Ten Geny
We walk back to the church to get Grace’s car, and I wonder what thirty-seven-year-old Grace Chandler drives.
I wonder how Wyatt is going to feel with his ex-girlfriend sleeping in our home.
His ex-girlfriend whom he never broke up with, but thought was dead.
They’ll probably want to talk. Of course they will.
I don’t know how I feel about that, but it’s going to happen regardless of my feelings.
My stomach clenches like I’m bracing for an impending car crash.
I don’t know how to act. I find myself second-guessing every single thing I say and do. The truth is, I’m not the person I was at nineteen. Who is? But it’s as if I forgot everything about who I am the second I saw Grace walk into the church.
We make it to the church parking lot in silence, and I pause to look at the place we grew up going to.
The church was a second home for me as a teen.
While Grace took to sports, I became more involved here, leading youth groups, helping in the nursery and anywhere else I could.
Pastor Don was the uncle I never had. It was the only place I didn’t feel the heavy comparison to my sister.
The place I buried myself in when she died.
Except she didn’t die.
There’s one lone car in the parking lot.
A black Trans Am. It throws me when the lights flash and I hear the locks disengage.
I pictured Grace with a stylish SUV. But that fit the life I thought she would have had.
The life that would have been hers if she never got washed away in the current. My life.
I awkwardly climb into the passenger seat and scan the interior.
There’s a Black Ice air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror.
The smell is a gut punch. It’s the scent Wyatt used in his truck for the longest time, but it gave me headaches and I convinced him to switch to a less obnoxious scent. He was so reluctant at the time.
“Tell me where to go,” she says.
“Right. Um, we’re on Cherry Lane. Do you remember—”
“Yep. I know where it is.” She shifts into drive and coasts onto the road.
There are so many awkward silences between us. It’s not that we were never quiet with each other before, but it had always been a comfortable silence. Now, the lack of noise makes my skin itch.
“When did you first remember me?” I can’t hold the question in even though I’ve just told myself I’ll wait for her to open up. How far is she going to take this lie?
She glances at me. “It’s hard to say.”
“Try to say anyway.” My face feels warm. I’m not usually pushy.
I swear I see a smirk on her lips, but it’s gone before I can be sure.
“Memory isn’t so straightforward like that. I didn’t just suddenly remember you. I’d see you in dreams. Have memories of playing with you as kids. But it’s not like I had a sudden epiphany that I have a twin sister somewhere.”
“You didn’t think it was weird that in these memories of playing with a little girl, she had your same face?”
“Well, I didn’t exactly know what my face looked like as a kid. I forgot, remember?” Her tone is joking, and it rubs me wrong.
I want to throttle her for her sarcasm and the way she seems to make light of the situation. She isn’t the one who mourned her sister, thinking she died horrifically, drowning in Lake Superior in the middle of the night while I screamed her name from the shore.
“Then how long was it from when you knew for sure you had a sister to today?”
“A month. Maybe two.”
“Two months?” I can’t believe it. I can’t believe she’d stay away so long.
No. Wait. I can’t let her get me worked up. I can’t start believing her lie and living inside of it. She didn’t forget me. She didn’t lose her memory.
“It’s a complicated situation, Geny. I’m sorry.”
She sounds sorry, but who knows what for? I exhale a long breath. Am I being too hard on her? Too critical of every word she says? I should be grateful she’s here. I know that. If only she’d come back when Dad was still alive. He would have given anything to see her again, to know she’s alive.
I blink away the moisture from my eyes and try to push away the negative feelings trying to take hold in my chest like bloodsucking leeches.
“You haven’t asked about Mom,” I say. She knows she’s gone, but how? And does she know what happened?
She shrugs. “I looked her up before I came home. I read about what happened. The Raven Gazette is very informative.”
I don’t know what to say. It feels so cold. She and Mom had a good relationship. So did she and Dad. And she seems so unbothered that they’re both gone. It would make sense if she truly didn’t remember things, but I know she does. I just know.
My stomach drops when Grace pulls into the driveway of my home. I didn’t tell her which house was mine, but Jack and Carter are in the front yard playing catch, so I assume she saw them and put it together.
“What are their names?” Grace asks, staring at them through the windshield.
It’s so strange . . . silly really. But I almost don’t want to tell her.
This is the very end of this life being only mine.
I spent nineteen years sharing a life with my sister, and I’ve forgotten how to do that in the eighteen years she’s been gone.
I push the feeling away. “Jack is our oldest. Carter is the younger one.”
Grace opens her mouth, but then shakes her head as though she’s changed her mind about whatever she was about to say and opens her door. I follow suit. Carter starts running toward us, then hesitates as he glances between me and his aunt. It takes me a second to realize he isn’t sure which is me.
He figures it out though and runs to me. I pick him up and squeeze him in a hug. He pushes away from my chest, sits up in my arms, and looks at Grace.
“This is your Aunt Grace,” I say. “She’s my sister.”
“Hi, Carter,” she says. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
“Aunt Grace is going to stay with us for a little while,” I say, then immediately regret it. I should talk to Wyatt first.
Grace takes a step toward the house but looks back to Carter. “Do you think you can show me around so I don’t get lost?”
Carter nods and wiggles out of my arms until he slides to the ground. He runs ahead of us and up the front steps. “Right this way!”
Grace laughs. I smile and follow them onto the porch. Jack gathers the baseball and their mitts from the yard and joins us.
“You must be Jack,” Grace says.
He nods. “Nice to meet you, Aunt Grace.”
His shy politeness warms my heart. He’s always been such a good kid.
I remind myself he’s no longer a kid. He’s all grown up.
I put a hand on his back and notice his eyes are a little swollen, a sure sign he’s been crying.
I fight the urge to pull him into me like I did when he was smaller.
He’d only get embarrassed now and insist he’s fine.
He was close with his grandpa. He broke down when we told him the horrible news. We didn’t tell him the details, but it’s a small town. People talk. He’s been even quieter than usual the last few days. And now all this with Grace. I’m nervous it’s too much for him. I know it is for me.
“Jack, did you take the chicken out earlier like Mom asked you—” Wyatt shouts as he walks outside, not realizing we’re all on the porch. He stops when he sees us. His coffee mug slips from his hand and crashes onto the wood planks beneath our feet when his eyes land on Grace.