Chapter 5
5
The next day, I fake coughing fits my whole shift. The manager tells me to take tomorrow off to recover. On my way out, I nab a sandwich from the deli in exchange for lost wages. When I get home, I pack a bag with a few essentials before heading out to the bus terminal.
I’m the last passenger to board, so I’m stuck with the spot next to the toilet.
The bus starts. My thighs rattle from the engines and my nose is congested from the exhaust fumes, which are muddled with the smell of piss and the remnants of someone’s car sickness. My phone pings. A text from my manager:
7:45PM: We have you on tape stealing a sandwich.
7:46PM: I already warned you about this behavior. We need to have a talk once you come back. This is unacceptable.
I read the texts three times over, trying to conjure guilt. The bus pulls out of the station and chugs down the highway. After deleting my manager’s messages, I log on to Reddit to doom-scroll. My eyes skim posts listlessly.
I’m distracted by thoughts of Chloe, a deluge of childhood memories inundating my mind.
I read an article that said our brains aren’t capable of meaningful retention in early life. Most of our early memories are nothing more than fictionalized stories generated via stimuli we encounter in older age. A birthday candle there, a patch of grass here, a story muttered through Grandma’s whistling dentures, and hey, presto! A manufactured memory, ready for you to relive as if it’s real.
Logically, this checks out. Everything I remember is probably counterfeit. But the part of me who experiences the memories—who can close my eyes and play them like a reel, feel the textures of the room, smell the warm, salty air— knows they are real.
Memories of a mom and a dad. A family. A home.
Mom always wore dresses. Tight around the chest, loose past her hips. They’d drape near her thighs, and I’d grab at the soft cotton for her attention, smoothing my fingers along the tough embroidery adorning her hem. It was always some bird—black-capped chickadees, purple martins, hummingbirds—hand-stitched in shimmering threads. She always wore red lipstick, pink curlers caught in her hair. Her teeth were ragged, stained yellow from tea. Dad smelled of cigarettes and always wore polos, either white or sky blue, the collar pressed to perfection. He’d pair them with brown khakis and a leather belt. He never wore slippers inside, instead collecting dust and hairs on his stinky white socks, which Mom would yell at him about. Steamed rice and bone broth scented the house; something was always brewing on the stove, marinating on the sticky counters. Then there’s Chloe, my twin, my older sister by seven minutes, the one who popped into the world first, paving the way so I could slip out in her great shadow. Armed with a charming grin, she’d hold my clammy hand and take me to places I’d never go alone.
A particular memory intrudes into my thoughts.
We were three years old and home alone—which might have been illegal. Dad was at work. Mom had run out to the store for oil and soy sauce. The trip never took more than ten minutes, and though we were toddlers, at three, we were more than independent. Perhaps because we had each other.
We found ourselves in the pantry, chubby hands fisting grains of rice. I was enamored by the sensory magic of the hard white pellets sliding through my little fingers. By the crunch, crunch, crunch when I squeezed my fist. The coarse powder left over on my tiny, oval nails. At some point, Chloe had walked out of the room without me noticing. Disappeared entirely.
By the time I heard Mom’s keys jingling at the door, Chloe had been gone for who knows how long. I remember my mom’s sharp panic, the plastic rollers in her hair clacking as she searched for Chloe, the groceries scattered on the floor. I followed her, searching, searching, searching, my fat, sweaty toes padding on smooth kitchen tile, around dusty corners, over stained carpets, as my eyes wandered for a me-shaped being. We scoured the laundry machine, the bedroom, under the tables, the closet, between couch cushions. Chloe was nowhere to be found.
Mom sobbed as she screamed at me. Where did your sister go? You must know! Tell me now! They say twins have a natural connection. Some telepathic bond. It wasn’t true for me and Chloe. We looked identical, but we were always separate. Chloe was a toothy smile, a girl who always had dead leaves in her hair because she was too curious. Her mind and heart were otherwise pure mystery. I had no idea where Chloe was, where she went. Mom couldn’t understand this or wouldn’t believe me, even when my head shakes were paired with frustrated tears.
We found my twin eventually. She had escaped out the window and was naked but for her underwear, knee-deep in the garden bed, uprooting tomato plants. Mom sprang into the yard, her arms outstretched. My baby, my baby, she cried.
Watching Chloe and Mom from the back door, I remember feeling upset. I was the one who was crying, not Chloe. Chloe was happy, smiling in that bubbly-Chloe way, giggles rippling up her throat.
My baby, my baby.
Sometimes, it felt like Mom only ever had one baby.
Afterward, I holed up in the bathroom. I liked the warm, humid air, how it hugged me; the lack of windows that made me feel secure, shut out from the overstimulating world; the idyllic hum of the fan; the musk of mildew and bleach. I used to hide in the cabinet underneath the sink, smoosh myself between cleaning supplies and rolls of toilet paper, sweaty skin sticking onto cellophane. I sat there with my knobby knees tucked into my chest, wondering if Mom would go hysterical when she noticed me missing. She didn’t. She never even looked.
It was Chloe who found me. She opened the cabinet doors, the warm bathroom light pooling in. When she smiled, it felt like she could see me, really see me, that at least my twin was the one person who cared. She shoved a plate of ripe mango wedges in my face, her nails crusted with soil. Mama made this for me. Wanna share, Ju-Ju? She didn’t wait for me to say yes before moving the toilet paper rolls out of the cabinet. When there was enough space for two, she slipped in beside me and closed the doors. We ate mangoes together in the dark. Her chubby thigh touched mine. I felt safe.
This is the Chloe I want to remember. The Chloe I hope still exists behind the superficial social media persona. The Chloe I desperately wanted to be.
An announcement drones overhead: “Thirty minutes until arrival.”
It’s cloudy, past ten p.m. I wipe the condensation-covered windows, clearing the crawling frost, and peer into the freezing night. A line of bright city blinks up at the dark, starless sky.
I’ll be in New York in thirty minutes. At her door in an hour.
Perhaps, as soon as I arrive, I’ll see her digging around her garden, alive and well. Smiling brightly, not a care in the world.