The Mirror Sisters

  “How many times have I told you?” she began, in a much calmer tone than I’d expected. “Don’t you know how important it is that you defend each other and protect each other? You will never, ever have a friend more loyal or caring than your sister. If someone attacks one of you with a nasty word or does something physical to one of you when you attend school, you must defend and attack together. You must always think of yourselves as one.

  “Let me tell you why,” she continued, her voice becoming more like her teacher voice, patient and reasonable. Haylee looked up, and so did I. “Because you are so close and so dedicated to each other, jealous girls and boys will try to get you to hurt each other. They will try to . . . to wedge themselves between you.” She pressed her hands together and sliced the air. “They will whisper terrible things in your ears, claiming one of you has said something nasty about the other.

  “Some,” she said, now strutting up and down like she did when she gave us a lecture in our home classroom, “will be very, very clever about it. They will act as if they really don’t want to tell you these things about your sister. Oh, how much pain they’ll pretend to be in. They’ll make it seem as if you demanded that they tell you something so they can’t be blamed for starting trouble.”

  She smiled. “Think about the way I explained how Adam and Eve lost the Garden of Eden. The snake whispered into Eve’s ear and made it seem as if God was afraid that she would realize how beautiful she was, how much like a goddess she was. The snake, which was the devil, made God seem bad. Remember?”

  We nodded simultaneously.

  “Good. Well, other students, and, I’m sorry to say, other girls mostly, will want to ruin your beautiful relationship with each other. They’ll be whispering in your ears. They won’t have anything like what you have as sisters. Every friend they’ve trusted has betrayed them, but you will never betray each other, because that would be the same as betraying yourself. See?”

  Again, we nodded. She reached down to stroke our hair and pat us on the heads.

  “You are my precious,” she said. She didn’t say precious what, just “precious,” because we were her precious everything. “Now,” she continued, “this is why whenever there is an urge to disagree or argue, you must battle it, smother it, stamp on it, beat it to death. Those bad urges will be fanned by the snakes around you. So I don’t want to hear you raising your voices to each other, and I especially never, ever want you telling stories about yourselves. If you break something, you don’t tell who broke it. You both broke it, understand? Don’t tell on each other, even to your father or me.

  “Yes. I saw the look on your faces when I said ‘even me.’ I know too well how a child can get her parents to favor her by constantly running to them to reveal something bad that the other child did. In my time in school, among my girlfriends, I saw many sisters—who weren’t identical twins, of course—try to get their parents to favor one of them over the other. Of course, they were nowhere near as close to each other as you are. Jealousy and green envy. That’s what caused it. You’re too young to fully understand this, but it’s scientifically called sibling rivalry. In time, you will fully understand what it is and why it is the worst sin of all for you. Then you’ll remember what I told you today and be grateful.

  “However, the truth is that you don’t need to worry about sibling rivalry, because there is no way I would favor one of you over the other. That would be like my favoring my right leg over my left. I want both my legs to be equally strong, don’t I? Otherwise, I would limp. That’s how you must think,” she said, obviously excited about the analogy she had just made. “Yes, yes, that’s it. You must think of yourselves as parts of the same body, the invisible you, the Haylee-Kaylee you or the Kaylee-Haylee you. If you don’t, you will always limp through life. Do you understand?”

  We nodded. I understood a little, but I didn’t think Haylee even wanted to understand any of it.

  “Good. I knew you would,” she said, and then, as she always did when we were side by side, she knelt down, embraced us both, and hugged us both against her breasts and her face, actually kissing us with one kiss, her lips touching Haylee and me simultaneously. “Now, go back to your room and think about all this. Cherish it.”

  We rose, and I took Haylee’s hand so we would walk out together. Mother loved to see us do that. The more we touched each other, the happier she was, and we both wanted Mother to be happy, almost more than we wanted happiness for ourselves. Or at least, I did.

  Now, though, when Mother stepped into our bedroom this time, she looked very upset, even though I hadn’t had the chance to argue with Haylee about whom Mother looked at more for the right answers when she asked questions. Something else was obviously bothering her, something far worse.

  “Somebody went into my jewelry box and played with my bracelets and necklaces,” she said. “They are not where they are supposed to be, and for a little while, I thought something very valuable was missing. Who did this?”

  I looked at Haylee. I knew I hadn’t done it, but I didn’t know for sure that she had, and even if I did, I would never say it.

  “She did,” Haylee said, and pointed at me. “I told her not to. I saw her go into your bedroom and go to your jewelry box.”

  I held my breath. I had never done that, and Haylee knew it. It was shocking to hear her accuse me, and for a few moments, I had trouble breathing. It was as if some very heavy thing had been put on my chest.

  Mother stepped forward, her eyes looking like sparkling ashes in the fireplace. I wanted to shake my head and say that Haylee was lying, but I didn’t, because then I would be accusing her of something. Mother looked at me as if she expected me to say it. When I didn’t, I was surprised to see a small smile on her lips, but then she reached out and pinched Haylee’s earlobe, practically lifting her off the floor. Haylee screamed.

  “You’re in detention,” Mother declared. “March out.”

  “Why?” Haylee protested. “I didn’t do it. She did it.”

  Mother stopped. “This was a test,” she said. “No one touched my jewelry. Didn’t I tell you never, ever to hurt each other, blame each other, or get each other in trouble? Didn’t I?”

  “Yes,” Haylee said through her tears.

  “Well, you just did it. You disobeyed a very special and important rule.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry isn’t good enough. You’re in detention for the rest of the day,” she said. “Go.”

  Haylee didn’t look back. She lowered her head and left the bedroom to go downstairs to the pantry, where Mother put us if we disobeyed her about anything. She would not let the light be put on, either, and there were no windows. There was nothing to do but sit in the dark. Just having to stay in there for ten minutes was horrible. The rest of the day meant that Haylee would be in there for hours!

  I did feel sorry for her, even though she had tried to get me in trouble. I felt sorry for her for two reasons. She just didn’t listen when Mother forbade us time and time again to say or do anything to hurt each other. Either she couldn’t obey that rule or she was just too stubborn to do it. This meant that she would get Mother angry at her again and again and would be punished again and again. No matter what, when one of us did something that displeased Mother, she was too angry to be nice to the other one, so I would have to keep myself from looking at her. It was best to stay away until Haylee was forgiven.

  And of course, I felt sorry for Haylee sitting alone in the darkness. I couldn’t help it. Ever since we were infants, if one of us suffered some pain and began to wail, the other would, too. Once, when Haylee cut herself on a piece of glass she had picked up outside, Mother looked at the wound and then, using the same piece of glass, cut me on the same finger. She said she did that so we would always feel sorry for each other and understand what each other suffered.

  Daddy saw the Band-Aids on our fingers and was curious.

  “They both picked up broken glass outside,” Mother told him.
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  “Amazing,” he said. “And cut themselves in the exact same place?”

  She looked at me to see if I would tell, but I didn’t, just as I wouldn’t tell him what she had done to the second classroom desk.

  “I’m not surprised,” she said. “And you shouldn’t be. What one does, the other does. They have since the day they were born. Your children are very, very special, Mason. When are you going to realize it?” She sighed deeply, as if she felt sorrier for him than for us.

  He shook his head and didn’t continue to ask questions, which was what he did more and more.

  Mother was right, though. After that, I did feel the same pain that Haylee felt, and she seemed to feel the same pain that I felt, although sometimes I thought she was pretending just to please Mother. For me, at least, it was almost supernatural the way I imagined myself suffering whatever Haylee suffered. But I could also enjoy whatever she enjoyed. If she took a piece of chocolate, I tasted it when she put it in her mouth. I would get myself a piece even if Mother wasn’t watching, but sometimes I didn’t and still felt as if I had eaten it. Would this always be? Would the enchantment last forever?

  Right now, I could easily imagine how uncomfortable and even afraid Haylee was in the dark pantry. It was as if I was in the darkness, too. When Mother wasn’t looking, I sneaked into the kitchen, went to the door of the pantry, and whispered through the crack.

  “I’m here, Haylee. You can whisper to me. Mother’s busy. She won’t know.”

  She didn’t respond. I wondered if she was crying, sobbing to herself the way she sometimes could without making a sound. Sometimes her body would shake so hard she looked more like someone freezing. That would frighten me, and before long, I would be shaking, too.

  “Are you all right, Haylee? You know what you can do to pass the time? Play that word game Mother taught us yesterday. You remember. Think of a number of letters, and then think of something like a tree. What on a tree has four letters? Remember? That would be either leaf or bark. Tell you what, I’ll give you some to think about.” I rattled off ten more examples of Mother’s game. She still didn’t whisper back. “Mother’s up again,” I said, hearing the sound of footsteps. “I’ll come back later.”

  I slipped away and went back up to our room. I tried not to think of poor Haylee below in the darkness, but no matter what I did, the image of her sitting in the dark pantry alone kept coming back. Did she hear mice scurrying under the floorboards? We had heard that from time to time, and occasionally, especially in the pantry, we would come upon an ugly, scary spider. Whenever either of us was in there doing detention, just the thought of that made us itch and jump at the sensation of something crawling on us.

  If we were placed in there together, we were forbidden to talk. Mother would listen at the door, and if she heard whispers, she would add another hour of detention. The first time we were in there together, we held hands, but the next time, we didn’t. Usually, it was because of something Haylee had done, but we both had to be blamed, even if I couldn’t have done it, too. Mother would get angrier if I tried to claim innocence while Haylee was guilty. The worst thing to do was be angry at Haylee for getting us in trouble and then have Haylee yell at me once we were in the pantry. There was no telling how much longer our punishment might be.

  I heard Daddy come home early that afternoon and hurried out and down the stairs, hoping his arrival would mean Haylee would be let out of the pantry early, but Mother didn’t make any move to do so. I found them both in the great room. It looked as if she hadn’t even told him Haylee was in the pantry. He was telling her about something good that had happened at work. He paused when I stepped into the doorway.

  “Kaylee? Where’s your sister?” he asked instantly. He was so accustomed to us greeting him together.

  I looked at Mother.

  “She’s being punished,” she said.

  It was rare for one of us to be punished and not the other, so Daddy’s eyebrows rose like two question marks. “What did she do?”

  “Mainly, she didn’t defend her sister but instead lied about her and blamed her for something,” Mother said. “My perfect twins don’t do that.”

  “What did she lie about?” he asked.

  “Playing with my jewelry.”

  Daddy sat back, his face tightening. “Why lie about something like that? Was something broken, missing?”

  “No, and in fact, no one played with my jewelry.”

  “I don’t understand,” Daddy said, shaking his head. “No one played with it?”

  “It was a test to see if one of them would lie about the other. Haylee did. She blamed it on Kaylee. She won’t do that anymore,” she added.

  There was a look on Daddy’s face that I hadn’t seen before, a dramatic look of disgust, as if he had put something very bitter or spoiled in his mouth. He looked at me, and then he turned to Mother.

  “Test? What do you mean, test?”

  “It’s part of their education,” she said.

  I was still just standing there, listening, waiting, and hoping that Daddy would disagree and put a stop to it.

  “Sounds like entrapment,” he said, softening a bit the way he would when he was trying to make a joke. I wouldn’t say it was a complete smile, just an expression on its way to becoming one. To me, that was disappointing.

  “Hardly the same thing,” Mother said firmly. “Entrapment is a practice whereby a law-enforcement agent induces a person to commit a criminal offense that he would not likely otherwise do. The key word is induces.”

  “My wife the would-be lawyer,” Daddy said, but she wouldn’t even tolerate the shadow of a smile. There was no doubt that she didn’t see anything amusing about it. He grew serious quickly. “She was probably just frightened,” he offered.

  “She would never be if she defended her sister and her sister always defended her. It’s a very important point, Mason. I won’t let them enroll in an outside school until I’m confident that they will behave correctly in relation to each other and other students. I never believed in that sink-or-swim philosophy that my parents, especially my mother, imposed on me. A mother’s duty is to provide her child with as much preparation for the nasty outside world as possible before turning that child loose in it. Those problems and issues are doubly important here because of what and who they are. Besides, I showed you that study done on orphans compared with children from a solid family. Everything is twice as intense for identical twins.”

  He nodded, but he didn’t look as convinced or accepting of Mother’s technique as he did about most other things. In fact, he still looked quite upset. “Setting her up to lie. I don’t know,” he said. “That still seems to fit your definition for entrapment, counselor.”

  “It most certainly does not,” she countered firmly. “If you want an analogy, think of it as a fire drill.”

  “It’s not the same thing,” he insisted, despite the look she was giving him. I thought something was changing a little. The wall Mother had built around her methods for bringing us up had suffered a small crack. “You have her in that pantry doing detention?”

  “That’s right.” She looked at her watch “One more hour.”

  “One more hour? How long has she been in there, Keri?”

  “Almost four hours,” she replied.

  “Four hours!”

  “Don’t act so shocked. They’ve both been there that long before, Mason.”

  “Have they?” He looked a little stunned, not as much because of what was happening to Haylee as because he never realized what punishment Mother had imposed on us previously. “That seems a little too much,” he said. “What if she has to go to the bathroom?”

  “This is exactly what psychologists warn about!” Mother cried, practically leaping off the settee and waving her upturned palms at him. “Parents abdicating their responsibilities because those responsibilities are too difficult for them to carry out, especially enforcement of rules. If we’re not strong, they won’t be. It’s
as simple as that.”

  “Nothing is as simple as that,” he said. “What if she’s claustrophobic?”

  “Kaylee isn’t, so Haylee isn’t. I think I would know, Mason. I’m not surprised, however, that you don’t. Besides, you don’t give in to weaknesses, you attack them, confront them. It’s called building backbone. I know what I’m doing, Mason. I don’t appreciate being criticized.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “I’m going up to shower and change. I thought we were going to take them out to dinner tonight.”

  “We were, but that’s been postponed.”

  “So we’re all being punished for what Haylee did?” he asked calmly.

  “We must think of ourselves as one, Mason. Like any chain, a weak link can bring it all down.” She sat back. “You, a company president, should know all this without me explaining.”

  “I know how important morale is, too,” he said.

  She stared at him. Whenever Mother focused her eyes with a steely glare on anyone, including Daddy, it was as if an earthquake were about to happen. In fact, she looked like she could start a fire with her eyes and burn him up, like Joan of Arc being burned at the stake. Mother had been practically in tears when we read that story with her. “Strong women always suffer somehow,” she had told us, “ever since Eve.”

  “Okay, okay,” Daddy said quickly, like someone putting out a fire. “I’m still going up to shower and change. Whatever.” I saw him shake his head and heard him mumble to himself as he left the room and headed for the stairway.

  Mother watched him leave and then looked at me, her eyes suddenly as suspicious and angry as Haylee’s could be.

  “Did you go into the kitchen and whisper through the pantry door, Kaylee?”

  How could she know? Why hadn’t she stopped me when I was doing it?