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“What do we do now?” Isabel asked, looking around their spartan room. “I’m too revved up to take a nap.”
“Anything but go out there. Lie down next to me,” Lucy said, crawling onto the bed.
Isabel lay next to her. They held each other for a long while, time moving slowly as it does during youth.
“I don’t want to grow up,” Isabel whispered.
“Me either. I don’t want to do any of the things they are telling us we have to do.”
“I’m going to stop eating,” Isabel said. “I made my mind up.”
Lucy nodded, sniffing the air. “I smell meat, too. I’m not eating meat again and I’ve told Lillian that one hundred times.”
“I don’t want to eat it either. But she’ll force us.”
“I’ll make myself barf if she tries that number with me.”
“I’m with you,” Isabel replied. “Whatever you do, I’ll do, too.”
“I have something,” Lucy said, rolling to the side of the bed and slipping her hand between the mattress and box spring of the twin bed they shared. She pulled out magazines with names likeThe Skeptic, the top one having a monster on the cover.
“Where’d you get that?” Isabel hissed, grabbing the top one from Lucy’s hands.
“I stole them from the school library. They promote critical thinking. I have to learn more to debunk Lillian’s latest conspiracy theories.”
“Yeah, she’s been like a crazed lunatic with some of them lately. The grandparents are worse.”
“We can fight her with knowledge,” Lucy said. “I’m smarter than they are, anyway. Let’s read.”
Twelve years earlier, the news had come as a shock. There were no twins on either side of the family.
“Oh my God, I’m having twins!” Lillian Roman screeched, jumping up and down.
“Watch it, girlfriend! You’ll have early labor if you keep that up,” an aunt said.
They were at the summer lake house. The entire extended family had arrived for the annual July Fourth picnic. Every surface available for sleep had been claimed, from the lounge chairs on the terrace to the benches in the boathouse.
Family life revolved around Lillian and George because they were the only couple who had children. Lillian’s two older sisters had ridden over from Detroit with the family, along with the grandparents and aunts and uncles, and were there to help with childcare and food preparation.
Lillian had received the call from her doctor on George’s cell phone, since she didn’t have her own yet. The news wasn’t something the doctor had felt could wait until the following week.
Lillian and George’s two older kids looked on in dismay, and then at each other. “Two?”
The delivery was going haywire. The first twin, a girl, was born without difficulty. But the second, another girl, was breech, her body out but the head stuck in the birth canal.
The nurses had already set up an emergency C-section tray and pulled that up to the field. They prepped Lillian’s belly with Betadine solution while the anesthesiologist intubated her. The father, Big George, was rushed out of the room with the promise that as soon as the baby was delivered, he could return.
With the resident pushing the baby up from below, the obstetrician could dislodge her head. Baby number two was delivered. Her Apgar score was a scary three but quickly rebounded with additional oxygen.
Onward to life with twin girls.
Lillian and George had been told that it wasn’t unusual for twins to form close bonds. But these two seemed ecsessively attached. Isabel and Lucille were babies who had to touch each other constantly or they’d be in distress.
As they grew, they refused to be separated, clinging to each other, hysterically screaming if forced apart. The parents facilitated everything they could, within reason.
Subtle differences were observed between the two. In their cognitive development, they were smart, but Lucy was extremely advanced.
The girls’ speech was delayed. They shared a secret language only they understood. Once they spoke English, however, Lucy refused to communicate directly with Lillian or George, insisting that she only speak to Isabel and then Isabel would be the go-between.
