There Will Come a Time (17 page)

“Here. You're kind of like this now.”

I look at the drawing. “A porcupine?”

A car pulls up and honks. Lily gathers her things.

“My grandma says that loving hurting people is like hugging porcupines.” She gets up and slings her backpack over her shoulder. “Don't worry. You won't always be a porcupine.” With that she walks to the car, opens the door, and gets in.

I stare at the drawing. The porcupine's spikes are sharp and pointy, like they'd make you bleed if you touched them. I think about what I said to Hanna and Sebastian, Pete's face when he realized I really was quitting, the disappointment in my dad's voice . . . I don't want to be this person, but I don't know how not to be him.

•  •  •  •

That night I stand in front of the entrance to the bowling alley and wait. My stomach feels sick.
I don't really need this. No one is forcing me to go.
A couple steps around me and enters.

What do I have to lose? Everything. “Nothing,” I say out loud.

There's a Chinese restaurant just inside the bowling alley and to the left. I wait next to a big gold Buddha sitting by the front desk. A hostess approaches me.

“Table for one?” she asks.

The only people in the restaurant sit at a round table in the back. That has to be the Twinless Twins meeting. “I think I'm with them.” I walk through the restaurant, past photos of China hanging on the walls.

“Mark?” A man stands up when I approach.

“Yeah.”

He reaches out and shakes my hand. “I'm Greg.” He's older than I thought. His dark curly hair is peppered with gray. He's a Latin guy, an inch or two taller than me.

“Hey, guys, this is Mark. It's his first time at a meeting, so let's show him some love.” I smile, but inside I'm thinking that I've stepped into some bad movie.

“Hi, Mark,” everyone says, and by everyone, I mean a handful of adults my parents' age and older, mostly women. “Um,” I say, and look back toward the exit. I've clearly made a mistake coming here.

“Have a seat, Mark.” Greg pulls up a chair for me to sit next to him. “Can I get you anything to drink? Eat?”

“A Coke.”

These people smile at me and I smile back. I have that same feeling I get when the aunties are going to grill me about my love life, except no one is Filipino.

“We were just getting started. We are going around the table, talking about our twins. Jessica was going to go first.”

They get right into things. I sit on my hands because they're suddenly sweaty. Jessica tells about how her twin Lisa died from breast cancer five years ago. Jessica misses their long conversations and traveling together during the summers. After Jessica,
Trudy shares about her twin, Trevor. He died from an overdose of sleeping pills. All of their stories are heavy. Most of them lost their twins years ago. Grace was definitely the youngest twin to pass out of the group.

When it's my turn, I say this: “Grace was killed on the Colorado Street Bridge. I was driving when a car swerved into our lane and hit us head-on. I don't even remember most of it. Just, you know, that she never really woke up. It happened last May, six months ago. She was seventeen.” I thought it might be hard to talk about Grace with strangers. But no one here gives me the sad face or looks away awkwardly because they're not sure what to say.

“So recent,” a woman says. “It must be very raw.”

I shrug and sink a little in my chair, not used to having so many eyes on me. “I can't sleep that well. Sometimes I go to the bridge to try to clear my head.” Once I start talking, it's like I have, like, verbal diarrhea or something. I can't stop. “I've even started dreaming about her. Nothing special. I barely remember them. Last night we were eating cereal at the kitchen table.”

“I remember after Lisa died, I used to dream about her every night,” Jessica says. “At first I was so upset; they were kind of like nightmares. Now they aren't every night and when they come, I try to remember them.”

My dreams of Grace felt like nightmares in the beginning too.

“I had this recurring dream where we'd be at a Patriots game.
Same seats. Same game. Same conversation,” John says, which I totally get because I've dreamed of Grace and me at a Kings game, or maybe it's more like I'm remembering instead of dreaming.

“Mine used to take me to Disneyland,” says Ann, a woman who looks to be in her sixties. “We'd ride our favorite ride, the Pirates of the Caribbean. That drop gets me every time.”

It's funny to hear a grown-up so excited about Disneyland. I haven't been since I was a kid.

“The first one you can see coming, but I always forget about the second one.” Ann laughs. “I used to hold on to Francie and she'd call me a big baby.”

She wipes a tear away from the corner of her eye. “Oh man. For a while, I took nightly trips to Disneyland. Then this one time we were on the ride, heading toward the second drop, and Francie whispered into my ear to let go. So I did, and at the bottom she turned to me and said that she'll always be next to me if I needed her.”

Did her twin really talk to her in a dream? Because Grace never speaks to me. Grace hasn't spoken since the night I lost her.

“In the beginning, it's so intense,” John says. “Intense grief. Intense loneliness. It's like you're in this cocoon. You have to go through the process of grieving. No one understands the kind of loss you feel because they're not a twin. So they get nervous around you and don't know what to say.”

Yeah
.
And they know you're sad but then they don't want you
to be sad anymore. How can you just decide not to be sad anymore?

“Does the loneliness ever go away?” I ask.

“It lessens,” Jessica says. “I don't know if it ever goes away. I think that's the twin bond.”

“It comes and goes in waves,” Ann adds. “What's that saying? Grief is like an ocean? I think it's the same with loneliness. When you're a twin, you have this really unique perspective of identity. You are an individual, sure, but from the beginning, you relate to the world from the position of
we
. So when your twin dies, it's like you have to figure out how to be an
I
, but still honor and carry that
we
with you. Your twin will always be a part of you because she has always been a part of you. I feel like I'm living for the both of us.
I'm
still here, so
we're
still here.”

I can't tell if I'm crazy or if everyone is crazy or if we're all a little bit crazy, but these people get me. For the first time since Grace died, I feel understood, without anyone judging or trying to fix my grief.

After everyone's had a chance to share, Greg glances at his watch. “We have a few more minutes. Let's take care of some business items.”

They talk about the next meeting, some kind of candle-lighting ceremony over at Griffith Observatory, and a national conference during the summer. This time it's in Los Angeles, so they're all planning to attend.

“Any final questions?” Greg asks.

I raise my hand. “Why a bowling alley?”

Greg smiles. “Because we like to bowl.”

“Don't think that Ann here is a pushover,” Jessica says. “She looks like a little thing, but she has a mean strike.”

Ann smiles shyly.

We take over three lanes, which is fine because it's a weeknight and not a league night, so we pretty much have the place to ourselves. Even though I don't live very far from the alley, I've never bowled before, a confession which gets a lot of exclamations from the group.

“What?” says Trudy. “Okay. We've got the kid. But I'm warning you: Once you start, you'll become addicted.”

They're right about Ann. She shuffles up with her ball, which she looks barely strong enough to carry, and in one move, releases it down the lane. It breaks through the pins. They all splinter off with the
crack
of a bat breaking.

Ann saunters back to us. “And that's how it's done.”

“Impressive,” I say.

I am not so impressive. I've picked a ball whose finger holes are too tight. When I go to release the ball, it sticks before flying out of my hand and getting some nice air, only to
thud
and leisurely roll down the lane. I hit one pin. But my team claps behind me.

“That's all right, Mark.”

I try to hide my embarrassment by pulling my beanie low. Ann hands me another ball. “Try this one.”

I put my fingers in the holes.

“Better?”

“Better,” I say.

Ann stands next to me and talks me through where to stand and what to do. I'm hoping that no one I know comes into the alley. I have no idea how I'll explain bowling with a bunch of old people. But I'm having fun, so I tell myself to get over it. I follow Ann's instructions and release the ball.

“Ladies and gents, Mark's first gutter ball,” Greg announces.

They all clap.

“I thought it'd work,” I say to Ann.

She shrugs and pats me on the back. “It takes time. You'll get the hang of it.”

I don't get the hang of it, but I actually have fun. In the end, my team comes in second. They would have won without me, but Ann just says, “Next time.” I nod, surprised that I'm open about coming back to the group.

As we leave, I follow Greg out to his car in the parking lot. He lights up a cigarette. “How was your first Twinless Twins meeting?” he asks.

“Pretty painless,” I tell him.

He laughs. “I'm glad you came, Mark. Hopefully we'll see you at the candle-lighting ceremony. Invite your family.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“If you're worried about them not wanting to come, they might surprise you.” He tips the ash from the end of his cigarette. “I'd offer you one, but I'd hate to see you begin a dreadful habit. Started after Stephanie died.”

“Do you ever get over it? I mean, you guys are laughing, having a good time. Does the guilt ever go away?”

“The world is full of suffering. Sometimes we cause our own suffering, but sometimes we suffer because we're human. We're just standing here and breathing.” He takes another drag and lets out the smoke. “It wasn't your fault that Grace died. I don't know why it happened or why you weren't killed instead of her or why you weren't both killed. But you are still here, so that means you have to fight to move forward. You have to choose to live. Because if you don't, then you might as well be dead. And there's no honoring Grace in that.”

I lean back against the hood of his car, thinking about what Greg said, thinking about Lily calling me a porcupine too. “I'm so angry,” I say. “I think I'll be angry forever.”

“I've read these cases about people experiencing such trauma that they think they're paralyzed. There's nothing physically wrong with them, but for some reason, their mind has convinced them
that they're paralyzed. And they literally cannot move, though the doctors insist there's no medical reason why they can't.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah, weird. But here's the thing: The day they decide to walk again, they walk, even run.”

“So you're saying that I just need to get up and walk?” I get what Greg's saying, but it sounds impossible. You can't just decide not to miss someone or not to be in pain.

“I'm saying there will come a time when you won't be so angry or in so much pain. It doesn't have to be now. You just have to believe that it'll come and let people in.”

“How do I do that? I can't act like everything's fine when Grace is gone.”

“No, but for me, I needed to realize I wasn't the only person who'd lost someone.”

I think about all the people who lost Grace too: Dad, Jenny, Fern, and Hanna, and even River.

“I also needed to forgive myself.”

“For what?” I ask, though I think I know where he's coming from.

“For living.”

I let that sink in. “Or I could just take up smoking.”

Greg throws his cigarette on the ground and grinds it into the asphalt with his foot.

“Or you could just take up smoking.” He laughs. “You game to try a method that helped me?”

“Sure.” I shrug, thinking it couldn't hurt.

“Try saying the words ‘I forgive myself' at least once a day.”

“Seriously? Out loud?”

“I know it sounds weird, but words are magical. Try it.” He pats me on the shoulder. “Talk to you soon.” He opens the car door and gets in.

I start walking home. Even though there are cars driving by, it's lonesome out. I can't believe I spent the night sucking at bowling. But the people were surprisingly cool. Greg was cool. I wait at the intersection for the light to turn. No one is around me, so I decide to try what he said.

I whisper, “I forgive myself.”

Nothing happens. I'm not sure what I'm expecting, but I don't feel any different. Greg said once a day. I should have asked him for how long. It probably doesn't work right away. Nothing of worth happens without effort. It's been months since Grace's death, months where I've lost whole pieces of me, and it might take months to put me back together. I feel stupid talking to myself, but no one is here, so I try it one more time. “I forgive myself.” The words are empty and without conviction, but I say them. It's a start. The light turns and I step forward.

D
ad and I call a truce of sorts, which means I no longer sulk around the house when he's present and he gives me back my phone and takes me car shopping. He actually loves car shopping; he loves the whole game of it.
The salesmen circling us are like bees to honey
, he says.
Bees to honey
. We walk around the lot, looking at all kinds of cars. I have the idea to get an SUV to cart my equipment around. Dad thinks more economically and suggests I go smaller. But my upright will hang outside the window of a small car. I take him over to a slightly used Honda CR-V, the car I had read about online.