Twinning without a Twin

Unlike many people, I came into this world with company, as a twin but when it’s my time to go I’ll be leaving it as one. I was born five minutes before my sister Nina. After 33 years of being in this world together, Nina died leaving behind not only her three children, but also our mother, a granddaughter, and a twin unsure of how to live life without her.

I don’t know if I could say that I used to dream of us getting older together and raising our families, but as time passed and we each had kids somewhere in my mind we would end up being those type of sisters that would sit in the kitchen talking shit about our kids, her smoking and me drinking a latte. I guess in my mind I held on to a world that could be.

I don’t know what made me even think that this would be an option for us because for a long time we didn’t have a close or loving relationship.  

***

When I was about thirteen, mami’s then boyfriend David gave me a jacket. One of those heavy duty, double layered army print jackets. I was so excited. I thought it matched my Tomboy vibes; sneakers, baggy jeans and tshirt. I took the jacket into the bathroom of our two-bedroom apartment where we lived with Nina and our brother Jose who was four years older than us. I wiped the jacket because although it didn’t bother me that it was a used it didn’t need to look like it was. I took my sweet ass time to go through each section of the jacket, the pits, the pockets, the back and the sleeves. After being in there for only a few minutes, Nina walks up to the door and tells me “get out. I have to pee.” At that point in our lives I wasn’t very fond of her. She spent more time running away than at home. She would leave for days and mami would spend most of her time crying or searching for her, while dragging me along. I didn’t understand why we had to look for someone who didn’t want to be found. Besides, she wasn’t really lost, at least not physically. No matter how long Nina was gone, she always came back and mami always let her back in.

Although I got used to her absence, her presence was suffocating and hard to get used to. The heaviness felt thicker than the clouds of smoke that would linger around our place whenever mami smoked as she folded clean clothes. On cleaning days, mami would walk around the apartment in her bata, scrapping her slippers against the floor, with a hand towel tossed over her shoulder and a white Marlboro stick gently pressed between her lips thinking about God knows what. She always seemed so pensive. It feels as though I’ve spent an entire life observing my mother and those around me trying to figure out what they were thinking and trying to get to know those people that felt more like strangers than family. No wonder I don’t allow others to get close to me, because I know how observant humans can be and the last thing I need is someone else trying to get into my head.

It pissed me off that Nina got to come and go as she pleased and walked around like she owned the place. I wish I could say that the heaviness I felt was only a sometimes kind of thing, but it wasn’t. Every time I was around her I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t like that feeling, but no one ever asked me what I thought and I knew that mami would always let her back in, no matter what.

I didn’t bother looking away from the sink. I gestured towards the toilet with my head and told Nina, “go ahead, I’m doing something.”

“No! I don’t want you looking at my pussy. Get out!” The tone of her voice rushed through my body like boiling water.

I clenched the release my teeth and said to her in a low tone, “nobody’s tryin to look at your pussy, just go ahead.”

She then yelled, “get out bitch!” Without even thinking, I dropped the jacket and lunged at her with my fist. I struck her but was quickly separated by Jose, who I was surprised that was even there. Between sports and friends, he was hardly home and seemed more like a phantom than a sibling. If it weren’t for him and that fact that she was my twin, I would’ve beat the shit out of her.

I don’t remember what happened after that incident or to the jacket, but that feeling lives in me like it was yesterday. The tightness in my body, and volcanic eruption that spread throughout my face fueling the desire to keep hitting, because in my mind if I’d hit hard enough she would run away and actually stay away.

***

I don’t know if my life was better or worse with her in it, what I know now is that she’s gone, for real this time and I’m struggling to find my footing because it’s hard twinning without a twin. I don’t regret that moment by the bathroom but I wish that I would have a little bit more time to observer her and get to know who my sister was. Now the only thing I have I have are memories and stories of who she was and this, moments where I can write about these memories and hopefully it’ll help me feel a little closer to her, and to myself.