been a blizzard, and if the truck hadn’t gone off the road into the ditch, and if the plow hadn’t chosen to do Route 12 before Glass Factory Road, my mother, Tamar, and mygrand father would have gotten to the hospital on time and my twin sister and I would have been born in the hospital and my sister would have lived. This is what I believe to be true.
“My mother didn’t name my sister,” I told the old man after we were
compadres
. “She did not give her own child a name. Is that even a possibility?”
“Anything’s a possibility,” the old man said.
“But she buried her,” I said. “You don’t bury someone unless you think of her as someone. If she was someone enough to bury, she was someone enough to have a name.”
“You don’t know what was going through your mother’s head.”
“But her own child?”
“She was not
your
child, she was your sister,” the old man said. “There’s a difference.”
My sister is stuck forever at the spot where she was born. She was born there and she died there, while I lived and grew. I’m still growing. There’s no telling how tall I’ll be when all’s said and done.
Tamar doesn’t have the memory to connect her September blue sky and the smell of autumn leaves with the coming snow and what it means. She pushes it out of her mind. She pretends there never was another baby. She pretends that I was the only one. You don’t have a sister, she says, stop dragging her into conversation all the time.
“But what would you have named her?” I used to ask her.
I can’t help it. I’ve got to know.
“I wouldn’t have named her anything,” Tamar says. “She was born
dead
. And that’s the end of it.”
“But what if?” I say. “What if? Just tell me. Just give her a name.”
She doesn’t answer. She never answers. She has condemned me forever to think of my sister as Blank.
“She wasn’t ever alive!” Tamar says. “Get it through your head, Clara.
You never had a sister.”
I did, though. She swam beside me for nine months. We might have held hands inside Tamar’s womb. Our noses might have touched. She might have played a game with me, pushing me around with her tiny unborn foot.
If you have seen a death certificate, you know what a small piece of paper it is. If you have ever searched your mother’s bureau drawer for something that would be proof of your twin sister’s existence, you might have been surprised at how small and simple a death certificate is. You don’t even have to put someone’s name down on a death certificate. If the person who died was a baby, all you have to put is “Baby” and the baby’s last name. For example, “Baby Girl Winter.”
If only the snow hadn’t been blowing horizontally the way it does in an upstate New York blizzard, if my grandfather had only been able to rock his truck out of the ditch. If only Tamar hadn’t mistaken early labor pains for indigestion and started for Utica sooner, if only we had just managed to stay inside her belly instead of forcing our way out. If only Angelica Rose Beaudoin, American Midwife, had been a real person.
But that’s a different story. That’s the story I would have written myself: my twin sister and I alive together, each the other’s half, one child under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. That’s the kind of book report I would have written, if I had made up a book about me and my sister.
“I want my sister,” I said. “I want Baby Girl Winter.”
The old man said nothing. He got up and carried his coffee cup and the plate that my sugar cookie had been on to his miniature sink. He put the stopper in and squeezed one small squirt of dish soap into the sink, then ran hot water. I watched him do that the exact same way every single time I ever visited the old man.
Chapter Five
W hat sorts of books are placed by garbage cans on garbage night in the town of Sterns? Mainly they’re old class books, the kind people carry around in
“My mother didn’t name my sister,” I told the old man after we were
compadres
. “She did not give her own child a name. Is that even a possibility?”
“Anything’s a possibility,” the old man said.
“But she buried her,” I said. “You don’t bury someone unless you think of her as someone. If she was someone enough to bury, she was someone enough to have a name.”
“You don’t know what was going through your mother’s head.”
“But her own child?”
“She was not
your
child, she was your sister,” the old man said. “There’s a difference.”
My sister is stuck forever at the spot where she was born. She was born there and she died there, while I lived and grew. I’m still growing. There’s no telling how tall I’ll be when all’s said and done.
Tamar doesn’t have the memory to connect her September blue sky and the smell of autumn leaves with the coming snow and what it means. She pushes it out of her mind. She pretends there never was another baby. She pretends that I was the only one. You don’t have a sister, she says, stop dragging her into conversation all the time.
“But what would you have named her?” I used to ask her.
I can’t help it. I’ve got to know.
“I wouldn’t have named her anything,” Tamar says. “She was born
dead
. And that’s the end of it.”
“But what if?” I say. “What if? Just tell me. Just give her a name.”
She doesn’t answer. She never answers. She has condemned me forever to think of my sister as Blank.
“She wasn’t ever alive!” Tamar says. “Get it through your head, Clara.
You never had a sister.”
I did, though. She swam beside me for nine months. We might have held hands inside Tamar’s womb. Our noses might have touched. She might have played a game with me, pushing me around with her tiny unborn foot.
If you have seen a death certificate, you know what a small piece of paper it is. If you have ever searched your mother’s bureau drawer for something that would be proof of your twin sister’s existence, you might have been surprised at how small and simple a death certificate is. You don’t even have to put someone’s name down on a death certificate. If the person who died was a baby, all you have to put is “Baby” and the baby’s last name. For example, “Baby Girl Winter.”
If only the snow hadn’t been blowing horizontally the way it does in an upstate New York blizzard, if my grandfather had only been able to rock his truck out of the ditch. If only Tamar hadn’t mistaken early labor pains for indigestion and started for Utica sooner, if only we had just managed to stay inside her belly instead of forcing our way out. If only Angelica Rose Beaudoin, American Midwife, had been a real person.
But that’s a different story. That’s the story I would have written myself: my twin sister and I alive together, each the other’s half, one child under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. That’s the kind of book report I would have written, if I had made up a book about me and my sister.
“I want my sister,” I said. “I want Baby Girl Winter.”
The old man said nothing. He got up and carried his coffee cup and the plate that my sugar cookie had been on to his miniature sink. He put the stopper in and squeezed one small squirt of dish soap into the sink, then ran hot water. I watched him do that the exact same way every single time I ever visited the old man.
Chapter Five
W hat sorts of books are placed by garbage cans on garbage night in the town of Sterns? Mainly they’re old class books, the kind people carry around in
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