One

‘Wow.’

  I just find it funny

  that’s she’s paid us for this,

  and that

  something so boring

  could ever

  make it to TV.

  A Postcard

  I love it here.

  All we do is DANCE!

  Don’t make me come back to New Jersey …

  Love, Dragon

  xxxxxxx

  Snow

  The brown, yellow, and red leaves of fall

  have disintegrated to dust.

  The white sky opens

  and snow descends.

  It is winter.

  Collapse

  Lumbering across the quadrangle on our way

  to French,

  it is

  Tippi who collapses,

  hitting the gravel

  hard

  and

  I spill right on top of her.

  Caroline gasps

  and Paul drops the camera,

  which cracks against the ground.

  I wait a few seconds.

  I wait

  for Tippi’s eyes to open—

  for her to shoo Caroline away with a casual

  ‘I’m OK,

  I’m OK.’

  But those words do not come.

  Caroline seizes my shirt.

  ‘I can’t find her pulse.

  Why can’t I feel her bloody heart beating?’

  and

  ‘For Christ’s sake, someone call an ambulance!’

  Shane phones for help.

  And help arrives.

  We speed along the

  highway

  in the back of an ambulance,

  wires plugged into us both

  and beeping like an alarm

  in the background.

  My heart pounds

  and I wait.

  My breath thins

  and I wait.

  I wait

  for Tippi’s eyes to open.

  But they do not.

  Because this time

  we are not

  OK.

  Hospital

  The walls of the room are white and clean—

  all signs of yesterday’s sorrows scrubbed

  away with bleach.

  The lights are bright and above the quiet

  bulky TV set in the corner

  is a painting of a poppy field.

  Perhaps it’s meant to be soothing,

  but for some reason

  it makes me think

  of war,

  of teenagers running into a field at dawn

  then falling down dead,

  red blood blooming beneath their bodies.

  Someone close by is sucking on a sweet,

  the hard sound echoing in the small room

  along with Tippi’s quiet breathing.

  I want to speak,

  say that I am ready to get up and go home,

  if she is.

  But I am so tired

  I cannot talk.

  I close my eyes and

  darkness reclaims me.

  In the Darkness

  I wake again.

  Tippi’s eyes are wide and on me.

  ‘What’s happening to us?’ I say.

  ‘We’ll figure it out,’ she replies,

  and holds me.

  Testing

  Mom, Dad, and Grammie are dozing in

  armchairs when an orderly strolls in,

  his rubber shoes squeaking on the

  linoleum.

  ‘Let’s go, girls!’

  he says

  in a thick Jersey accent

  and whistles while he

  wheels us down the corridor,

  as if we are going for a couple of pedicures

  and not being taken for testing,

  where doctors will scan and probe and

  devour our privacy.

  I cross my fingers on both hands for luck,

  like that could alter the outcome.

  The Visitor

  We’ve been

  transferred to the Rhode Island Children’s Hospital,

  almost two hundred miles from home,

  so Yasmeen and Jon

  cannot come to visit.

  Instead they text a million times a day

  and send pictures

  from The Church

  of themselves drinking, smoking,

  pretending to kill each another,

  which make us laugh

  and long to be better.

  Our only visitor

  apart from Mom, Dad, and Grammie

  is Caroline Henley,

  who comes every day

  and secretly brings things no one else will

  let us have,

  like chips and soda.

  Paul and Shane do not come with her

  and she doesn’t mention

  the documentary

  or all the money she’s paid to peer at our lives.

  I want to be suspicious,

  but Caroline,

  it seems,

  cares.

  Decency

  ‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ Tippi says

  when Caroline opens our window

  to let out the smell of the morning’s bacon.

  ‘You paid a lot for full access and now,

  when it gets exciting,

  you don’t even want an interview.

  No one can be that noble.’

  Caroline pulls a Kleenex from

  her bag and blows her nose

  hard.

  ‘I’m not noble,’ Caroline says.

  ‘But I am a human being.’

  ‘A very decent human being,’ Tippi tells her,

  and smiles.

  Me

  Mom is carrying an old Scrabble box

  and a bag of clementines.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ I ask.

  Mom points at the window.

  ‘He’s parking the car,’ she says.

  ‘Why? Did you think he might be at a bar?’

  I shrug.

  Mom sniffs.

  ‘Good God, Gracie,

  it really is time

  you started focusing

  on yourself.’

  Results

  Dr Derrick’s office doors open

  and we are pushed inside in an

  especially wide wheelchair.

  I hold Tippi’s hand tightly and wait for the verdict.

  But Dr Derrick does not put it simply.

  He displays scans and diagrams

  and talks

  and talks

  and talks,

  galloping through explanations of the

  MRIs, echocardiograms,

  gastrointestinal contrast studies,

  and all the other big tests

  we’ve been put through this week.

  I stop listening to watch a bird on the tree outside

  hop along a branch and

  peep

  in the window at us

  like a regular paparazzo.

  Finally Dad raises a hand,

  stops Dr Derrick dead,

  and says, ‘And what does this all mean

  for my daughters?’

  Dr Derrick taps his forefingers together in time

  to the wall clock ticking above him and says,

  ‘The prognosis together is not good.’

  We are silent.

  He continues.

  ‘Grace has developed cardiomyopathy

  and Tippi is supporting her,

  supporting her and a very dilated heart.

  We can’t repair the damage.

  The only course of action

  in the long term

  is to replace the whole heart.

  If we don’t,

  Grace will get sicker,

  they both will,

  until …’

  He looks at a graph like the terrible answers

  are buried in its lines.


  ‘I have to recommend a separation.

  We would keep Grace stable with drugs and

  a ventricular device until she’d recovered.

  Then she would go on a transplant list.’

  I do not know how to hold

  everything Dr Derrick is saying in my head

  all at once.

  It is so much.

  It is too much.

  It is more than I could have imagined.

  And it is all my fault.

  All my stupid heart’s fault.

  ‘Separation at this age is tricky and very unusual,’ Dr Derrick goes on.

  ‘It isn’t without massive risks and costs,

  especially to Grace,

  but it looks like the only option

  we’ve got

  left.’

  He pushes papers at us—

  step by step instructions on how to

  carve

  a space

  between

  two people

  before ripping

  out the heart of one of them.

  My insides harden.

  My blood pumps fast.

  My head spins.

  ‘No. Absolutely not.

  We’ll take our chances as we are,’ Tippi says.

  ‘You can knock us both out

  and put a new heart in.

  Or do whatever it is you have to do.

  You don’t have to separate us first.

  Don’t say you have to do that.’

  Dr Derrick makes his face a rock.

  ‘Grace isn’t eligible for a transplant while conjoined.

  We can’t do anything to help her

  if she’s still attached to you.

  The drugs alone

  would put you in too much danger.’

  He pauses to give us time to

  think about what this means,

  to contemplate our own demise,

  and taps his forefingers together again.

  We all stare speechless at Dr Derrick, who might as well be God.

  I let go of Tippi’s hand

  and pull myself up straight

  because Dr Derrick is right,

  I am the problem,

  me and my dying heart,

  and his solution is fitting.

  ‘We should give it a go,’ I say.

  And for both of us: ‘Yes, let’s do it.’

  Mom goes white.

  ‘Might be best to think about it overnight,’ she says.

  ‘Or longer,’ Dad adds.

  ‘I mean, what’s changed?

  How can it have changed?’

  Dr Derrick blinks.

  ‘When I saw you last time

  you were fine.

  Nothing too worrying at all.

  But.

  I suspect …

  I suspect it was the flu that did it.

  A viral infection is often to blame for

  cardiomyopathy.

  It’s just terrible luck that Grace’s heart reacted as it did.’

  Silence seeps into the room again.

  The bird outside

  flies away with wide wings.

  And then Mom speaks. She wants the statistics.

  She wants Dr Derrick to tell her

  in hard, whole numbers what the chances are

  of any number of tragedies

  befalling us.

  ‘I believe there is a possibility we can be successful,’

  is all he can say.

  And I know what this means.

  I have read reports.

  I have read old newspapers.

  When conjoined twins are separated,

  it’s deemed a success so

  long as one of them lives.

  For a while.

  And that,

  to me,

  is the saddest thing

  I know about how

  people see us.

  ‘Give me numbers,’ Mom insists.

  ‘I want to know what happens if we do nothing.’

  Dr Derrick sighs.

  He closes the files on his desk

  and leans forward.

  ‘Left as it is,

  they’ll both die.’

  Mom starts to cry.

  Dad holds her hand.

  ‘With a separation, they have hope,

  a fighting chance,

  but I can’t put a number on it.

  If I did, it would be low.

  It would be quite low.’

  Mom whimpers

  and then Dad does, too.

  ‘I know this isn’t good news.

  But go home.

  Take time to think it over.

  Until then, no school. Nothing strenuous.

  Eat and sleep properly.

  And keep away from cigarettes and alcohol,’ Dr Derrick says.

  He smiles suddenly making it sound like we

  have a choice

  and years to figure this out,

  when I know,

  deep down,

  we don’t.

  Time is already

  running out.

  Gratis

  Before we leave Rhode Island,

  our dirty clothes

  balled up in clear plastic bags,

  Dr Derrick

  pops his head into our room and asks to

  speak to Mom and Dad again

  privately.

  They leave looking ashen

  but return with their faces

  halved of worry.

  ‘The entire team will do the procedures for free,’

  Mom tells us,

  ‘if that’s what you decide you want.’

  Tippi and I have cost our family

  a fortune,

  yet the most expensive procedure of all

  they will do for nothing.

  They needn’t

  pretend this is a kindness:

  everyone knows that

  no matter what happens to us,

  an operation like that would make the doctors famous,

  and that’s worth a lot more to them

  than dollars in the bank.

  An Elephant in the Room

  On the drive home, Dad tells terrible jokes

  that we’ve heard before

  but which we laugh at anyway,

  loudly,

  fearful of what we’d have to discuss if he

  stopped.

  It’s as though we are a carefree, unbroken family,

  like the ones you see in advertisements for laundry detergent.

  It’s as though we haven’t been in the hospital,

  as though we’re returning from a trip to the beach

  and wearing good moods like glimmering tans.

  It’s as though we haven’t understood that if we go ahead

  we’ll both be left with one leg and hip and be wheelchair bound

  for life.

  It’s as though no one knows

  I’m quietly killing Tippi.

  Mom points to a McDonald’s. ‘Lunch?’

  Usually I would complain about animal welfare,

  about cows kept in fields full of their own shit,

  but today I am shamed and silent as

  Tippi licks her lips and lists all the

  McFlurry flavors.

  We pull into the drive-thru

  and eat smelly burgers

  and thick shakes from our laps,

  the traffic blaring by

  so we can’t hear each other chew or swallow

  or breathe.

  And even when we get home and Dad makes coffee

  (like he still lives here),

  we pretend everything is perfect

  and that the elephant in the room who is heaving down our necks

  is nothing but a mouse, way more scared of us

  than we are of it.

  A Heart That Beats for Two

  If I were a singleton

  I might have dropped dead by now.
br />   Instead

  my sister bears the burden of keeping me alive,

  of pumping most of the blood around our bodies.

  Instead

  I freeload.

  And she

  doesn’t complain.

  A Parasite

  She makes me look at her,

  holding my chin with cold fingertips.

  ‘We’re doing fine as we are,’ she says.

  She says, ‘We’re meant to be together.

  If we separate, we’ll die.’

  Tippi’s lips are dry.

  Her face is grey.

  She looks likes she’s

  lived longer than

  anyone I know.

  ‘You think we’re partners but really

  I’m a parasite,’ I whisper.

  ‘I don’t want to suck

  your life from you.’

  ‘Oh come on, Grace,’ she says,

  ‘all this you and me is a lie.

  There has only ever been us.

  So

  I won’t do it.

  You can’t make me

  have an operation.’

  ‘But I’m a parasite,’ I repeat,

  and in my head say it

  over and over.

  Parasite. Parasite. Parasite.

  All I want now is to save Tippi.

  If I can.

  Welcome

  Caroline Henley is back.

  ‘Do you mind?

  I know it’s a difficult time,’

  she says.

  Despite her contract,

  she hasn’t tried to film anything

  or get an interview

  in over two weeks.

  She has proven she isn’t the paparazzi.