Before, there was me, keeping where I’m most comfortable . . . in the background. With a book. At home. Quiet. Observing.
However, home is no longer comfortable.
That’s the connection, I realize, sitting here. Watching our mother stand, leave her dishes behind, follow Dad to wherever. Her face red, her eyes tearing up.
We’ve been stuck in Annie’s fat since the first pound.
sarah
This must be hard, I think, having two broken daughters.
sarah
I climb the stairs to my room.
Outside, the storm rages and an unknown fear shuttles across my chest.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Open them.
The carpet catches any sounds my shoes might have made.
I speak to myself. There’s no one to hear. I can say what I want. Whisper if I want, raise my voice if I want. ”I’m not the same as my sister.”
Annie loved winning. Loved the crowds. Playing the piano in front of the world. She got what she wanted then.
Still does.
Even in this crazy world she’s created, Annie gets what she wants. She sneaks downstairs at night to eat. Gets up before everyone to make breakfast. Packs a lunch big enough for two or three. We were the same size. Same weight. That was Before. Now we’re twins who are different.
“It’s not fair.” As the words come out I know I sound like a baby. But . . .
She wanted pageants. She got that.
Now she wants to eat, so she does.
And me? I wanted Garret. And he’s gone. Tears burn my eyes. My head hurts.
How is that right?
sarah
The snowstorm batters the house and trees bow in the wind.
As I get ready for bed, I hear Mom. She’s after Annie. Again. Or still. I’m not sure which.
I peek out my bedroom and see Mom down the hall, in Annie’s doorway. The walls are lined with photos. Pageant pictures, most of them. Some of us as a family. A few of me and Annie when we were little. On the beach. At the park. Black and white. Color. It’s a tunnel of photographs.
“Do you know,” Mom says, “what your father and I have done for you? How we’ve sacrificed?”
A part of me wants to shout, to holler, “Let it go. Leave her alone already.” But I’ll never yell. The thought of confrontation makes my skin cool. My lips tingle.
Mom glances at me, like she’s heard my thoughts. “And Sarah too.” She waves her hand in my direction.
I duck into my room but stand where I can hear everything. Why does Mom keep going on? She hasn’t pestered Annie this way in a while. Is it the chance to get back into the business of pageants? Even if only as a judge? Has Annie gained a pound or two more and can Mom see that?
“We’ve all given up our lives for you. Helped you win scholarships and trophies and . . .” Mom’s frustration bleeds down the hall. I peer out at her. See the annoyance in her face. Hear it in her voice. It’s dripping off her. Puddling on the floor.
Why hasn’t Annie run off like Dad always manages to do? She’s resilient, my sister. She has endurance.
“The doctors keep saying there’s no reason you should be gaining all this weight.”
I can’t see my sister, but I hear her when she finally answers. Her voice is full of sarcasm. “As if everything can be found by a doctor looking into your ears.”
The wind picks up, whistling like it agrees with Annie.
I’m punctured by the sound of Annie’s words. They’re naked.
“Guess what, Mom?” Annie says. “I’m fat. What’s a forty-five pound weight gain in a year or so?”
That much? She’s gained that much?
“You were so pretty,” Mom says. The words echo against the walls. Hit our home stronger than the storm. Colder. The comment isn’t directed at me, but it stings. I gasp for my sister. Feel the cut in my own heart. I peek back down the hall, wanting to walk to Annie. Stand beside. Hold her hand, if she’ll let me.
There’s a long pause. The whole house tries to catch its breath.
“Are you saying,” Annie says, “because I’m fat, I’m not pretty anymore?”
Miles separate us, but I can see her hurt.
There’s a fist in my throat.
Mom says nothing. Instead she twists her wedding ring around her slim finger then walks away. As she passes she says, “You helped start this.”
“Me?” Wait.
But Mom holds her hand up in my face and disappears into her room.
Annie’s voice is blizzard loud. “Are you saying that fat makes a person ugly?”
No answer from Mom, except the shutting of her door.
The lock clicks.
I stand quiet. Still. The carpet is so soft. Annie looks at me.
For a second I remember sharing a bed when we were young — laughing, telling secrets, sleeping snuggled together, maybe like in the womb.
She says, “This is the way I want to be.” Proud.
Then she closes the door and I hear that lock click too.
annie
What makes a girl beautiful?
What makes me beautiful?
sarah
We are torn up. Torn apart. No longer who we were. We are stuck in Annie’s fat. Stuck in Mom’s anger. Stuck in Dad’s job.
Me. Alone. Again.
There’s not a sound anywhere until, from downstairs, I hear the grandfather clock calling out the time. Like I’m released from a spell, I retreat into my room and flick the light out, lie down on my bed, and just wait.
annie
In the bathroom
I strip off my clothes and stare at me.
I am disgusting
sickening
Fat
fat like Mom says
as ugly as I know I look when Dad sees me.
If the lights were on I
could see tears drip from my face
the way I used to watch myself cry
when I was little
(when I thought I could be a movie star me).
Instead, I pinch bruises
along my thighs
where my family
won’t see
them
sarah
I stare at the ceiling, where leftover stars glow. Annie and I put some in my room, some in hers, years ago when we first moved here.
Now, when I close my eyes, I see the stars still. Pale. Almost not there.
I feel so not here. Like these failing stars. I am invisible and have been for years. Since Annie blossomed and I slipped out of sight.
Thin, she’s a star herself. Fat, she still draws attention.
I roll on my side. My sister’s crushed by our mom and I lie here thinking about me.
Selfish. This is so selfish.
But I can’t help it.
annie
Left-handed anger
pushes down
spilling over
and free
Unacceptable thoughts.
Hurt
Kill
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray I pray I pray
for
A place for people like me
The outcasts
The lepers
The untouchables.
All of us
The fat, too skinny
the gays, left-out straight
the awkward, the lonely, graceful.
The ones only Christ sees.
tuesday
sarah
Tuesday morning dawns snowy cold. I lie in bed. Stretch.
From where I am I can see the indigo sky.
“Beautiful,” I whisper to the stars that don’t glow anymore. Maybe it’s time to remove those things.
I stand. Stretch again. Think school, and my stomach falls near my heels. No snow days here unless ice covers everything (we’re winter stock, laughing when other parts of the country get a foot or two of snow and whine).
How I’d love to stay home and play violin. Or
linger in bed and read or make hot chocolate from Hershey candy bars and thick vanilla cream.
School means I can’t stay home and wonder at nothing. I’ve got to go.
Morning pushes at the window with its fingertips, like it wants in to warm up. The street lights are pumpkin bulbs. My room is the color of a black-and-white photo.
I shiver, and then . . . then . . . I stand at the window and watch.
This is the time Garret leaves for school.
His house is settled on the corner opposite ours. I see his window from mine, and for a moment it’s like I’m in some scene from an old romantic novel where the girl gets the boy.
I wrap my arms around myself. In almost all the books I read, the girl does get the boy. Except that doesn’t happen here. It won’t.
He has the shades drawn, but I can see movement behind them, and I remember the afternoon (it feels so long ago!) he snuck me into his bedroom when his mother turned her back, and we watched movies on his flat screen.
“Garret. It’s awfully quiet up there.” His mom. Her feet on the stairs, coming closer.
Me tiptoeing to the bathroom, stepping into the tub, my heart pounding. Garret opening his door to her saying, “I’m sixteen, Mom. I can watch Raiders of the Lost Ark without making any noise.”
Then his door shut. I didn’t move. Instead I stayed there, wanting to laugh, excitement coursing through every part of me.
That was my first kiss. Standing in his tub. So weird that I would sneak over to a guy’s house and get my first kiss in his bathroom. It was all awkward and his lips were warm and he had to push the shower curtain out of the way and I felt silly and thrilled and not even afraid because this moment was worth it.
Now his light goes out and I jump, then duck. Like he can see me.
Does he even look this way? Does he ever think of me in the tub that day after his mother left, the two of us laughing without sound, staring at each other wide-eyed when he helped me out, holding hands?
I felt sure we’d get caught.
And I didn’t care.
Now, I can’t quite breathe, remembering.
I touch the glass, feel tears rise again
again
again.
I love him. I still love him.
sarah
I climb back into bed.
Force myself to stop thinking of anything. Of everything.
Nothing outside my home should matter. Not right now.
I think of last night. My mother. My sister. Their fight in the hall with words just above whispers.
Can I see both sides? The question of both, yes.
Like no answers for Annie’s weight gain? Sometimes Mom is just dumb. It’s kind of funny. Not funny ha-ha, either, that our mother is willing to be blind. All the weird crap, and Mom thinks the idea of a diet will change things.
Annie eats. Simple as that.
I swallow. What more drives my sister?
I asked her why she had stopped exercising, in the beginning when Mom was freaking out over ten pounds, and Annie shrugged. “I’m cool,” she said. Like she could care less. Then she closed her mouth to me.
There are answers for my issues, however. Mom made sure to find those.
When I wouldn’t go places unless forced, refused to give talks in class, when I didn’t make friends but stayed safe with books. When I threw up from fear, couldn’t leave my room, and wouldn’t come down for dinner sometimes, Mom took me to the doctor.
He did check my ears. My eyes. Listened to my heart. And listened to Mom.
I couldn’t answer his questions. It seemed a hand clasped my throat the whole time we were in the office.
“A case of social anxiety,” Dr. McArthur had said. He looked at me over the top of his glasses. Patted my knee. Smiled a real smile.
“So she needs to do more?” Mom said. “Put herself out there? Work through it? I used to be shy.”
Dr. McArthur rested against a counter that held a jar of extra-long cotton swabs. He kept watching me. All over the walls were Where the Wild Things Are pictures. Taken straight from the book and blown up big. If I could have snuck to that place where Max was, I would have.
“I think she’ll find more success if she practices deep breathing. Find things to help her relax. What do you say to meditation, Sarah?”
I’d pulled one of my fingernails into the quick and now it bled. I ducked my head.
“It’s okay, Sarah. We’ll help you,” Dr. McArthur said, and he’d handed Mom pamphlets to look over and gave her a list of other doctors for me to see.
I went to a therapist for a while. Did deep breathing. Got a prescription for Xanax for when things get really bad.
But the truth is that it’s still hard. Still. Now.
Every day, I have to make myself do things that other people think are normal. Like going to school. Even years later, after so many doctors. I’m still afraid people are watching me. I’m afraid I’ll do something to embarrass myself. I’m scared of being alone — almost as much as I am of being with others.
I don’t want to be noticed for anything.
So I stay in my head.
The only time I felt good, happy, and whole was with Garret.
annie
I had every guy I ever wanted
no matter who he was with,
no matter if I knew his girlfriend,
no matter if I really wanted him
or not.
And
I watch my sister
(she seems so little
so not there
too thin)
come down the stairs
in the mornings.
She’s been watching him.
I want to tell her not to.
To look away.
Let him go.
But Sarah can’t seem to.
sarah
Driving in with me?” Annie asks. She doesn’t look up from the over-medium eggs, bacon, and hash browns. With care, she piles a mixed bite on buttered toast and eats like nothing in the world tastes better.
How does she know I’m here without looking? Does she sense me near? Does she feel the air in the room change? Hear my heartbeat?
Doctors say some twins can do that — sense the other. I’ve even heard of twins who do the same things even if they’re in different states, thousands of miles away.
“If you’re on time,” I say. I hate to drive. I only do it if I must.
Annie has a habit of being late. This used to be her only flaw — that she was late everywhere. Now, sometimes, she doesn’t even show up.
“You’re still in jammies.”
“So are you.” Annie chews. Swallows. Winks at me in this over-exaggerated way. Like winking is normal.
I can’t help it. I smile. “Where’s the Cap’n Crunch?”
Annie turns till she’s almost looking at me. “Mom hid it in the lazy Susan. She’s watching out for me.”
“Of course.”
A gust of wind hits the house with a slap. And then, like the wind brought it, Annie says, “Stop torturing yourself, Sarah.” Her voice is raised, like she’s trying to talk over the cries of winter.
I step toward my sister. Change my mind, because what would I do if I sat next to her? Instead I grab the cereal box and gather a bowl and milk and a spoon. Take a deep breath, think. Answer her.
Somehow I know what she means, but I pretend I have no idea what Annie’s talking about. “What?”
My next breath catches somewhere in my chest.
“It’s eating you alive.”
I can’t nod. Don’t swallow. Refuse to think.
“Let him go. Don’t give him that power.”
We stare at each other a good fifteen seconds. The only light in this area is over the bar where Annie sits. I smell the eggs and browned butter and think, Why does she have to know how I feel? We’re twins separated by a thousand miles and she knows how I feel.
“Forget him, Sarah.” She’s whispering now.
r /> I’m on autopilot. No longer want to eat. I put everything away. Make myself a glass of milk chocolate Carnation Instant Breakfast.
I can’t look at Annie.
How? How can I not think of Garret? How do I forget him?
“I don’t want to forget,” I say. The words fall out of my mouth like chips of glass.
“I get it.” She nods. “I do.”
We’re quiet again and I change my mind about where to sit. Move to the chair right next to hers.
“I get it.”
There is no way she understands how I feel. I know for a fact. She’s had more boyfriends, dates, flings, meaningful library romances than all her girlfriends combined. Resentment wants to put up a wall between us.
“I have something else I need to talk to you about,” she says.
“No more.” I hold up my hand. I should have chosen strawberry. Maybe that wouldn’t taste like liquid cardboard.
“Not about you.” Annie licks her fingers. She’s a study in eating, the way the light shines on her. “It’s been nagging at me.”
I swallow the rest of the drink. Will I throw up? I have to calm myself to keep from gagging, breathe through my nose to stay in control.
“I was awake all night,” Annie says. “Thinking. Worrying about something Mom said.”
“Okay.” My voice is thin. My breath releases.
Annie’s hands tremble, “Not now. Later? Maybe at lunch?”
We haven’t eaten together at school since sixth grade. This must be something momentous, if Annie is willing to hang out with me at school. Like there’s a broken window somewhere in the house, I feel a blast of cold.
“Sure,” I say, and work to steady my heart.
sarah
My sister knows too much about my feelings. I hate that. But I love it too.
Mom has never once asked me why Garret doesn’t visit anymore. She hasn’t stopped outside my door at night, given me any looks of concern. Maybe she doesn’t know I cried (still cry) because he broke up with me. Does she even know it happened? Does she care?