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“Right,” I say slowly. “Except it’s not mine. I had a twin, Heath. I absorbed her in the womb, but her heart took the place of mine. Her name is Shanna, and I think she knew she only had so much time left. She fell for Isaac.”
I open my eyes to see the strain on Heath’s jaw has only increased.
“The heart wants what the heart wants,” I finish. “I had no say.”
“Are you serious right now?” Heath slams down a hand on the desk chair, and it stops midspin.
“I—I . . .” It’s my turn to stutter.
“Because it couldn’t possibly be your fault, right, Sasha?” His perfect complexion is red, his manicured finger sticking in my face. “You would never cheat on your boyfriend. You would never sneak out of the house. You would never have sex with Isaac Harver, would you?”
The butterfly in my chest is panicked, trying to fly away. I grip the chair in front of me, my knuckles white, my breath coming in short stabs.
“No,” I say, my voice shaky. “I wouldn’t.”
“Jesus Christ, Sasha,” he says. “Wake up.”
“I am awake!” I yell, the rabbit tempo of my heart beating in my ears. “Why can’t you just believe me? Ask my mom; she listens when I talk about Shanna.”
“Does she?” Heath asks, his own voice quiet now, hand at his side. “Or is she trying not to upset you and make you have a heart attack?”
“I guess you’re not worried about that.”
Somehow we’ve changed places. His anger evaporated his tears, while one has come from somewhere, sliding down my cheek, hot and salty. His hand is on the door, and he walks away from me as the chair rolls out from under my hands and I slide to the floor, more tears following me down.
“No,” he says. “I don’t give a damn.”
He doesn’t even look back.
The clarinet is waiting for me by the chair in the common room, a constant that has held for me in even the worst of times. Now, in the great tempest of my life, I am the one that abandoned it. I suspect that’s how it began, me denying music my talent and instead giving that time over to Isaac, forsaking my mind for my body, not knowing that the last did not belong entirely to me. And so Shanna erupted, tearing into my life as she destroyed it.
I walk into the meditation room, ignoring Layla’s questioning glance and Jo’s squeak of alarm as I kick the cassette tape player into a corner. My clarinet slides together reluctantly, punishing me for weeks of disuse. The cork is dry, the reed chipped and broken. I replace it, wetting a new one with my tongue, sucking on it to draw out the familiar taste of resin.
This is me, this is who I am. This is Sasha Stone, who would have graduated as valedictorian and gone to Oberlin, who would have been on a dark stage in a few years, wearing black, unable to see the audience because of stage lights but feeling them there, their eyes on her though an entire orchestra was onstage. Sasha Stone always garnered the attention. Sasha Stone stood out in a sea of stars.
But somehow I am here, not on a darkened stage but in a badly lit room with flickering fluorescents that hum to match the mechanical hearts of my audience members. I am here, with a harsh line down the middle of my face to match the one on my chest, a line that—should I ever make any stage—could never be covered by makeup. The light would seek it out. Illuminate it. All imperfections glare in the spotlight.
I tune up, the B flat scale dancing out of my fingers with ease. I see Layla draw a mat near her own, encouraging Brandy to join her. Jo does too, after a moment, her usual mat in the corner abandoned. I fly through another scale, second nature taking me through the warm-up I have done a hundred thousand times, my fingers happy to dance yet a bit stiff. I glance up to see that Layla and the other two have laid down on their mats, hands at their sides. I turn off the rest of the lights, the only illumination in the room coming from the rectangular window in the door. It lands at my feet, daring me to step inside.
It’s quiet in here, the girls’ breathing and our hearts the only noise. I give them something they’ll recognize, Pachelbel’s Canon, and even though it’s never been a favorite of mine I see faces gathering in the window, Nurse Karen and then Nurse Angela peeking in to see where the music is coming from. My fingers breeze through it, the notes familiar. Between my own breaths I hear the other girls’ evening out.
I finish off and ease into Schumann’s “First Loss,” a simple but elegant piece in E minor. It’s always been a favorite of mine, and though it’s written for children, there’s a true sadness in this song, followed by what feels like a paroxysm of rage at the end, a denial of what will happen, or perhaps already has. This song is about death, and while I’ve always known that, I never played it like I understood. Until now.
I wet my lips at the end, tightening the mouthpiece and checking the reed. I have to take a break before I launch into the next song. I’m out of breath and nearly wheezing when Jo’s voice rises from the darkness, surprising me.
“Hey, do you know that one song that kinda goes like this . . .” She hums a few bars of “Memory” from Cats, which takes me totally off guard but I gladly play it, stumbling over the bridge because I don’t have any music in front of me. The Sasha Stone of a few months ago could have improvised the entire piece, but that was a different girl, one whose fingers would never be tired after only three songs. One who could have played for hours without gasping. I flex my hands, easing out a cramp at the end of Jo’s request.
“How about . . . uh, the song they always play at graduations,” Brandy says.
“‘Pomp and Circumstance’?” I ask, and riff a few bars for her.
“Yeah, I kinda like that.”
“Sure,” I say, and this comes easily, branded onto my memory since freshman year.
The requests come quickly after that, with lots of guesses on my part and humming on theirs, but we piece together music in that cold room, musty mats underneath us, the air around us heavy with darkness and minor keys. My mind is agile, my fingers keen to play, and as I claim back this small piece of my life, I begin to plan how I will claim it all, once again.
?sister? talk to ME.
