It can’t be.
When Barbara was a teenager and had come to ask for our help all those years ago, she had twirled her hair. She did it again in that basement in Champaign as well. Barbara Rush, silver hair, soft chin, sharp nose, brilliant blue eyes. Barbara, who never stopped looking for her brother Don.
Twins, from St. Joseph, Michigan.
“Joe,” I asked. “You don’t remember anything of your past?
“Nope.”
“So you don’t even know… if you had… maybe a sister?”
“Not a thing. My God, all that time… was I… taken?”
“So you don’t remember anyone named Barbara?”
“Barbara? You know, funny you should ask,” Joe said, a sad smile coming to his face. “Remember when I told you that some names sound kind of familiar? Like how I chose Joseph? Well, of all the names of women I’ve heard, Barbara has always been my favorite.”
EPILOGUE
AUGUST
I rested the tip of the pen on the blank square of the question, tapping it repeatedly. The capitol of Maine. Seven letters.
I swear it’s Bangor. But the “b” doesn’t fit, and it’s not long enough. I know this. I know this.
I looked out across the garden, laying the crossword puzzle on the arm of the Adirondack. The chair was by the lavender bush for a reason: Daddy always said the scent had calming effects. I breathed in and closed my eyes, trying to slow my racing heartbeat, looking down at my watch for the thousandth time in the last fifteen minutes.
I tried to focus on the billowing hydrangea bush in its myriad blues and pinks, taking long breaths to slow my heartbeat. The garden has come back after so much neglect—isn’t it remarkable?
We agreed to meet at three o’clock.
Yes, I’d lost some finicky gardenias, and my pots all had to be replanted, but they had been filled with annuals anyway.
I won’t have much time with him, but there’s so much that has to be said.
The hydrangeas are suffering, and they’d be wilting right now in the early evening heat, even if I hadn’t abandoned them late last summer.
I have so much to ask him.
Augusta. Augusta, Maine. I wrote down the word. Now move on to the next, stop thinking about what could be within us—
All those terrible diseases. Horrible storms. People getting sick after eating meat—
“Miss Lynn?”
I looked over, across the fence. It needed its yearly painting, but I planned on having that done in the fall, when the temperatures were bearable. The man just beyond the fence stopped and wiped his brow with a handkerchief, setting down the wheelbarrow full of mulch he pushed. “Do you want me to take the mulch up to the garden by the shop, or dump it here?”
“I’ll use it for the rose bed by the Peddler’s front door. You can dump it there.”
“Uh, no, you cannot.”
Roxy huffed from the other side of the garden. I could hear the keys jingling in the front of her overalls, indicating she’d just closed up the shop. She walked with a cane, and would for the rest of her days, Dr. Burcham said. He had suggested plastic surgery for the deep gash on her forehead that required a series of ugly stitches and had left a wicked scar, but she said at her age, she wasn’t concerned about smooth skin. “Jesus, Lynn, are we running a trailer park here? No, you can’t dump that mulch there, Don. Wheel it around back and we’ll get to it tomorrow.”
“Yes, Miss Roxy.” Don winked at me.
“Don, you really don’t have to do that,” I said, fanning myself with the newspaper.
It’s the heat. That’s why I’m sweating. My nerves can’t be this bad already.
“Trying to earn my keep,” he said with a grin. “Any foxes in the garden today?”
“Oh, I think I saw one a while ago,” I said, looking around.
“Not too hot for foxes, I hear. I’ve found the more I expose myself to this Tennessee heat, the more I become used to it.”
Just like you got used to everyone calling you Don. Just like you got used to your sister hovering around you constantly. It didn’t take you long to see how your mannerisms are exactly the same, and how you both have the exact same color of silver in your hair. You knew it as soon as you met. And now… how your eyes light up when she comes to visit you, driving down from Illinois every other weekend.
Has Don told you, Barbara? About our pact, our promise to each other? That, if suddenly, we have blinding pain in our heads, our ears begin to bleed, and we hear a terrible ringing, we know what’s happening. We know they’ve activated us, and God knows what we could do to you and to everyone around us.
Don said that from time to time he saw it happen to patients, when he was being treated in the hospital. He said the doctors whisked them away, and he never saw them again. He says it never happened to him, and I know it has never happened to me.
But if it does, Don and I agree to leave and disappear. Despite the pain I know all too well of having a loved one suddenly disappear, I would vanish in a heartbeat, jump in the closest car and keep driving away, if it meant protecting my family.
And William. What did those monsters mean that he was the conduit? That he wouldn’t harm people when he was activated, but instead, he was the final stage—
“Looks pretty busy in the kitchen right now.” Don motioned with his chin to the house. “I think I’ll break into the back of the shop and get some water. Clean up a bit.”
“Clean up a lot, please,” Roxy muttered.
“I’m just happy to have a job with you, Miss Roxy!” he called out.
“The man thinks because he rents my back room that I like him,” she said, carefully navigating the paving stones through the grass. “Husband enjoys his company, though. Two peas in a pod, those two, pickin’ at guitars, thinking they’re Johnny and Waylon. Ed may have advanced cancer, but he’s healthy enough to stay up and smoke cigarettes with Don. Good thing you’ve found room for him on the payroll, or else all they’d do is play guitar and drink beer. I guess Don’s not planning on going back to Colorado.”
I knew Roxy saw me purse my lips and what that meant. She came to sit down next to me. “Crossword puzzle. The vacuum must be broken. What’s got you all riled up—?”
“Nanna!”
The screen door screeched open, and Brian stuck his head out. “Where’s the Nutella?”
“Pantry, second shelf. Next to the microwave popcorn.”
“I didn’t see it!”
“Jesus, boy, are you hoping the neighbors will be able to help you find it?” Roxy asked.
“Sorry Roxy! Brian waved.
You yell all you want. I could listen to you yell every minute of every day for the rest of my life. From the moment you saw William and said his name, I swear I cried for two days straight.
“Will! Mom says to come inside soon!” Brian yelled, and then slammed the screen door.
“Don’t want to.”
We both turned to the boy crouching down next to a turtle statue, barely visible under a rose bush.
“There’s that redheaded fox we’ve been looking for!” Roxy smiled.
“I know Don saw me,” William said, his hand in his pocket. “And you’re wrong, Nanna, about the turtle.”
I loved his jutted-out bottom lip so much. “No, I’m not, William. You will. I promise.”
“I won’t,” he said glumly, walking over to the chair. I reached out and rubbed his head, careful not to irritate the bump of his head. Already, I’d noticed it was starting to diminish, but he still winced when anyone even came near it. I didn’t dare mention to anyone what that bump could indicate.