Ten
Tovah
I HATE MYSELF FOR LETTING her go. I’m not certain of many of my emotions today, but I’m positive about that one.
Positive. I have to strike that word from my vocabulary. I’ll never be able to use it casually.
Rain pelts the windshield, wipers slashing across it. My vision blurs. A car behind me honks. I’m in a loading zone, so I circle the block and find a new parking spot. Turn the wipers off so I can hide underneath a layer of rain-spattered glass.
Why couldn’t we both be lucky?
For a few minutes after Dr. Simon delivered the news, I was overwhelmed with relief. My mind swelled with possibilities. I could date. I could have children. I could grow so old my hair turns gray, then white, then falls out. Before, I never let myself think about my future unless it involved Johns Hopkins. A one-track mind made the past four years easier. But suddenly there were so many choices.
“Even a negative result can be complicated,” Dr. Simon said, but I didn’t understand what she meant until I saw Adina.
Adina, who I cut out of my life after she deleted my applications. After she said, without words, that her dreams mattered more than mine. I’d been jealous of her much of our lives, but I kept it buried. She set hers loose. She was the prodigy, the center of attention, the girl with the spotlight bright on her beautiful face. Clearly she couldn’t stand to see me getting something I wanted. While I’ve missed her, I haven’t been able to forgive her.
Somehow I figured that whatever happened, we’d deal with it together, despite our recent history. Maybe because we’re twins. Maybe because you think the worst-case scenario is impossible. You’re invincible. Nothing can touch you, not death, not disease, not losing your best friend. Or someone who used to be your best friend.
I text Lindsay the results and wait a few minutes for a reply. Nothing comes. Then I scroll all the way down to the last name in my contacts. Zack. Suddenly I want to talk to someone who knows nothing about my family and this disease.
I type Hey, hit send, and immediately panic. Who just says hey?
My phone vibrates.
Hey.
I’m racking my brain for a response when another message appears.
What’s up?
After a minute of deliberation, I type back, Homework. You? A minute to come up with two boring words. I’m brilliant.
Hunting for the perfect canvas board. Dragged Troy. We’re gonna grab pho later, if you want to join. Don’t worry, NOT A DATE ;)
His messages seem so effortless, like he doesn’t proofread them a dozen times before hitting send. I’m seriously considering saying okay when I get another text from Aba asking where I am.
Back to reality.
Another time. AP Bio calls.
Before I pull back into traffic, I study my face in the rearview mirror. I examine each freckle. Each pore. Each blemish. What decided Adina tested positive and not me? Was it somewhere between the gene that coded for dark hair and the one that gave me blue eyes?
On the drive home, my foot punches the gas pedal in sharp bursts, the car throwing me forward and backward at every light.
Today we got answers, but they’ve only sparked more questions.
The first time our lives changed was April of eighth grade. Our parents sat us down in the living room and explained that Ima had finally been diagnosed with something called Huntington’s disease. The whole conversation made me feel selfish, because by the end of it, when Adi and I learned we were at risk too, I hated that I couldn’t be sad only for my mom—I had to be sad for myself, too.
There was a girl in my earth science class whose mother had breast cancer. With enough chemo and possibly a mastectomy, her mom might get better. She could go into remission. There was no way to stop what was destroying Ima.
“You can ask any questions you want,” Ima said, but the only question I had was why? And there wasn’t an answer to that one.
After my parents had gone to sleep, there was a soft knock on my door. Adi tiptoed into my room and climbed into my bed. Back then, we still spent a lot of time together, but it was mostly outside of school. Our parents had both of us tested for the gifted program, and I got in and Adi didn’t.
Viola was the only future she saw for herself. Part of me wondered, sometimes . . . if she became famous one day, however famous violists can become, what would that mean for me? I tried violin in fourth grade when she picked up the viola, but I didn’t have the patience for those long songs, and I had no rhythm. I was on a downbeat when everyone else was on an upbeat.
Adi pulled the sheets tight around both of us, and for a while neither of us spoke. “I’m so scared for Ima,” she said finally. Her tears soaked the too-big Science Olympiad T-shirt I wore to bed.
“Hakol yihyeh b’seder,” I said over and over, stroking her soft hair. Everything is going to be okay. We didn’t usually speak Hebrew with each other, only a few words scattered here and there. It sounded more reassuring in Hebrew, though.
“How do you know?” she asked.
“I’m older. Naturally, that makes me smarter,” I said, making her laugh at the old, unfunny joke. “Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it together. Okay?”
Adi’s toes touched my legs beneath the sheets. Her feet were icicles. “Do you think we should get tested?” Ima and Aba had said it would be up to us when we turned eighteen.
I was quiet for a long time. I’d only recently made a five-year plan. More like a ten-year plan, considering I’d be in med school for a while. What did Ima’s diagnosis mean for that future I’d already grown so attached to?
By the time I spoke again to tell Adi yes, she’d fallen asleep. A few weeks later, she told me she didn’t want to know her fate. But I didn’t just want to know; I needed to know. Most people never get to know their futures like this. Over the years it would start to hit me that getting tested and having the answers wouldn’t mean everything was okay. Ima was still sick. For a short time, though, I believed the test would spell out my entire future.
When I get home, I’m antsy. I can’t focus on homework and my parents are talking about Adina in hushed tones. So I put on the special sports bra that fits my double-Ds like a shield and go for a run. My typical route: Burke-Gilman Trail along Gas Works Park, northeast through the University of Washington, Seattle’s huge public college, then back to Wallingford, the neighborhood we’ve lived in since Adina and I were born. Nirvana’s Bleach pulses against my eardrums.
It’s nine degrees Celsius outside. I refuse to measure anything in Fahrenheit. All scientists use Celsius, which is much cleaner and simpler. Water freezes at zero, boils at 100. I try not to think about how cold it is. Instead I focus on the reason goose bumps are prickling my arms: the tiny muscles attached to the hair follicles are contracting, making the hairs stick straight up, causing my skin to pucker.
I run track in the spring, and the rest of the year I jog almost daily to stay in shape. I started running track in middle school because I knew I wouldn’t be able to get into Johns Hopkins with advanced classes and a 4.0—I had to be extraordinary. An AP kid and a scientist and an athlete and a student council rep and a hospital volunteer.
Some people love running to clear their heads, but I usually relish the extra time to think. This afternoon, though, my head fills with thoughts I can’t control. How Adina’s feeling. What this means for her future. What I’m supposed to say to her besides I’m sorry a hundred times because it’ll never be enough. How getting a disease named after you is clearly a great accomplishment, but it’s not quite the same as claiming a star or a city.
Siegel disease: the tendency to overanalyze everything.
Chinese takeout containers are spread across our kitchen table. My fortune declared WEALTH AWAITS YOU VERY SOON. Aba got the same one.
It’s after seven p.m. when Adina gets home. Aba jumps to his feet, and Adina shrinks away like a frightened cat. “Hey, Adina. Do you want some hot and sour soup? We saved you some.”
“Not hungry.” Her knuckles are white on the handle of her viola case, and her red lipstick is stark against her ashen face.
I push a piece of broccoli around my plate.
“I know how you feel,” Ima tries.
“No,” Adi says, and I notice she doesn’t look directly at Ima, “you don’t.”
Ima’s head is jerking up and down, up and down, up and down. That will never happen to me. Instead of relief, I feel a tightness, like my entire body has been mummy-wrapped.
Adina aims her gaze at me. “This is your fucking fault. I didn’t want to know. I told you I needed more time.”
Language, I expect one of my parents to say, but the warning never comes.
“I . . .” I grip my chopsticks, unsure what to say. She took the test because I asked her to. Forced her to. But the results were decided a long time ago, imprinted in our DNA.
“Adi,” Ima says, “this is no one’s fault.”
Adina ignores her. She places her palms flat on the table and angles herself closer to me. I’d be able to see her pores if they weren’t microscopic. “You wanted to know so badly, and you made me do it with you—why? As punishment? Or because you couldn’t handle doing it alone?”
Both. That’s the truth.
I snap my chopsticks in half. Maybe she sealed her own fate when she pressed delete. No—I force the illogical thought from my mind.
“You would’ve wanted to know eventually,” I say, but my assertion is half-hearted.
She snorts. Smacks the table. “Because you know me so well?”
“Girls,” Aba says quietly. “Let’s all give each other some space, okay?”
Without saying anything, Adina spins around and climbs the stairs to her room, her door slamming shut.
Give each other some space. That’s the problem, though, isn’t it? There’s too much space between my sister and me, an entire galaxy I fear our results have made impossible to cross.