When
Amy entered the house, no one was home. She looked around and noticed
everything was as tidy as a museum; this wasn’t at all like the cozy home it
had been when she and her younger twin brothers were growing up.
The
only thing besides the worn, folded blanket on the back of the sofa that spoke
of a lived-in home was the book on the side able. She looked at the title, and
recognized the book Kit had forgotten from his visit. Since she’d be in Cardiff
at the end of the week, he’d asked her to stop by for it. She had deliberately
chosen a time when her mother would be out and her father was still at work.
While
she loved visiting her parents, today she had quite a bit to do, and simply
didn’t want to be delayed.
As
she picked up the book, what looked like a letter fell out of it. She stooped to
pick it up and saw, “To Brynn Michael Evans from Christopher Morgan Evans,
Bangor, Wales.” scrolled across the empty back page . The handwriting wasn’t the scrawl of his childhood, but his adult penmanship.
She
wondered when Kit would have even needed to write to Brynn. She couldn’t think
of them ever being apart for more than the length of a class in school or one
of Bryn’s football matches. Once Kit left for University in 1983, Brynn was gone.
Curiosity
got the better of her, and she opened the pages and read.
17 April, 1990
Dear Brynn,
To
anyone reading this, I must surely seem mad. I was told by wiser heads that in
order to move on, I need to confront my demons.
Strange
as it is for me to even think this, much less write it, you have been my demon
for the last seven years. It’s only now that I can tell you what has disturbed
me since the accident.
Of
course, regaining consciousness after my injuries to find you had not survived
was the most exquisitely unbearable pain. For several days, despite my hopes
and dreams for the future, I had no desire to remain on this earth since you
were not on it.
Your hopes and
dreams had been crushed by a vehicle driven by one who had no business behind
the wheel. There was no satisfaction in knowing that driver had also perished;
he had led a long and distinguished life.
My lack of
desire for life was no match for the medical prowess of the doctors. Their
refusal to allow me to give up kept me alive.
But before the
hospital, before the crash, the two of us were happy knowing our own secrets,
suspecting each other’s. I hoped a certain girl I’d met at the party where you
lost your virginity – I knew that before you admitted it – would be at the one
we were going to that night. Having read some of your journals since, I know
you had similar expectations of seeing someone that night. Whether or not our expectations
would have been met, I’ll never know.
As
the headlamps hurtled toward your door, I screamed, not from pain – yet – but horror
at your being mangled. What I never told anyone, no matter how they pushed or
why, was that you screamed, too. Your head was turned toward the car bearing
down on ours. The doctors said that was why your spinal cord was severed. An
internal decapitation, they called it. But in the seconds before impact you
screamed,
I didn’t understand why you said, “God, don’t let me die! Kit, help me,” in Welsh. You seldom spoke Welsh, even to me.
And
in the interminable instant just before impact, we both reverted to our secret twin
speak, the language everyone insisted we’d left behind before we started
nursery. But we both know better. Simple phrases, the odd word, remain with us,
even today. Someevie – our expression
for “I love you,” came out of both of our mouths – or perhaps we only thought
it to each other. I can hear, even now, your 17-year-old voice saying it. Someevie, Kit. Someevie, Brynn. Ekee nom: Be awesome.
But
as toddlers, we didn’t know the word awesome. Ekee nom was “be the whole world.” Only when we were older did ekee nom mean “be awesome.” You told me
that every time before I went onstage. I still hear you say it every opening
night, or before the first table read for a film or telly show.
And
as I was slammed against the side of the car, and you were crushed by the attacking
car, I knew the instant your soul left your body, even though I told everyone I
didn’t remember what happened. There was a horrid attempt for you to take a
breath that couldn’t come because the nerves that allowed it had been severed,
the moment you knew you were dying. A broken rib punctured one of my lungs, and
as I tried to take a breath, I had a similar experience, although not from the
same cause.
And
in that instant, my head was flooded with more twin speak words than I thought
I knew, yet I understood it all. Someevie,
Kit. Ekee nom alegat. Be awesome for us
both.
There
was much more, far more than anyone outside the two of us would have accepted
as possible in that instant. Yet, it was like someone was trying to fill a
pitcher with the tap opened full, trying to fill it before the water was cut
off. I know the things you said, and they were not things I would have thought
to say. It’s still too painful to recall it all at once, much less translate it
from twin speak.
Your
insistence at my being awesome likely had a good deal to do with my failure to
die in the first few weeks.
Surviving
without you, trying to figure out a way forward, was sometimes more painful
than my physical injuries. Mr. Mac, the psychologist I went to, was a great
help. Yet, despite his having also been a twin who lost his other, sometimes he
simply didn’t know what he was talking about. Actually, I was surprised Mam and
Da even allowed me to seek psychological help.
I
started to read your journals to try to learn what I didn’t know about you as
well as to find meaning in everything you poured into the instant before you
died. If only I’d read certain entries early on, I could have avoided some
emotional pain from others.
I
made the mistake of being taken in by Tegan Davies, your twin groupie nemesis.
Had I only known about her from your experiences, I could have avoided her.
Still, she burrowed in when I was most vulnerable, so any kindness, no matter
how evilly intended, I drank in without a second thought.
Even
when I seemed to be moving forward, my desperation to protect you made me make the
most egregious mistakes socially. But then, we both know I was the one without
social skills.
It
took a few years of walking into emotional walls before I realized I was angry.
Mr. Mac knew it – he’d gone through the same loss under different circumstances
– and tried to get me to examine who I was angry with.
I thought it was Mam – you were her boy as I was Da’s – and she was never comfortable with the things I did to heal. I frequently made her cry, although I didn’t mean to.
Sometimes I thought it was everyone. Perhaps Tegan. Perhaps a
girl at Uni who did something similar to what Tegan did. But the girl at Uni
was reacting to my cavalier behavior. In hindsight, I’m not proud of the way I
treated her.
But
the anger stayed long after I’d healed from those experiences. Mr. Mac proved
to be right in that instance. I was angry with you.
I
was angry with you for dying. I was angry because I felt I didn’t know you as
well as I should, especially when several people – including Mam – said things
about you that I didn’t think were true. And I began to doubt my understanding
of you at all.
I
couldn’t tell any of those people the twin speak things you’d said. I began to
doubt you’d said them at all. It might have been simply wishful thinking on my
part. Maybe you didn’t say them. Perhaps you’d simply stolen my soul and left
me with nothing.
No,
you were never like that in life. You couldn’t be that way in death, a death
over which you had no control.
When
I recognized that, I finally started to heal.
I
confess I didn’t come to those conclusions on my own. Nancy made me recognize
that.
I
don’t know if you knew Nancy. She’s the girl you teased me for snogging at the
infamous party. She came back into my life at the end of Uni, and has continued
as my Cariad to the present. No one
else knows, but I intend to propose later this year.
She was supposed
to be my date to the BAFTAs, but had to have an emergency appendectomy the day
before. I asked Mam to go with me, but she didn’t think it was appropriate for
a boy to take his mam. So, I asked Amy, and after some coaxing, she agreed. It
turns out she wears the same size clothes as Nancy, and was, as she put it, going elegant in Nancy’s gown – Nancy insisted. Oh, and I won the BAFTA – for my
first film, too – in case you were wondering.
So,
now I think I’ve got over being angry with you. None of it was your doing. I’ve
been trying to make my life something of which you would be proud – since I’m living
for us both.
Do
you remember when we used to laugh when people would ask us what it was like to
be a twin? We always said we didn’t know what it was like not to be a twin. Well, now I do.
I can’t say it holds a candle to being a twin. I don’t know if
singles-from-birth feel the loneliness. That’s the hardest part. It’s a loneliness
that no one else can fill.
You
were the best brother. Diolch yn fawr.
And
in case you didn’t know, Someeve,
Brynn. Ekee nom.
Love
from this side of the abyss,
Kit
Amy
folded the pages of the letter, and returned them to the back of the book.
She
thought, after Brynn’s death, that she and Kit had become closer. Some people
even suggested she was a surrogate for Brynn. Now she knew they were wrong.
Kit’s
openness in what he’d written – perhaps believing that no one would ever see it
while he was alive – was shocking. She wasn’t sure she could take it all in.
And she’d have to pretend she didn’t know these things. He wouldn’t tell
anyone, especially if he hadn’t told Mr. Mac.
She
did wonder why he’d committed this information to paper. Brynn had been so good
at keeping a journal, and Kit had been so rubbish at it. Perhaps bursts of
candor were the closest he could come.
Armed
with the book Kit had asked for, she left the house.
