Four Months after the Accident
JULY 1983
I see Jude briefly in the morning, and even though her face is caked in makeup, I can tell she’d been crying. It’s allergies, she says. We’ve always had allergies; just wait, mine will be flaring up soon. I decide to believe her, more out of convenience than of true conviction; I have too many other questions to ask.
As soon as she leaves the questions trample through my mind, leaving indelible tracks: Who is Wen, exactly, and how does she fit into our lives? Did we really meet her in Europe? Did we go to Europe at all? And if we didn’t, where have we been over the past five years? What have we done? Some illusions are comprised not of one big trick but a million little ones. How many sleights of hand went into passing off our life as truth? I want to ask Jude. I need to ask her. I am terrified to ask her. The simple voicing of a question risks incalculable damage—a thread or two undone, a few more split and frayed, a thorough and permanent unraveling.
I know that Sab is at work on a site, but I dial his number anyway and leave a message, promising a full report on the visit with Wen. I shower, the water at full heat, letting my head percolate in the steam. I dress and part my hair on my own correct side. Today I am myself, and I will get to the bottom of Jude.
I park the car but stay behind the wheel, staring at the library’s double doors. My body moves forward, walking past the fidgeting children, the sleeping old men, the couple kissing at a tucked-away table along the side wall. It moves toward the enclosed oval space in the middle of the room, where Reference is written in pretty cursive on a chalkboard. It moves toward the three women sitting at the desk, with the mom librarian adjusting the pencil in her bun.
“Can I help you?” she asks, and then recognizes my face. She seems delighted to see me again. “You! I was hoping you’d come by. I have the records you asked for.”
She stands, her chair legs scratching harshly against the floor. “I’m sorry, miss, just remind me of your name?”
“Bird. Katherine Bird.”
I watch her slim form, the shake of her hips, happy and confident, pleased to be of help. She reaches a shelf, scans the line of it with her finger, and pulls down an envelope. Smiling again, she walks toward me, and I take a step back. My mind flips between two choices: Turn around and forget it. Choose to believe your sister and focus on your present. Or: Stay and learn if the memories she fed my mind are real. They have to be real. They have to be real or you are right back where this started, with no reliable knowledge of your past, no clear path for your future.
“Here we go,” she says, and retrieves two sheets of paper. “We couldn’t get the originals, of course, but these will do.” Her finger follows along a florid, barely legible print. “See, 415 Touchstone Road was built in 1873 by Abel Klassen, and there’s a description of the dimensions…”
“How about any sales?” I ask. “Was it bought by another family later?”
She is staunchly cheerful. “We’re getting to that,” she says, and extracts the second sheet. “Here.” She points. “Klassen’s son sold it in 1932 to a man named David Sheridan, and then it was sold in 1957 to Joseph Rouse, and it’s been in the Rouse family ever since.”
The room swoons around me—the walls turning concave, the floor sliding beneath my feet, the librarian’s face stretched and menacing. I hear my voice speaking in a strange pitch: “But that can’t be, could you please check again? There must be another record of a sale to a John Bird, or Elizabeth Bird?”
My face must be telegraphing my panic and horror; she shakes her head gently, No, and apologizes, and asks if there might be anything else she could do. Somewhere in the middle of her sentence I feel myself tilt to the left, my hand grasping for something to hold, and my brain hurts, oh god my brain hurts, and I can’t stop the rush of catastrophic thoughts.
Everything I’ve used to re-create myself, every single memory I’ve accepted as truth, no longer exists, and without them neither do I.
This time there is no room for nuance or doubt. Jude lied to me. She began lying as soon as I woke up and called her name.
My mind whiplashes through the past five months, replaying conversations, pausing to rewind certain words. I had questioned her, teetered on the edge of suspicion, but I never made the leap to the other side. She had used our twin bond as a weapon, soothing me in false ways. She lied because she thought I would never question her, that our singular relationship was immune to scrutiny. The very thing that connected us so fiercely also orchestrated its own demise.
I add another discovery to my new self: I am a person who will never speak to my twin again.