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Difficulty concentrating
Clumsiness
Mood changes, including aggression and/or antisocial behavior
Short-term memory lapses
Closing my eyes, I conjure my Debussy prelude, trying hard to remember the notes.
Thirty-four
Tovah
I USED TO THINK BEING a twin meant I’d never be the center of attention. For a long time, I didn’t mind sharing the spotlight with my sister—but secretly, I wanted to be her.
Back when our bodies started changing, she was so confident with her new shape. I hid my curves in sweatshirts and baggy jeans. Adina knew how to handle it. Knew how to own not being a straight line. Knew what to wear and how to style her hair and how to walk without staring at the ground.
She has always known exactly what she wants.
The day after the party, I lie in bed until morning turns into afternoon, until afternoon becomes evening. Adina crawls into her room sometime in the midafternoon, and I sag with relief that she made it home okay.
There isn’t enough room in my head for all the new knowledge that’s been crammed inside. Death with dignity. I’d heard of it, but I assumed it was only for the elderly, exhausted by the agony of a terminal disease. Not people like my sister.
I can’t stop the visions in my head: harshly lit rooms and metal tables and cold blue skin. A dark-haired cadaver sliced open from sternum to her last rib, ready to be examined and analyzed. A girl taking a razor blade to her wrists. A car smashing into a tree. Red. Too much of it.
On my nightstand next to me, my phone lights up with a message from Zack.
Heard you and Adina fought at the party. You okay? Here if you need to talk.
I turn the phone over. My relationship is the least of my worries right now.
Adina wasn’t wrong that I wanted to leave her behind. I had school and I had goals and if I didn’t try my hardest to get where I wanted to be, I was going to collapse with the weight of Ima’s diagnosis. I had to be selfish.
Death with dignity. It’s something many Jewish scholars agree should be condemned, but I guess that’s another item on the list of things that no longer matter to her.
If Adina . . . committed suicide . . . would I still be a twin?
Would I still be a sister?
I used to think I could separate myself enough from death that the darkest parts of a career as a surgeon wouldn’t faze me. I’m years and years away from that still, but death has taken on new meaning. Now I’m terrified of it too.
For days Adina and I don’t talk. I should tell my parents—I know I should—but I need to talk to her first. I’m still letting it all sink in, doing my own research. Death with dignity is reserved for people with six months to live, but Adina has a long time before she hits that stage. Doesn’t she?
On Passover, Adina and I are forced to interact.
“I guess this is our last seder all together for a while,” Aba says once we start eating.
“Unless I have a break that coincides with Passover,” Adina says.
Will you be alive then? My stomach twists until I’m no longer hungry.
“Why would this be our last seder together?” Ima says. “What’s happening? Where are the girls going?”
“Adi is going to conservatory in Baltimore,” Aba says. “Remember?”
Ima’s head bobs up and down quickly. “Oh. Yes,” she says, but she doesn’t sound convinced. “And Tov is going to Johns Hopkins! My talented girls. I can’t believe it. Wait until I tell my mother. She’ll be so proud of her granddaughters.” She looks to my father. “Do you have her phone number?”
“Simcha,” he says in a quiet voice. “Your mother—”
