My first thought was: I don’t believe Mom is dragging me out of bed so early. It’s summer freaking vacation! Then I opened my eyes. It wasn’t Mom. It was Poppy. “Let’s go,” he said. He tickled my feet. I shrieked. “You’ve been a zombie long enough. I’m off work today. You’re spending it with me.”
We went to used car lots, and by noon we were riding home in an old Malibu.
“Wish it wasn’t red,” he said. “But the price was right.”
“Red’s okay,” I told him.
After lunch we went for a spin. Back home, he went for the cards. “Ready to lose millions?” he said.
“Nah,” I said. “Don’t feel like it.”
He snapped his fingers. “Bummer. I guess my strategy’s not working. I figured if I kept you busy all day, maybe I could drag you out of your mood.”
We were at the kitchen table, our usual card-playing place. “I’ll never be out of this mood,” I said. I slumped in my chair.
“Sure you will,” he said. “Bad moods don’t last forever.”
“It’s not even just a mood,” I told him. “It’s my life. It’s me. You don’t understand.”
He shuffled the cards over and over. “I understand time passes. Time heals.”
I stared at him. “Poppy, you’re not a twin. You don’t know what it’s like to lose half of your self.”
He stared back at me for a long time. His eyes were shining. He smiled—a sad, remembering smile. He nodded. “Oh yes I do.”
It took me another minute of staring, and then I got it. Grandma. I felt rotten. I reached out. “I’m sorry, Poppy. I forgot.”
He patted my hand. He sniffed. “It’s okay. You’re allowed.”
I looked at Poppy’s white ponytailed hair, at his eyes, at his face. I thought, Wow—love lasts a long time.
And then he was talking. About the old days in California. Him and Grandma. How they used to dig for clams on the beaches of the Pacific Ocean. How they stomped on grapes and scrubbed the purple off each other’s feet and made their own wine. How sometimes Grandma would suddenly bust out laughing and he would look around but he couldn’t see anything funny. “Why are you laughing?” he would ask her, and she would say, “Who needs a reason?” and pretty soon they were both doing it. “We’d look at each other and just out of the blue bust out laughing.”
I watched his hands shuffle the cards. I knew he wanted me to play. I knew I should. But I couldn’t.
When I looked up, the same smile was on his face, but the eyes were different. A minute ago they were reaching back across time and miles to California and Grandma. Now they were only reaching three feet—thirty-six inches—to the other side of the kitchen table. To me.
“Poppy, what?” I said.
He was wagging his head now.
“What?”
“It’s not that I didn’t believe you. You know…the sleepwalk, the train station, all that.”
“Okay. So?”
“I mean, if I didn’t believe you, I wouldn’t have been there that night. Would I?”
It was feeling a little heavy. I tried to lighten it. “Even if you were a little late.”
He chuckled. “Right on that. But then…then…seeing you with my own eyes, standing there on the platform in the dim light, in your bare feet and pajamas, all by yourself”—he wagged his head some more—“touching you—remember that?—I touched you, I poked you, remember?”
I nodded. I couldn’t speak.
“Lily…I’ve been around the world, I’ve seen it all, but that night…you…”
I rushed to him. I dived into his lap. There were no more words. Just being close. And I think it was not just Poppy who was squeezing me. I think it was Grandma too.