then ferry back upstairs to consume behind closed doors. If we pressed our ears to her bedroom door, she could alternately be heard pacing and muttering to herself or tapping away on an old laptop. After her nightly bowl of Kix, she would swallow a tranquilizer large enough to put down a horse and sleep for twelve hours. It was barely a life, but we told ourselves it couldn’t last forever. We thought that if we just gave her time she would come back to us.
Adam and I made plans to meet our friends at the movies to see some psychological thriller everyone was excited about. The theater was starting to darken as Adam and I made our way inside, looking around for our friends. Just as I caught sight of Ellen’s shiny blond hair, a familiar voice echoed from the front of the theater.
“Gimme the gummy worms, asshole.”
I exchanged a worried glance with Adam. “That sounds like Lanie.”
“At the movies? Shouldn’t she be out vandalizing property or getting high?”
Lanie’s voice reverberated again in the cavernous theater, an octave higher than usual. “I said, I want the motherfucking gummy worms.”
“Sounds like she might already be high.” I frowned. “Save me a seat. I’m going to go down and check on her.”
“Josie, don’t. She’s just going to upset you. You aren’t Lanie’s keeper.”
“Aren’t I?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “It’s a twin thing. Don’t worry; this will only take a minute. It’s not like I’m going to stay down there and get caught up in her gummy worm dispute.”
Adam registered his disapproval with a shake of his head, but slid into the row with our friends. My palms began to sweat as I hurried toward the front of the theater. Confrontations with Lanie were still a new and uncomfortable experience for me, and I dreaded arguing with her in front of an audience. The stench of liquor and weed reached me while I was still yards away, and my stomach tightened. By the time I reached my sister, slouching in the front row with Ryder and four scruffy guys I didn’t recognize, I felt ill.
“What the fuck?” Lanie objected when she saw me. “Why are you following me?”
“Whoa, that chick looks just like you.”
“Except,” Ryder interjected, cackling like a hyena, “Lanie isn’t a stuck-up bitch.”
Ignoring Ryder, I addressed my sister. “Are you aware that everyone in this theater can hear you?”
She smirked and exchanged a high five with the guy on her left.
“What are you even doing here anyway?” I asked.
“Watching a movie, sis. It’s a free fucking country.”
“Now get lost, bitch,” one of the boys growled, giving me the middle finger with both hands. “You’re blocking our view.”
“Are you going to let him talk to me like that?” I demanded of my sister.
“You heard him,” Lanie said, stretching a gummy worm between her teeth and fingers. “Get lost.”
At that point, it was still surprising to me how much of a stranger my sister had become, and for a moment, I could do nothing other than gape at her.
“Get lost, Josie,” she repeated.
“Fine.” I sighed. “Just keep your voice down, all right? You’re embarrassing me.”
Lanie’s high-pitched laughter trailed me all the way back to my seat.
“I understand the vulgar screeching up front can be attributed to my least favorite cousin,” Ellen said as I lowered myself into the seat between her and Adam.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I muttered. I was grateful when the movie started and I could hide in the darkness and forget my own problems by focusing on those on the screen.
The movie was just as I feared it would be: tense and violent, and I had to watch a portion of it through my fingers. There was a particularly bloody skirmish near the end of the movie in which the villain attempted to kill his wife, but she wrestled the gun away from him and shot him instead, taking off a chunk of his head. The theater let out a collective gasp, and one single, piercing shriek arose.
Lanie.
By the time the second shriek pierced the air, I had already leapt to my feet. I vaulted over Adam and raced to the front of the theater.
Lanie had settled into a low, constant wail, and her supposed friends were staring at her as though she were a deranged stranger. Her arms felt surprisingly frail in my hands as I tugged on them, ordering her to stand up.
“Come on, Lanie. Let’s get you out of here.”
Hooking an arm under my sister’s armpit, I was able to get enough leverage to drag her to her feet just as a flashlight shone in the back of the theater. While the beam bobbed down one aisle toward the front, I hurried up another aisle with my whimpering sister.
Adam was waiting for us just outside the theater. I tried to pass Lanie to him, but she slipped through his arms like a wet noodle and crumpled onto the carpet.
“What’s the matter with her?”
“I don’t know,” I said, kneeling down to remove popcorn from her hair and examine her for obvious signs of trauma. “I think she’s just freaking out because . . . you know. Guns. I want to get her home. Can I borrow your car?”
“Yeah, but Josie, do you think that you can handle her on your own? Should I come with you?”
“I don’t want to get you involved in this.”
“It’s a little late for that,” he grunted, lifting Lanie into a standing position.
“The keys, Adam, please. I’d like to get her out of here without getting arrested.”
“Getting arrested might be good for her,” he said, pulling the keys from his pocket.