Элисон Скотч - The Theory of Opposites

“Another child of divorce,” I say flatly.

“We’re not getting divorced, Willa. And I feel terrible for him.” He pauses and I wonder if maybe he won’t change his mind, if maybe Nicky is the one he’ll stay for, but I can be the one he discovers he needs. I should say this — I should scream please don’t go!! but my old habits get the best of me: why fight it when whatever will happen will happen? In this moment, I hate myself for my passivity, so I offer:

“Nicky might hate you for doing this.”

And he looks like I’ve pierced his heart, which is exactly what I hoped for.

“I’ve done everything in my life for him.” And this isn’t untrue: though we hadn’t yet met, I know that Shawn moved in with Amanda after Kyle was killed. He was in the delivery room; he took Nicky to his first day of preschool; he trekked out to the suburbs for Little League games on Saturday.

“Well, he still might hate you.” I’m pretty sure that’s not fair, but it’s easier to talk about Nicky’s feelings than mine.

“This has to be about me,” he says simply, zipping his heart back up.

I open the door for him, hurriedly trying to get him out now before he (or the universe) can inflict more anguish.

“Have a safe flight.” As if anyone can actually determine whether or not their flight will be safe, and if it isn’t, as if anyone can do anything about it anyway. United 93. How many of their spouses said, “Have a safe flight,” or “Safe travels,” or “Be careful.” Like that amounted to anything.

But Shawn just wheels his roller suitcase out the door and says:

“I will.”

Not giving destiny a second thought.

Raina’s two older kids were at day camp for the summer, but her younger two, the identical twins, Bobby and Greyson, were left in the care of Gloria, the super-nanny, during the long summer days. To everyone who knew them, they were known as “the twins,” and Raina sometimes worried to me (when she had time to worry about such things) that they’d never form identities outside their twindom. From a distance, and even mostly up close, you honest to God couldn’t tell them apart: tow-headed, impish, both with a splash of freckles across their cheeks, exactly the same height, exactly the same weight…it was as if your mind were playing tricks on you. That you were seeing double (you were), but not in a literal sense, only as an illusion. Raina insisted on dressing them differently, so if I ever got confused, I just remembered that Bobby wore the graphic tees and Grey went for preppy chic. Also, Bobby fell off the jungle gym four months ago and knocked out his top right tooth, so when he smiles, I always have a second of clarity: “Ah, that’s Bobby.”

Identical twins freaked me out a bit, not just because they were really strange to look at but also because they felt like official confirmation of my father’s prophesies. If Raina’s egg hadn’t split, only one of them would be here. They wouldn’t have these tangled identities, they wouldn’t have the other half who could occasionally read the other’s mind or know what the other wanted before he even knew himself. There would just be one. Bobby. Or Grey. Which one would it have been?

Today on the subway, Bobby swats Grey across the face for no particular reason. Grey was annoying him, I suppose, just for being there. Grey starts shrieking, his pale cheeks now a shade of brighter pink, and Bobby grins up at me, half-toothless, like I’m in on the joke. Like he’s saying, “Yeah, bitch, so what? I’d have been the twin who would have survived.”

Though Nicky is eight years older than the twins, it was his idea to invite them to the Bodies exhibit down at South Street Seaport. I asked him twice if he were sure that he wanted two sweaty four-year olds along because frankly, I wasn’t even sure that I wanted two sweaty four-year-olds along, but he looked at me like I had three heads and said, “Yeah, of course. They’re cute. Don’t you like kids or something?”

I didn’t have a response quite prepared because who the hell knew if I really did like kids? I barely liked myself. And while Nicky had grown on me in the four days since my husband had opted to zipline from office to office rather than honor ’til death do us part, I wasn’t exactly about to pledge undying maternalism to the twelve-year-old either. For one, puberty was doing really strange things to his sweat glands, and for two, his 9/11 status aside, he really was a little disturbingly consumed with death. Which is how we ended up at the Bodies exhibit in the first place.

“Can’t you just ask if they can come?” he whined.

“I really don’t think this is appropriate for four-year-olds.”

“Everyone dies, Willa,” he said. “Facts are facts. Even four-year-olds need to know that.”

I was going to argue, but I found myself too tired to, so I texted Raina to inquire. And she immediately texted me back and said:

GRT!!!! Gloria will have boys rdy in 30.

On the subway now, Grey finally stops crying and turns his sad face into a furious one. He stares at the grimy floor, biting his lip, and flaring his nostrils.

“He’s a little touchy because his fish died this morning.” Gloria kisses his head.

“Frank died,” Bobby echoes matter-of-factly.

“Everyone dies,” Nicky says. Then to me: “See, I told you.”

“We woke up and he was floating in his bowl,” Bobby clarifies, his little reedy voice carrying all throughout the subway car. He pronounces “floating” like fwoating , and a small part of me wishes in that instant that he were mine. Raina has told me motherhood is like this: a series of tiny moments that add up to an enormous love, with lots of other moments of frustration and misunderstanding and complexity woven in between.

“That must have been sad. Did that make you sad?” I crouch down to his level.

Bobby shrugs. Grey says nothing, though his nostrils still flare, his lips still purse. He holds a grudge, I can see, just like his grandfather. Punjab Sharma!

“Grey, your Aunt Willa asked you a question,” Gloria says.

“It’s okay, he doesn’t have to answer. I get it.” I right myself upward.

The subway jolts and on instinct ( ignore your instincts!), we all reach for a pole, a shoulder. Grey reaches for Gloria. Then he looks at me.

“Frank didn’t die. Bobby killed him.”

“Did not!” Bobby yells.

“Did too!” Grey shouts back. He curls up his tiny fist, anger churning through him.

“ Did not! ”

Before Gloria can even stop him, Grey’s arm is in the air, his knuckles aimed squarely at Bobby’s remaining upper tooth. But then fate intervenes — or the train conductor just hits the brakes too quickly — and we all heave forward unexpectedly. Bobby falls atop Gloria’s knees, and Grey, poor Grey, trips backward and lands squarely, firmly, on his bottom.

Who knows why it plays out this way, with Frank dead and Bobby triumphant and sad little Grey on the disgusting floor of the train where various forms of bacteria could be infesting him even as we speak.

I look down at him, the defeat on his face, and I offer him a hand, pulling him up.

“I’m okay,” he says, though his full eyes and trembling chin betray him.

“I am too,” I reply. Though I have my own laundry list of betrayals too.

Vanessa meets us at the exhibit, her exuberance dialed up to ten, which I find a little disrespectful in light of my current life situation, not to mention the countless dead bodies on display.

“I have an idea,” she says to me, as we stop to stare at some poor guy’s muscle tissue. “And it’s an awesome fricking idea.”