Twelve Years before the Accident
JUNE 1971
On their eleventh birthday, Jude and Kat decided to separate in the small ways that were available to them. It was high time that people understood that being identical in appearance did not mean being identical in thought and disposition. Jude knew that she herself was reticent when Kat was open; quiet when Kat was boisterous; surly when Kat was a cartoon sunshine with a Magic Marker smile. Jude was the malevolent bit of news to be absorbed before Kat’s shiny silver lining, and Jude told herself this was okay. Not everyone could bring the light and fun. Someone had to creep along the periphery, watching for danger, preparing for the shock of bad things.
As a birthday gift, Verona announced “a full day of enriching activities, exhilarating for both body and mind, a day that will alter the course of our very lives.” Jude was skeptical—how could a simple birthday be so momentous?—but when Kat twirled around in excitement, Jude allowed her mind to be changed. For the occasion Verona permitted the girls to choose their own clothing, and they selected outfits that were thematically consistent but still unique: Jude in jean shorts and a T-shirt featuring Velma from Scooby-Doo; Kat in a denim dress with a Daphne tee pulled over top.
The Poem of the Day was, fittingly, about two sisters. They lived near a place called the Goblin Market, where scary monster men enticed passersby with their succulent wares. “We must not look at goblin men,” Verona read, her lips moving furiously, smearing red lipstick across her teeth. “We must not buy their fruits. Who knows upon what soil they fed their hungry thirsty roots?” She read on and on, revealing that one sister, Laura, gobbled up the dangerous fruit, growing sicker and sicker and content to feed her sickness, while the other, Lizzie, refused to eat the fruit and restored her sister to health. For Jude, this poem confirmed their new distinct identities, wrapped them up in a succulent bow. If Kat, like Daphne, found herself in danger, Jude would be her Velma, letting her sister leap into her arms. If Kat, like Laura, was threatened by wicked strangers, Jude would be her Lizzie, risking her life for her sister, letting her suck the juices from her body, undone in her undoing.
Verona next insisted they visit her own market, Pied Beauty—“mostly goblin-free,” she promised—to continue their tradition of riding the antique carousel that stood at its gates. When the girls were younger, they pretended their carousel horses could leap from their polls and race each other, galloping through the streets. Now, instead, they had a contest over who chose the creepier horse—the redder tongue, the wider eyes, the longer teeth—and posed for a picture, Verona exhorting them to shout Fromage! At the last minute, before the camera clicked, Kat swiped her hand across Jude’s head, changing the part of her hair, and did the same to her own. It was, as Jude told Kat after the accident, their favorite photograph, but not because they were playing switch, Jude being Kat and Kat being Jude so that their mirror image was maintained. It was because this picture captured, for the first time, the twins being very much themselves, Jude reveling in her Judeness and Kat in her Katness, and they would never feel such certainty again.
Their mother revved up her new Chrysler station wagon and shooed them to the part they called the Way Back, where they could open the rear window and stick their heads out and pant in the wind like dogs. “Your historically momentous treat awaits you in the city,” she instructed them. Her lit cigarette filled the car with musky smoke. She told them to call her Verona instead of Mom; they were big girls now, and it was time for grown-up names and grown-up things.
“Joy to the world,” Verona sang, “all the boys and girls.” It was a Pied Piper voice, Jude thought, a voice that made you listen and follow. “Joy to you and me,” she called back, imitating her mother’s tone. She wondered if Verona had split her gifts between them; maybe people would follow Kat, but listen to Jude.
They did not yet know the city. They had never seen such hulking heaps of trash or fire hydrants used like backyard sprinklers or grown people wearing ripped clothes holding out their hands for change. They had never been to a hotel and could not even dream of one like this, with a piano player in the lobby and a chandelier the size of a dining table, heavy with sparkling fringe. A thin man glided by carrying a platter of fluted glasses. Verona took one, sneaking each of them a sip.
“Girls, this is called a mimosa,” she said. “Orange juice and just a splash of champagne. You’re old enough for sips now, but only when I’m there. Do you understand?”
They nodded in unison and followed her to the elevator. She wore a gauzy cape that trailed behind her like a petulant child, with pom-poms bouncing along the hem. She pointed her toes so that her shoes hit the floor twice with every step, first the ball and then the heel—click-click, click-click—a quirk she said was left over from her “dancing days.” They heard often of these dancing days, stories that began with glitz and glamour and ended with “and then, of course, I met your fucking father.” Her hair was red, too red, redder than the tufted velvet on the chairs. Jude noticed that men and women alike turned to stare at her. She was the Pied Piper even when she made no noise at all.
At the elevator stood three men Jude recognized right away. They had been at her mother’s recent party—the night of radical acceptance and resplendent change, the night her father appeared at the door. They wore a loosely coordinated uniform: plaid pants of differing colors and shirts with wide lapels. “Ronald, Donald, Bash, my loves,” their mother said. She kissed Ronald and Donald on their cheeks but Bash full on his mouth, lingering for a second too long. “You remember my girls, Katherine and Judith.”
“Kat and Jude,” Jude corrected.
“Don’t mind them,” Verona said. “It’s their birthday and they’re on a champagne high.”
Ronald laughed and ran a hand through his feathery black hair. “Of course we remember,” he said. “Kat and Jude it is, although I can’t tell who’s who. Happy birthday. Your mother has planned a neat-o present for you.”
The elevator door slid open and they all stepped inside. With a crimson nail, Verona pushed number seven, and even this slight movement unleashed a thick gust of perfume, a scent that reminded Jude of wilting roses.
“Happy birthday,” Donald said. His hair was the opposite of Ronald’s, the layers falling toward his face instead of away, a bright silver instead of dark. The two men reminded Jude of salt and pepper shakers, purposeful together but lost apart. “Today should be a perfect way to celebrate.”
“Indeed,” Bash said. “Why don’t we all go out later for some ice cream?”
“Yes!” Kat shouted, tossing her fist into the air. “Pumpkin pie, please, with caramel syrup and marshmallows and rainbow jimmies on top. And whipped cream. And at least two cherries, so they can be twins.”
“That’s quite a combination of flavors,” Ronald said. “You are confident in your own tastes.”
“Indeed,” Kat said, mimicking Bash’s deep voice. The adults laughed.
“She’s never had that combination before,” Jude said. She felt the urge to clarify the situation, to seize a modicum of control. “She just likes to shock herself. The element of surprise.”
“And what flavor do you like?” Bash asked.
She remembered the party again—how Bash hushed the room when she spoke, making her feel powerful and important, someone destined for great things. She thought for a moment, biting her lip, hoping to impress him with her answer. “Chocolate chocolate chip,” she said. “With chocolate syrup and chocolate jimmies. No whipped cream or cherries or any of that extra stuff. I like my flavors to be strong and pure.”
“That sounds excellent, Jude,” he said, and gave her a crisp nod. “I think I’ll follow your lead and order the same.”
Jude nodded back, just as crisp. She had the urge to salute, just like Verona had in one of her old Very Sherry photos, wearing a swimsuit that looked like the American flag.
“What do you say to Dr. Bash, girls?” Verona prodded.
Kat spoke in singsong, but Jude kept her voice neutral: “Thank you, Dr. Bash.”
He bent down to Jude’s level and looked her straight in the eye. He was very tall, even taller in his platform boots, and the journey seemed to take a long time. “You’re very welcome, Jude. And you, too, Kat. Thank you for letting me treat you. You make an old guy feel a bit cooler than he is.”
The door chimed, and the elevator creaked to a stop.
“Judith, Katherine, you two go down there,” Verona said. “I’ll come to get you when it’s time. Be good and do everything you’re told.”
Jude watched her walk down the hall with Ronald, Donald, and Dr. Bash, her arms reaching around their backs. Dr. Bash dropped a hand to her ass, and Jude wondered what her father would think about that, if he was in a place where he could think at all. She did not want Verona to turn the corner. She wanted to keep her mother in sight. But turn the corner she did, cape swishing and heels clicking and laugh booming, until even the sound of her was gone. Jude could not tell if their mother, too, was feeling most herself, celebrating her lush and lavish Veronaness, or if she had taken an inexorable step toward becoming someone else.
She did not know whether Verona becoming someone else would be a change to celebrate or a change to fear.
The Blue Room wasn’t as fancy as the lobby, and the only blue thing was the carpet. Rows of folding chairs fanned out in a semicircle, facing a large blackboard. Jude looked around to see that every seat was full, maybe fifty seats total, an equal mix of boys and girls. A blond woman in jeans hovered nearby, holding out her palm for everyone to slap low five. She had very full and pink cheeks and wore a T-shirt that read “Unbought and Unbossed.” Jude guessed she was around the same age as Verona, but somehow they looked centuries apart. She did not have wild hair or a swinging cape. She did not move like the type of woman who had any dancing days in her past.
“Now that we’re all here,” she said, “come up and tell me your name so I can check you in.”
Jude felt Kat pull her forward.
“Kat and Jude Sheridan,” Kat said. “Our mother probably registered us as Katherine and Judith Sheridan.”
She looked up from her form and did a double take.
“Twins?” she asked.
“No duh,” Jude said.
Kat elbowed her. “Don’t be mean.” She turned back to the woman. “I’m Kat, she’s Jude.”
“Nice to meet you, Kat and Jude.” With a thick black marker, she wrote each of their names on a tag. “You can stick that right on your shirts. It’s our policy here at The Plan to meet new people, so I’m going to ask if you both would mind sitting apart from one another. I promise it’ll be fun.”
“Do we have to?” Jude asked.
“Tell you what,” she said. “Give it a shot, and if you really don’t like it, I’ll put you together. But I’m betting you girls will make some new friends straight away.”
Jude nodded, pleased with this assessment, and turned to Kat. “Go to that end, but pick a chair where I can see you.”
Kat obeyed, taking a seat near the window.
Jude picked a chair near the door, for easy escape. The girl next to her had long black hair and knees that looked more like elbows. She wore a plaid jumper and leather sandals that showed her painted toes, as small and bright as specks of blood. She stared at Jude, the tip of her index finger shoved inside her mouth, her tiny teeth gnawing on the nail. Jude liked her right away.
“Hi, Violet,” she said, pointing to the girl’s name tag.
“Hi, Jude,” Violet said. Her finger stayed in her mouth.
“What is this place?” Jude asked. “Our mom just dropped us off and took off down the hall.”
“My uncle Bash is down the hall.” She pointed to the woman at the front of the room who was back to giving low fives. “And I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but that’s my mom.”
“I know your uncle Bash,” Jude said. “He’s been at my house, and later he is buying me ice cream. So what are we doing here?”
“Dunno,” Violet said. “My mom just called it a lesson.”
“Funny, my mom said it would change our lives. If it gets weird, me and my sister are splitting.” She leaned forward and saw Kat talking to a boy. Jude waved, trying to get her attention, but Kat did not look over.
“Can I come with you?” Violet asked.
“Maybe, if you move fast enough.”
“Deal,” Violet said. Jude accepted the girl’s outstretched hand, her finger faintly damp with spit. Jude held it for one second longer than necessary.
“Okay, everyone!” the woman announced, clapping her hands. “My name is Jackie. Welcome to The Plan. We’re a new group, and we’re doing some really far-out stuff. We’re gathering members all across the country, including kids just like you. I know all your parents and guardians are down the hall doing their own thing, but we’re going to have much more fun here, I promise. We’re going to learn to think about things in new ways, ways that will make us stronger and smarter. Sound good?”
Someone whispered to someone who whispered to someone. All at once everyone had secrets to share, and the room sounded to Jude like a pit of hissing snakes. She looked over at Kat. Her sister’s mouth was now pressed against the boy’s ear.
“That’s it, let it out,” Jackie said. “Laugh and whisper. If you don’t want to be here, I’d be happy to escort you to the Red Room so you can hang out with your parents.”
“Wish I could get away from my parent,” Violet whispered.
Jude smiled at her and scanned the room. She wanted someone to call Jackie’s bluff, to stomp off and venture to the Red Room. One boy stood and just as quickly sat back down. She felt her own body angle toward the door. She wanted to see what would happen if she left, but she did not want Kat to be alone. And what if Violet didn’t follow? Jude was not ready to leave her. She wanted to hold that damp hand and look at that twitching, rabbity face. She wanted to accidentally brush up against that black magic carpet of hair.
“I thought so,” Violet’s mom said. “Now, you understand that you’re here by your own choice. You had the opportunity to leave and didn’t take it. So go with it. Be open. Try it out.” She picked up a piece of chalk and stationed herself by the board. “So now that we’re all in agreement, let’s get started.”
The room was quiet as she scribbled two words: The Plan.
“The Plan,” she said. “That’s what we’re going to learn today. A new kind of plan, one you’ve never had before.”
She turned again, scribbled more letters.
“And what does this sentence beneath the letters say? Can anyone tell me?” She pointed to Jude. “How about you, young miss? Kat or Jude, am I right? Will you read that for me?”
“Jude,” Jude said. “What you think, is.” She glanced over at Kat, who had forgotten the boy and seemed enthralled by Jackie’s patter.
“That’s right. Now consider those words for a minute. What you think, is. Let me explain. Say you have a headache—”
“I have a headache,” Violet said, raising her hand. Her foot tapped Jude’s, sending a silent message: My mother is giving me a headache.
“Okay, Violet,” Jackie said. “Good, good.” She paced the room, cupping her hands as though holding an invisible ball. “Let’s talk about that headache. Let’s take a look at what’s really happening there and see if you can gain some power over it. What color is the headache?”
“How can a headache have a color?” Kat asked.
“Your mind can give anything a color,” Jackie said. “What’s another way for people to say they’re sad? I’ll give you a hint: they describe the feeling with a color.”
“I’m feeling blue,” came a voice from the back.
“That’s right, Patrick!” Jackie touched a finger to her nose. “Spot on. We do the same thing with anger. What is a color people associate with anger? What do they say?”
Jude raised a hand. “I’m seeing red,” she said, surprising herself. She wanted to hear what Jackie had to say about investigating layers of thoughts. She liked the idea of having power over the way ideas appeared and moved through her mind.
“You got it, Jude.” Jackie gave her a thumbs up. “See? We ascribe colors to feelings all of the time without even realizing it. So, Violet, I’ll ask you again: What color is your headache?”
Violet returned her finger to her mouth and tilted her head. “Pink, I guess?”
“Pink it is! Good. Now, Violet, tell me a little more about this headache. If it could hold water, how much would it hold?”
She rubbed her head, calculating an imagined depth. Jude concocted her own response: four cups of water, one for each phase of the headache—onset, intensifying, abating, gone.
“I think a bucket,” Violet said, “because it’s like a fire, a pink fire, and it would take a bucket of water to put it out.”
“Now you’re thinking! Let me ask you: Do you still have the headache?”
“A little, I guess.”
“All right, let’s keep going,” Jackie said. She stopped pacing, looked straight at Violet, and posed more questions: Is the headache moving? What shape is it? If it could speak, what would it say and how would you respond? Is it getting smaller? Is it listening to you? You’re in control of it now, yes? You’re deciding how you feel about it. And now, let me ask, do you still have the headache?
“No,” Violet said. Jude watched the girl’s face—the widening of her eyes, the slight lift of her lips—and concluded she truly believed it. Suddenly her mom was no longer a joke.
“Success!” Jackie said. “See, everyone? She was able to address something that was bothering her, change the way she thought about it, and take responsibility for making it go away. How did that feel, Violet?”
“Good,” Violet said. “Like my body listened to my mind. Like I was in control for once.”
Jackie began to clap. “Everyone, give Violet a round of applause. She’s proved that we’re all born with incredible power within ourselves. The trick is learning how to find it and make it work for you. So let’s repeat the phrase Jude read for us when we began this session.”
“What you think, is,” everyone chanted, Jude the loudest of all.
The door opened and two women wheeled in a long silver table holding three trays. Time for lunch, Jackie announced, and she asked that they all show restraint: one slice of ham, one piece of cheese, and one glass of water. No more, no less. Physical control was just as important as mental control. She would blow a whistle as a warning three minutes before they must return to their seats.
Jude felt Kat’s hand cup around her shoulder.
“This is Violet,” Jude said. “The one with the pink headache.”
“Did you really make the headache go away?” Kat asked.
“Yeah, I think so. It doesn’t really hurt anymore.”
“So cool,” Kat said. “Want to go spy on our parents?”
In the hallway kids chewed floppy slices of ham and boasted about healing themselves with their minds. The double doors of the Red Room were very high, and small crescents of glass near the top offered the only view to the inside. Kat and Violet squatted, making a shelf with their thighs. Jude climbed up and felt the girls’ hands tighten around her knees, holding her steady.
“What do you see?” Kat asked.
Jude had no short answer for what was happening in the Red Room. She saw a large circle of adults spread around the space, their hands linked, their heads raised. Inside the circle there was a smaller circle, but their focus was on a person in the middle, the hub in their wheel. She realized that the hub person was Verona and she was crying, a long, tortured-dog kind of yelp, clenching and unclenching fistfuls of red hair. In unison, the two concentric circles chanted at her:
Leave the past in the past
What you think, is
Those memories weren’t meant to last
What you think, is
Purge the sadness, purge the sorrow
What you think, is
Kill the past and see tomorrow
What you think, is!
Verona thrashed inside the hub of the wheel, staggering from person to person, spinning and turning, her dancing days come back to life. Forward and back and forward again, a contagious motion that spread around the circles, first inner, then outer, until the entire group resembled a wave, crashing and receding and swallowing her mother whole. Jude watched Verona shout the chant, her mother’s eyes squinting with the effort. Jude had seen this look before. She called it the “sad-into-mad” look, and it often accompanied stories about Jude’s father. She could picture flecks of spit gathering in the corners of Verona’s mouth. Her mother pounded her chest and pulled her hair and then she began to sink, a building collapsing in slow motion, lower and lower, the chanting intensifying, the words pelting like hail, bringing her to her knees. The chanting stopped; the circle parted into two distinct halves. Jude watched her mother begin to cry, shoulders shaking, her face in her hands, mad back to sad.
“What are they doing?” Kat asked. “Sounds like they’re singing nursery rhymes.”
“That’s exactly what they’re doing,” Jude said. “Just singing rhymes and dancing.” She couldn’t think of what to say to Kat without worrying her. But beneath that, she was scared to give voice to the scene, as though recounting it aloud might unleash something dark into their lives, something best left hidden and unknown.
“Sounds funner than our room,” Violet said.
“Yup,” Jude said, stifling the urge to correct her.
They heard the faint shriek of a whistle.
Back in the Blue Room, Jackie checked off names, making sure everyone had returned. “In your chairs you’ll find a notebook and a pencil,” she said. “During the morning session, we learned how our own powerful thoughts can create our reality. And now we’re going to take something from our past, something that’s always bothered us, and change the way we feel about it. Dig it? I’ll give you a few minutes of quiet time to think and write down your memory. If it would help you, you could make your story rhyme like a poem. It might seem less scary that way, more like a song.”
The room filled with the sounds of scratching and erasing. A memory rose up in Jude’s mind but she pushed it back down. She imagined her brain as an iron, pressing against the memory on highest heat. It sprung back up, a flattened cartoon monster regaining shape, ready to follow her again.
“Roy,” Jackie said, pointing to the back. “You look like you have something to share.”
Jude turned around to see a boy, maybe nine or ten, wearing wide-leg pants and a cowboy hat. “I guess so,” he said. He held up his notebook like a surrender flag.
“Before you start,” Jackie said, “let’s make a magic circle and gather around Roy. Let’s shield him from the negativity that his memories might bring and surround him with love and light.”
Roy shuffled to the center of the room and a circle formed around him, smaller than the one in the Red Room. Jude let Violet clutch her right hand, and a strange boy, a bit younger than Roy, seized her left. The paper shook in Roy’s hand as he began to speak: “One night our house was cold. The heater broke because the house is old. I went into the closet with matches…” On the last syllable his voice retreated down his throat.
“You’re doing great, Roy,” Jackie said. “Isn’t Roy doing great, everyone?”
“I couldn’t find any word that rhymes with matches,” Roy said.
“That doesn’t matter,” Jackie said. “The most important thing is to share the memory and take control of the emotions around it. Everyone, let’s start swinging our arms a bit—we’ll push our strength toward Roy.”
Jude felt Violet and the strange boy pump her arms. She found Kat on the other side of the circle, eyes shut and mouth twisted into an odd pucker.
“That’s it,” Jackie said. “Roy, would you like to continue?”
“I went into the closet with matches. I lit one and watched the flame grow higher and higher. And then it wasn’t a flame anymore, it was a fire.” He stopped again and hid his face behind the paper.
“And what happened, Roy?” Jackie asked. “Did you feel like you lost control?”
Roy’s shoulders began to shake. His fingers swiped at his eyes. Jude’s breath paused in her chest. She wanted to hear. She wanted to see if he had the strength to say it, and the skill to change the shape of the memory in his mind.
“The fire spread,” Roy said. “It grew as tall as my head, and swallowed up my bed. It chased me down the hall. I found my parents and my brother Paul. The whole house was turning red. I thought we would all be dead.”
“You’re doing great, Roy,” Jackie said.
“In an hour the firemen came around. And I watched my house burn to the ground.”
Roy’s face looked like a split melon, pink and wet and open.
“What are you thinking, Roy?”
“I almost killed my family.”
Jude swung harder. She wanted Roy to feel the wind she was making with her arms. Glancing across the circle, she saw her sister’s eyes were open again, focused on Roy.
“But you didn’t,” Jackie said. “You went through a difficult situation and you came out smarter and stronger. You have taken responsibility for what you’ve done. Say it with me, everyone: What you think, is!”
“What you think, is!” they screamed.
“Feel your power, Roy!” Jackie called. “What you think, is!”
His face resumed its original shape and hue but remained shiny with tears. “What I think, is?” Roy asked.
“Yes!” Jackie roared. “You’ve done it! Thank you, Roy. Join your brothers and sisters in the circle—they need your power. Now, who’s next? Does anyone else want to grow more powerful today?”
Jude watched Kat’s hand rise and hover half-mast. Jackie caught it.
“Kat! How brave of you to volunteer.” Her arm made a grand sweep. “Welcome to the center of the power circle.”
The memory again circled Jude’s head, pressing on her brain. She felt the same memory bubbling up inside her sister. She imagined the memory thinning itself, becoming a wire that connected their minds, a sizzling current flowing back and forth. She wanted Kat to stay in the circle and grip the memory with both hands and wrestle it to the ground. She wanted them to take control together, turning the memory inside out like the fingers of a glove.
Jude noted that Kat’s hands did not shake. How proud she was as Kat cleared her throat and held her notebook high, even as Jude dreaded the story to come: “Our dad is different, funny, and smart. Good at math and science and art.”
Jude’s lips moved in silent synchronicity with Kat’s words. She pictured their father in the early years, snapshots of their first memories: his shiny cue-ball head bent over a table, making magic with a sketch pad and pencil, inventions he would bring to rickety life.
“But no one bought any of his stuff. There was anger and fighting and it was rough. He began to change and acted strange. He saw messages in the sky and warnings on the ground. He felt like his brain was being attacked. And once it was gone there was no getting it back.”
For the first time, Kat’s voice wobbled.
“You’re doing perfect, Kat,” Jackie said. “Feel your power.” The circle pumped its arms. Jude caught her sister’s eye and nodded, giving her permission.
Kat started again, precisely narrating Jude’s thoughts. She remembered their father taking pills, stopping pills, going to the hospital to get his brain “zapped,” as he put it, the jokes about smoke rising from his scalp. She remembered the first night their father didn’t come home, and that one night stretching into three or four, and the weeks bleeding into months.
“Last month, he came home one night,” Kat said, holding her voice steady, “and he didn’t look right. Something or someone had bashed a hole in his head. The blood gushed and gushed, so much red. He stood at the door and begged to come in. My sister was next to me, our mom was behind us…” She looked up. “I can’t rhyme anymore either, is that okay?”
“It’s all okay, Kat!” Jackie shouted. “You have the power!”
Jude pushed the circle harder, advancing and retreating, getting closer to Kat each time. Her mind illustrated Kat’s remaining words.
“My hand was on the doorknob,” Kat said.
Jude paused midswing, causing Violet to trip. Wait a minute: she remembered her own hand on the knob. She remembered her own body being the lone barrier between in and out. She remembered her mother screaming to shut the door, shut the door fast and lock it behind her, shut the door and do not open it again.
“My mother told me to shut it and never let him in again. She made me do it. She made me do it.”
“Take control, Kat,” Jackie said. “Be steady and take control. This is what you knew in the moment. This is the only directive you had. Recast your past.”
Kat was crying now, and her crying found its way to Jude, sweeping her in.
Before the door closed, in that last inch of space, Jude could see a shard of her father’s once-handsome face, the zigzag confusion of his eyes, his shocked open mouth, the empty black square where a tooth once had been.
“He didn’t understand why the door was closing,” Kat said. “Our mother screamed to hurry, hurry and close it.”
That space got smaller and smaller until it disappeared, taking their father with it. Jude closed that door a month ago …
“… and then I locked the lock,” Kat finished. “That was the last time we saw him.”
Jude disentangled herself from the circle and locked herself to Kat. “What you think, is,” the crowd chanted, “what you think, is.” Years later, after everything, she would remember this: her sister’s arms around her, their bodies melded, the hot wire connecting them and merging their thoughts, a mathematical synastry that would have made their father proud—an equal exchange of responsibility, of shame, of power, of all the things yet to come. What we think, is.