The Twin

I remember two things happened at once: on the same day that a new family moved in down the street, my own family revealed to me that I had once been a twin.

"I think it's about time for you to know," said my mom, as the background cast of characters at Extended Family Game Night gawked on. My aunt, Tracey, put out her cigarette in her French onion dip and then picked at her front teeth with a toothpick.

"Why?" I asked, already feeling a sick pit in my stomach and wishing she'd never brought it up. "How am I supposed to feel about this? I mean...what the hell, Mom? Do I need this information?"

I was sixteen and with the typical selfishness of a teenager, thought of myself first, and not how hard it would have been on my parents to lose a baby.

This was the first time I'd been a subject of a Game Night Revelation. These happened semi-often, toward the end of the evening, after the adults had a few drinks. A month or so ago, it came out that my Aunt Lydia, the sister of the aforementioned Aunt Tracey, had a fling with the latter's husband before they were married. In between picking at her teeth, Aunt Tracey was now periodically shooting daggers at Lydia over the top of Uncle Harold's cue ball head.

"Just in case," my mother answered me cryptically. Sadly.

Maybe a week later, I started babysitting the six-year-old daughter of the new family on the block. Her name was Melba. Her parents paid me $10 an hour, which I thought was cool at the time. Melba was calm and quiet and seemed mature for her age. It was easy enough to just put on a movie for us both to stare at for a couple hours. She never insisted we watch a kids movie, so I'd just put on whatever I wanted to watch, as long as it wasn't rated R.

One day, while we were watching a movie at my place, she revealed that she sometimes got bullied at school for her name.

"That's mean," I said. "It's a pretty name," I lied. "Just old-fashioned. Why did your parents name you such an old-fashioned name?"

"Because, Marissa," she replied, kicking her feet back and forth merrily, "it begins with an 'M'."

"My grandma's name was Melba," I said, as the other Melba gazed at me avidly.

Now and then, I thought about my lost twin. I had a bad dream one night about her. I was in the hospital, hooked up to all kinds of scary machines by a tangle of wires and there was a tube up my nose that I swear I could feel. A disembodied voice next to my bed spoke in the voice of a little girl and asked why I deserved to be alive when she wasn't. She told me that it was okay, that I would live, but that I would never be whole without her.

"Whenever you feel alone... Inadequate...Whenever you feel empty and question your existence... Remember why."

It felt like she then kissed me on the cheek, and her lips were as cold as ice.

This dream left me with a strong, depressed feeling. I was scared of how sad I was. My mood was sunk all day. I just barely managed to ignore it enough to pay attention in school. By the time evening rolled around, and I was watching Melba yet again, I tried to hide it, but I was really low energy. I fell asleep on the couch during our movie. .

When I woke up, I immediately freaked out because I'd left her unsupervised, and I could hear her little feet running around in the next room. The next thing I noticed was that I had a blanket pulled up over my head. I never slept that way.

But before I could fling the blanket off and go look for Melba, I suddenly heard very rapid running and felt her impact with my chest. The air was knocked out of me, and she continued to sit on me, swaying back and forth and humming.

"Okay, knock it off," I said, putting a hint of laughter into my voice to soften it. "Enough playing games."

"Not yet," Melba responded in a singsong voice. She let out a giggle that for some reason chilled me to the bone. Then, she began to sing, "Sissy..Sissy...Sissy..."

"I’m not being a sissy," I protested, and went to pull the blanket down, but found that she was holding it up over my head. I couldn't dislodge her. I couldn't overpower this child who was ten years younger than me.

She just kept singing about, "Sissy," and I had a dawning realization, even though I knew it must be impossible. I began to thrash around, while Melba continued to sit on me, laughing, singing, and making sure my head stayed under the blanket. Melba's limbs felt like iron. The end credits of the movie were playing, and seemed like the end credits of my life.

"I spent ten years in darkness, Marissa. You'll never know what it was like."

My panic rose as she slowly peeled back the blanket just enough to look into my eyes. Hers were ordinarily blue, but I could've sworn that right then and there, they were the same brown shade as my own.

"I always wondered if you killed me," she said. "Or chose to live without me. It hurt me deeply to be separated from you. To miss out on playing with you for so long. And that's just why I can't hurt you now. I can't risk losing you. But I want a promise of loyalty. That we'll always be close. And that you'll never try to pull rank as the older twin. After all, I was born first."

I've kept my promises. Both of us grown now, we still live close to each other; proof that I’ve never dared defy my big twin sister.