“Don’t start,” I warned him.
In the parking lot, I propped my sister against the side of Adam’s car while I unlocked it. With an elastic groan, she slid down the car’s side and collapsed onto the filthy concrete, her hair landing in a damp oil stain.
“Goddammit, Lanie, get up.”
The sound she made in response was small and pitiful, and my frustration slipped into fear. Under the too-bright lights of the parking lot, her face was ashen and waxy, her mouth a twisted red slash. Was this what an overdose looked like?
“Hey,” I said, crouching down beside her. “Do I need to call 911?”
Her eyelids fluttered and she shook her head.
“Come on, then. Let’s go home.”
She twitched. “No.”
“Yes,” I countered, dragging her to her feet. “We’re going home. Now.”
She slumped, deadweight in my arms, and I staggered to catch her, hitting one of my knees painfully against the ground in the process. In a sudden burst of anger, I slapped my sister across the face. It was the first time since we’d been out of diapers that I had hit her, and her eyes snapped open like a doll’s.
“Stop it!” I screamed. “Just stop it! This needs to end. Now.”
She nodded, her head bobbing like a marionette’s. “You’re right.”
Taken aback at the sudden change in temperament, I hesitated. “Really?”
Lanie nodded and let herself into the passenger seat of Adam’s car. She spent the ride home staring straight ahead with wide, unblinking eyes. She kept muttering something to herself under her breath, something that sounded like “hurt the girl,” but every time I asked her what she was saying, she would clam up.
When I pulled up to the curb in front of Aunt A’s house, Lanie didn’t even wait for me to kill the engine before she bolted from the car. Cursing her, I yanked the keys from the ignition and went after her. She tore through the foyer, almost tripping on the Oriental rug, and bounded up the steps, taking them two at a time, scrambling up the last few on her hands and knees when she lost her footing.
Aunt A emerged from the kitchen, wiping soapy hands on her apron, looking alarmed. “What’s going on?”
Halfway up the stairs, I paused, but before I could say anything a muffled scream sounded from my mother’s bedroom. The blood drained from Aunt A’s face and she barreled up the stairs, reaching the door at the same time as me.
I flipped on the light, and we both gasped.
Lanie knelt on the bed, her dirty jeans smudging traces of parking lot grit on the pale yellow comforter as she straddled our mother, holding a pillow down over her face. I watched in horror as our mother, who had already taken her post-dinner tranquilizer, flailed her pale arms uselessly while Lanie, face twisted into a grotesque snarl and muttering unintelligibly, smothered her.
“Lanie!” I screamed. “Stop!”
Aunt A wasted no energy on words. Running to her sister’s aid, she grabbed Lanie by the shoulders and flung her across the room with what had to be adrenaline-driven superhuman strength. Lanie hit the floor like a rag doll, arms and legs splayed, but she barely blinked before scrambling to her feet and rushing back to the bed.
Instinctively, I hurled myself into her path. “Stop!”
She skidded to a halt in front of me, her face just inches from mine. I shrank from her in fear. In the darkness of the movie theater and the parking lot, she had looked relatively normal. A little unwell, perhaps, but not markedly different from usual. But under the 75-watt lighting of our mother’s bedroom, I saw just how unhinged she really looked: bloodshot eyes bulging, teeth bared, debris-filled hair wild, pupils totally blown. I was half afraid she would take a bite out of my cheek, but I grabbed her arms anyway, her skin hot and damp beneath my touch.
“Stop,” I begged. “What are you doing?”
She said something under her breath, but her voice was rough, as if her throat was scratched, and her cadence sounded off. I couldn’t tell what she said, but it sounded like the same phrase she had been repeating in the car.
“What did you say?”
“First the pearls,” she said—or I thought she said. Her voice still sounded distorted, and the phrase made no sense.
“What? What does that even mean?”
Lanie began to laugh, a high-pitched, manic giggle that was so deeply unsettling I released her. She hesitated only a second before launching herself back onto the bed, slamming the pillow over our mother’s face once more.
“This is your fault!” she screamed down at the pillow, veins popping and saliva flying.
“Stop!” Aunt A shouted, grabbing at Lanie to pull her off. This time, Lanie was ready for the attack and lashed out, her jagged nails catching Aunt A in the face, sending a bloody rivulet streaming down her cheek. Aunt A gasped and staggered back, touching her wound.
“What are you doing?” I shouted, shoving Lanie as hard as I could. I didn’t succeed in throwing her off our mother, but I did knock her off balance, and Aunt A seized the opportunity to grab Lanie’s leg and drag her off the bed and onto the floor.
I rushed to remove the pillow from my mother’s face and help her sit up. Mom was wearing just her nightgown, and I was shocked to see how thin her shoulders and chest had become, how translucent her skin looked.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
She looked at me without speaking and then turned her gaze to the floor, where Aunt A was using both arms and both legs to pin Lanie down. My stomach dropped as I looked from the ghost-like shell of my mother to my wild, thrashing sister. What had happened to these two women who I loved so much?
“Lanie, stop it,” Aunt A ordered while my sister gnashed her teeth and twisted beneath her. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Stop it,” she repeated, her words thin and high. “Somebody’s got to stop it. She said,” she said, jerking her head as if to indicate me. Before I could respond, she jerked her head in the other way, possibly indicating our mother. “And she said.”
“What?” Aunt A asked, her face wrinkling in confusion. “Who said what?”
“The pearls,” she muttered, then snapped her head in my direction, her eyes suddenly wide. “This is your fault.”
“Josie, what’s she talking about?” Aunt A asked. “What’s going on?”
“Stop it,” Lanie snapped.
“I don’t know,” I said desperately, on the verge of frustrated tears. “I found her like this. Well, not quite like this, but . . . We were at the movies. Not together, but both of us at the same movie. And she just flipped out.”
“What pearls?”
“I have no idea.”
Aunt A nodded grimly and stared down at Lanie. “Lanie, I need you to tell me the truth. Are you on drugs?”
Lanie spit in her face.
“That’s it,” Aunt A growled. “Josie, call the police.”
I looked at my flailing sister, her face twisted in an almost unrecognizable mask of madness. Aunt A was right. Adam was right. Lanie was out of control, and we should turn her over to the police. But she was my sister. My twin sister. How could I call the police on my twin sister?