Esi Edugyan - The Second Life of Samuel Tyne

But when the twins returned home a few hours later, Ama knew Chloe was too flustered to notice. She seemed tousled these days, a little detached from her surroundings. Yvette did, too, but not as severely. Ama entered the bedroom mid-afternoon to find the twins stuffing something into a pillowcase. As if sensing Ama in the doorway, both twins turned to her.

Ama lost her fear of their synchrony. She saw how it was done: when one decided to move, she alerted her sister with her eyes, and lagging a little, one merely copied the other. Moving so slowly, it was easy to keep pace with each other.

Ama had just entered the room when Mrs. Tyne appeared in the doorway. She herself looked frazzled these days. She fiddled with the clasps on her vinyl raincoat. “Your father’s lying down with a headache in the other room. I’ve got to rush out and pick up our dry cleaning before it closes.” She checked her watch. “Oh, dear. Samuel’s been begging for an aspirin. Do you think you can manage that for me?” Her question was directed at Ama, but it was Chloe who nodded. “Good. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

The twins rose to get the aspirin. “I’ll hold down the fort,” Ama said. She picked up a book and sat on her cot.

As soon as the twins left the room, Ama lifted Chloe’s pillowcase and reached her hand inside. She found a bundle of crumpled tissues. Something black and spindly was pressed between them, and mistaking this for a dead spider, Ama let out a little cry and dropped the tissue. But when she forced herself to open it, she discovered not an insect, but a small bale of coarse, black hair.

Ama stared at the hair for a moment. Then, as delicately as possible, she rewrapped it and placed it back where she’d found it in the pillowcase. In one smooth gesture, she tried to brush her imprint from the bed, wracking her mind to remember exactly how the sheet had been folded over the pillow. Fumbling, she made a double fold and, once in the hall, stopped to glance back at the bed with apprehension. When the twins appeared at the top of the stairs, she smiled guiltily at them, and excused herself to go the Iron Lung, closing the door behind her.

Maud arrived home more than four hours late, held up by errands. She was conscious of a silence that shouldn’t have existed with three teenage girls in the house. Draping Samuel’s laundered blue suits on the banister, she called her daughters’ names from the bottom of the stairs. Maud made her way to the kitchen, which was filled with austere light, and smelled of the marigolds rotting in a cloudy Mason jar. Maud whisked the jar off the table and tossed it in the garbage. Her eye fell on an open vial of pills on the counter.

Even as her pulse began to quicken, she continued to stand there, silent, unwilling to believe the faded label. Her anxiety hit her all at once, and dropping the bottle, she rushed for the stairs.

“Why did you do this?” said Maud, finding Ama on the landing.

Flushed and breathless, Ama stared, her large eyes confused.

Maud hurried to the master bedroom, with Ama following. Samuel lay on the bed, a dark distinct figure. He looked strange against the pink sheets, weightless; his body seemed to make no impression on the bed at all. Drawing a sharp breath, Maud lowered herself beside him.

“Samuel … Samuel , wake up.”

Ignoring Ama’s horrified look, Maud began to slap his cheeks. “Samuel, oh, good, get up. Yes, get up.” Seeing him rouse a little, Maud slapped Samuel a little harder. When he began waking, Maud wiped her eyes on the cuff of her sleeve and turned to Ama. “Don’t just stand there — get him some water.”

Ama stumbled from the room. When she returned to give Maud the glass, her hands shook so much water ran down its sides.

Samuel was fully awake now. He seemed fine, perfectly like himself, excepting the absent bowler, which gave him a curious boyish look. Frowning at the glass forced to his mouth, he kept raising his hand to indicate he wanted to speak. He finished the water, gasping.

“Since when has a man’s sleep attracted so many eyes?” said Samuel.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine. The twins gave me two aspirins about five hours ago. I feel very much recovered.”

Maud flinched. “My God, they did give it to you. But you look all right. How do you feel?”

Samuel smiled at Ama. “Oh, hello. I did not see you there.”

“Samuel,” said Maud, “how do you feel?”

Samuel shrugged. “Just as I said. Fine. Recovered.”

Maud wiped her eyes again. Samuel looked bewildered. Hesitating, he patted Maud’s elbow.

“Get up and have a stretch around,” she said. “Then we’re going to the hospital.”

Samuel started. “What? Wait, wait, wait. Is it one of the children?”

“You. You’re going.”

“Me? Don’t play the goat, I’m fine. What is this hospital business?”

Mrs. Tyne drew a sharp breath. “When I went out, I realized I’d taken the last aspirin three days ago, so I bought a new package. Only I come home to find this sitting on the counter. It’s codeine, Samuel. I didn’t even realize Jacob had this in the house.” Sniffling, she turned to Ama. “Where on earth did you even find this? And how could you give it to him when we all know how allergic he is?”

The look of terror on Ama’s face made Maud relent. The girl had probably had nothing to do with it, but it pained Maud too much to confront the alternate possibility. She gave Ama an apologetic look. She examined Samuel for signs of illness.

He looked shaken. “I do not feel dead, so perhaps I have outgrown my allergy.” He exhaled. “A little light-headed maybe, but I do not need any hospital.”

Maud considered. “At least let me call Eudora.”

“Oh, certainly, call her.” Samuel laughed a little. “But if you choose to do so, know that you are forfeiting the rest of your night to inane conversation. The woman is tenacious as a tick. Besides, I will not let her near me.”

“Samuel.”

“No, I mean it, call her. Just picture the headline for the next National Association of Petulant Bossy Women newsletter. ‘Another Domestic Crime Story,’ by Dora Frank. What news that would make.”

Maud scoffed, but he had hit a nerve. “Tell you what. If you get up out of bed, do something active for the next few hours, and let me check on you, we don’t have to go.”

“Amen,” said Samuel. He attempted to rise from the bed, but fell back, looking a little faint. “Just give me one minute.”

“Ama,” said Maud in a gentle voice. “Can we get your help?”

And with their help, one on each side of him, Samuel was lifted from the bed.

He did a little light gardening in the yard, cleared some sludge from the cellar, and by evening he felt strong enough to sit down to a broken television in his study. Maud and Ama kept an eye on him, checking for signs of his dying, and satisfied he wasn’t, they retired to the family room to knit. During the whole tense day no one mentioned the twins, not even to call them down for dinner. They likewise remained hidden, the door of their bedroom only opening when no one was upstairs. Maud heard its hinges creak from the kitchen.

But by dusk she could no longer ignore them. Leaving Ama, she crept upstairs and stood at the threshold of her daughters’ closed door. Raising a fist, she paused before knocking. There was no invitation to enter, but she did so anyway, frowning at the twins, who lay side by side on Chloe’s cot, reading. When they looked at her, their faces made her feel ashamed of what she’d come to say. But she cleared her throat.

“You gave the wrong pills on purpose,” she said, surprised at hearing these words instead of the speech she’d prepared. She was surprised, too, at the lack of conviction in her voice, a pleading sound. “You gave the wrong pills on purpose,” she said again, this time more firmly. She realized she wanted them to defend themselves.