One and the Same (34 page)

Robin's wedding, in January 1993, was one of those magical weekends. Guests stayed at the rustic Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York, where our parents had taken me, Robin, and my brother, David, so many times during our childhood; the snow had fallen fresh and thick, and twinkling icicles hung from every tree as if some cosmic wedding planner had ordered them up just for the occasion. After the ceremony, Robin and Edward looked incandescent, everyone mobbed the dance floor, and I sang my toast with the band—a spoof on Billy Joel's song about Brenda and Eddie.

It didn't occur to me to feel sorry for myself that night; Robin's happiness was intrinsically mine, too. I'd hosted her bridal shower, tried on endless black bikinis in order to buy her the perfect one for her honeymoon, and made her a mixed tape of the songs most evocative of our twenty-seven years—everything from “Rubber Ducky” to “Chariots of Fire.” I felt like the world was right, and of course, as her
twin and maid of honor, I felt indispensable. But as the evening unfolded, I began to discern a whiff of pity when friends and family congratulated me. They looked worried for Abigail.
One twin is flying the nest. How will the other handle it?
I felt them scrutinizing my bridal ministrations for glimpses of hidden despair; I noticed them notice I was not just lacking my own fiancé but entirely boyfriend-less at the ball. A few asked me if I was “okay.”

I was honestly fine. I loved the man Robin was marrying and had always wanted her to launch first. All our lives, she'd preceded me in every milestone except walking: She rode the city bus by herself first, went abroad first, had the first boyfriend. She seemed to prefer the role of older sister, and I ceded it to her. Conversely, I felt protective of Robin—as if her contentment was more important for the balance of our friendship; somewhere in my mind, I felt I could better handle being the single, adrift twin, so I wanted her settled. I wanted her to have the first wedding. If she was taken care of, I could relax. Thus, I was unambiguously buoyant on her big day.

It was the night
after
that I crashed.

I remember where I was sitting: in my blue-and-white-checked armchair in my one-bedroom walk-up apartment on Columbus Avenue and Sixty-ninth Street, in my pajamas, trying not to cry on the phone with her as she said good-bye before her honeymoon departure. It finally hit me that something was over.

What flew into my head was that famous line from Carson McCullers's 1946 novel,
The Member of the Wedding
, when the young spark plug of a girl, Frankie Adams, fantasizes about a future life with her brother and his fiancée: “They are the
we
of me,” she says. But the sentiment rang differently for me: The bride and groom were not “the we of me;” Robin was. My lifelong “we” was flying off to Martinique the next morning, on to a new partnership. I was left holding the “we.”

It just so happens that I met my future husband one month later on a perfect blind date. But that happy ending doesn't change what
shifted permanently for my twinness: the feeling that I was losing Robin. It wasn't that Edward took her away; it's that, on a deeper level, she was leaving
us—
our little compact duo, which had been my organizing principle and home base for twenty-seven years. And she was ready to go; I didn't sense any second thoughts on her part. Robin's post–wedding night ranked as one of many moments over the next decade—some momentous, some mundane—that have signaled to me a dilution, or muting, of our partnership.

Why is it that I sentimentalize my twinship at age forty-three? Usually we sentimentalize something we've lost; but I still have Robin. We talk daily, make lunch plans, borrow clothes, go to shows together. She's still essential to my equanimity, my confessor and adviser; I feel a kind of blissful ease when we steal an unexpected afternoon to go shopping, when we share a Corona while cooking together in the summer, or when we grab ten minutes to talk before she takes her kids home from a play date at my apartment. Her support is typified perhaps by the fact that she never once asked me not to write this book. In fact she kept emphasizing that it would be pointless if it wasn't honest. She read it not just as a sister but as an editor whose opinion she knows I require; and she was beyond generous about the end result, despite her misgivings.

But something isn't the same anymore; we both know it, and writing this book didn't change it. We don't make sure to schedule a regular meal, we only double-date with our husbands once a year, we aren't physically affectionate, we skirt certain topics, and we dodge conflict. I know I should chalk it up to separate lives, separate families, but after a twinship like ours, separate isn't simple—at least not for me. I don't so much
need
Robin as miss her. There's a gnawing absence from the person with whom I used to feel most present. Robin and I once had the ultimate intimacy. And I want it back.

When we were a few years out of college, Robin and I went to Greece together. It was the only vacation we ever took, just the two of us. (I don't count the American Jewish Congress tour to Israel, when
my parents chose the senior tour by mistake and we traipsed around the Holy Land with a group of doting grandparents.) For this adventure, Robin and I chucked our usual exacting preparation and decided to travel where the impulse took us—from Athens to the islands of Mykonos, Naxos, and Santorini. We stayed in small white rooms wedged into cliffs overlooking azure water, ate the freshest tomato and feta salads, tried ouzo, and rode donkeys. We met cute Australians and held on to their waists on rented mopeds as we rode to cafés that sat on the sand.

But the moment I remember most vividly was lying on my back next to Robin on the sunbaked deck of a ferry. We were warm and brown from insufficient sunblock, aware that we were absolutely untethered and unaccounted for, but entirely safe side by side. We were anchored, even if we were God knows where in the middle of the ocean. On my Walkman, the Roches sisters were singing “Love Radiates Around.” I insisted Robin listen to it after I did; the melody somehow glistened like the water around us, and the lyrics roused a sense of unshakable well-being. Sisters were harmonizing in my ears. To me, at least, it was our anthem.

My heart may break and it might fall

She is mine and I am hers through seasons all …

Her love is true music

And it radiates around

Robin left, Abigail right

• •

Thanks (alphabetically) to so many people who offered advice, support, and twins:

Ronnie Abrams, Ricardo Ainslie, Laura Baker, Liora Baor, Soma Golden Behr, Isaac Blickstein, Dorret Boomsma, Thomas Bouchard, Stephanie Bowen, Angela Buchdahl, Antoinette Delruelle, Todd Doughty, Rachel Dretzin, Andrea Dunlop, Susan Edelstein, Deb Forese, Debbie and Tammy Freeman, Adam Freifeld, Joan Friedman, Debra and Lisa Ganz, Nancy Goodman, Gerald and Larry Gordon, Alan Hager, Aaron Harnick, Jane Harnick, Aileen and Gregory Hoffman, Sharon Jordan, Donald and Louis Keith, Erica Keswin, Billy Kingsland, Edward Klaris, Lorin Klaris, Deborah Copaken Kogan, Paul and George Kogan, Jill Krementz, Itamar Kubovy, Harry Lander, Belinda and Gretchen Langner, Miranda Levenstein, Jaclyn Levin, Suzanne Braun Levine, Tom Levine, Adam Liebowitz, Thomas Mack, Nicole Marcus, Nick Martin, Jessica McCarthy, Eric Nestler, Fern O'Neill, Neil Newman, Eileen Pearlman, Elizabeth Pector, Lisa and Richard Plepler, Lynn Povich, Anna Quindlen, Michael Ravitch, Liz Rosen, Martine Rubenstein, Ira Sachs, Hillel Schwartz, Brooke Sebold, Nancy Segal, R. Allen Shoaf, Annie Silberman, Joshua Steiner, Richard Stolley, Paris Stulbach, Alexandra Styron, David Teplica, Richard Todd, Eric Vilain, Burton Visotzky,
Pamela Weinberg, David Wolpe, John Wood, Hanya Yaragihara, Donna Zaccaro.

To David Kuhn, upon whose judgment I have become wholly dependent.

To Deb Futter, whose confidence made both my books happen and to whom I'll always be indebted.

To my remarkable editor, Kris Puopolo, for knowing this book as well as I do, and for great perception, wisdom, and new friendship.

To Dani Shapiro, for the kind of listening that leads to clarity.

To Marcia DeSanctis, for stunning constancy.

To my in-laws, Phyllis and Milton Shapiro, for their cheerleading and for giving me the best balcony in Fort Lauderdale on which to finish this.

To Mom, for her editor's eye, for carrying Robin and me when we made her enormous, and for all her love.

To Dad, for his unflagging faith and model fatherhood.

To my brother, David, the true optimist in the family, who weathered the whole Twin Thing with wit and warmth.

To Robin, for the smartest edits, for endless patience, and, most of all, for her blessing.

To my daughter, Molly, ten, for her canny suggestions and incomparable good-night kisses.

To Benjamin, twelve, who reminds me daily of what really matters.

To Dave, who makes me want to be better than I am, guides me more than he knows, and whose love is found in the quietest places.

VII “I wouldn't be myself without her.”: Allen Shawn,
Wish I Could Be There: Notes from a Phobic Life
(New York: Viking Penguin, 2007).

10 “Fraternal twins are not as close”: Nancy L. Segal, Ph.D.,
Entwined Lives
(New York: Penguin Group, 2000).

13 Twinsburg was named:
http://www.mytwinsburg.com/site.cfm/about-twinsburg.cfm
.

13 in the year I attended: author's interview with Sandy Miller, cofounder of Twins Days, September 2006.

28 a British married couple: “Unknowing Twins Married,” at
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/01/11/twins.married/
index.html
.

28 Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski: “Polish President's Twin to Be PM,” BBC News, July 8, 2006, at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5161446.stm
.

28 a tracking dog can find: S. Craig Roberts et al., “Body Odor Similarity in Noncohabiting Twins,”
Chemical Senses
30, no. 8: 651–656.

28 biracial British couple: Lucy Laing, “Black and White Twins,”
Daily Mail
, March 2, 2006.

28 Elvis Presley's twin: Pamela Clark Keogh,
Elvis Presley: The Man, the Life, the Legend
(New York: Atria, 2004).

28 Identical twins Mike and Bob Bryan: Tom Weir, “Chest-Bumping Bryan Brothers Always a Twosome on, off Court,”
USA Today
, June 22, 2008.

28 German twins Oskar and Jack: Nancy L. Segal,
Indivisible by Two: Lives of Extraordinary Twins
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005).

29 Mothers of twin pandas: Nancy L. Segal, “Parenting Twin Pandas,”
Twin Research
5, vol. 4: 314.

29 Minnesota becomes the first state to pass legislation:
www.twinslaw.org

29 Identical twin sisters meet identical twin brothers: “Identical Twins Marry, Give Birth to Identical Twins,” at
Telegraph.co.uk
.

29 Becky and Birdie Jo Hoaks: Jason George, “The Incredible True-Life (Mis)Adventures of the Hoaks Sisters,”
Chicago Tribune
, May 10, 2007.

29 Massachusetts boasts the highest twin rate: Julie Suratt, “Double Trouble,”
Boston Magazine
, June 2008.

29 Twins from Erie, Pennsylvania: WPXI, Pittsburgh, April 24, 2007, at
http://www.wpxi.com/health/13016039/detail.html
.

29 “telepathy art”:
http://www.nyas.org/snc/calendarDetail.asp?eventID= 11492&date=4/11/2008%206:30:00%20PM
.

30 Twin stars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen:
http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/20081015_tows_olsentwins
.

30 ten sets of twins: Jennifer Stagg, “Ten Twins Born in Just One Month at SLC Hospital,” KUTV
₂
, Salt Lake City, June 5, 2008.

30 Identical twins Dan and Walter Christ: Kathleen Daminger, “Seeing Double,”
Lancaster New Era
, March 1, 2007.

30 Pop-rock duo Tegan and Sara: Colin Davenish, “Tegan and Sara Go Pop,”
rollingstone.com
, September 14, 2004.

30 identical twins separated at birth: Nancy L. Segal,
Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell Us About Human Behavior
(New York: Dutton, 1999).

30 twin brothers are killed on their bicycles:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1858721.stm
.

31 Tiki Barber, retired running back:
http://hubpages.com/hub/All-Time_NFL_Rushing_Leaders_by_TeamNFC
; see also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiki_Barber

33 In 2005, Ronde became the first cornerback:
http://www.buccaneers.com/team/playerdetail.aspx?player=Barber,Ronde,20
; see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronde_Barber

38 Tiki was paid more than Ronde: Geraldine Fabrikant, “Talking Money With: Tiki and Ronde Barber; Atop Their Game, Ahead of the Market,”
New York Times
, March 9, 2003.

47 “Each is the other's soul”: Karl Jay Shapiro, “The Twins,” in
Person, Place and Thing
(New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1942).

48 opened the first Twins Restaurant in 1994:
People
, December 12, 1994.

55 “wish to return to a symbiotic relationship”: Ricardo Ainslie,
The
Psychology of Twinship
(Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1997).

56 “There seems to be a feeling that the recognition of differences”: ibid..

60 “a degree of anxiety associated with”: ibid.

61 “While twins can engage in their own ‘chumship' “: Michael Rothman, “The ‘Self-Twin' System” (unpublished paper, Derner Institute, Adelphi University, 1999).

69 “An identical twin may be the best source”: Nancy L. Segal,
Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell Us About Human Behavior
(New York: Dutton, 1999).

71 The pioneering research came from German obstetrician Birgit Arabin: author's interviews with Dr. Nicholas Martin, Dr. Isaac Blickstein, and Dr. Louis Keith. See also Birgit Arabin et al., “The onset of inter-human contacts: longitudinal ultrasound observations in early twin pregnancies,”
Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology
8, no. 3 (1996): 166–173; Birgit Arabin et al., “Registration of fetal behaviour in multiple pregnancy,”
Journal of Perinatal Medicine
21, no. 4 (1993): 285–294; Birgit Arabin et al., “Fetal behavior in multiple pregnancy: methodologic, clinical, and scientific aspects.”
Geburtshilfe und Frauenheil Kunde
51, no. 11 (1991): 869–875.

72 Child psychotherapist Alessandra Piontelli had done similar studies: author's interviews with Dr. Isaac Blickstein, Dr. Louis Keith, and Dr. Michael Rothman.

81 “Competition and issues of power are embedded in the twin relationship”: Michael Rothman, “The ‘Self-Twin' System” (paper delivered, Derner Institute, Adelphi University), 1999.

82 “Commentators describe the two struggling for primogeniture”: Hillel Schwartz,
The Culture of the Copy: Striking Likenesses, Unreasonable Facsimiles
(New York: Zone Books, 1998).

82 The Yoruba believe that the older twin: Fernand Leroy et al., “Yoruba Customs and Beliefs Pertaining to Twins,”
Twin Research
5, no. 2 (2002): 132–136.

82 The Yoruba give every second-born twin: ibid.

88 “The fact that each twin might have different areas of talent”: Ricardo Ainslie,
The Psychology of Twinship
(Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1997).

88 “a whopping 84 percent”: Francine Klagsbrun,
Mixed Feelings: Love, Hate, Rivalry and Reconciliation Among Brothers and Sisters
(New York: Bantam, 1992).

88 “Parental favoritism”: ibid.

88 “Twins are not favored equally in the womb”: Rothman, “The ‘Self-Twin' System,”.

90 psychoanalyst Dr. Susan Davison: ibid. See also Susan Davison, “Mother, Other and Self—Love and Rivalry for Twins in Their First Year of Life,”
International Review of Psycho-Analysis
19 (1992): 359–374.

93 “Both the rivalry and the closeness may be fueled by the same thing”: Klagsbrun,
Mixed Feelings
.

93 “There is one side of you”: Lawrence Wright,
Twins: And What They Tell Us About Who We Are
(New York: John Wiley, 1997).

93 A news story several years later:
New York Journal-American
, 1947.

96 “competition can also be a source of differentiation”: Ainslie,
The Psychology of Twinship
.

98 “What you could be walks right next to you”: Caroline Paul,
Fighting Fire
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998).

105 “not being able to have a baby”: Chistine Gorman, “The Limits of Science,”
Time.com
, April 15, 2002.

107 twin births in the United States: Joyce A. Martin et al. “Births: Final Data for 2006,”
National Vital Statistics Reports
57, no. 7 (January 7, 2009).

107 Between 1980 and 1995, the number of triplets ballooned: ibid.

107 one in thirty-one births is a twin: ibid.

108 From 25 to 35 percent of IVF pregnancies produce multiple fetuses: Gorman, “The Limits of Science.”

108 an estimated three million-plus IVF children in the world today: “History of IVF in the UK,” Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, March 2, 2009, at
http://www.hfea.gov.uk/en/1737.html
; “Three Million Babies Born After Fertility Treatment,”
Red Orbit
, June 21, 2006, at
http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/545282/
three_million_babies_born_after_fertility_treatment/index.html
Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, “ART in America,”
The Nation
, November 8, 2007, at
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071126/tuhus-dubrow
.

108 Natural twins will happen only one or two times in a hundred births: Gilles Pison et al., “Frequency of Twin Births in Developed Countries,”
Australian Academic Press
9, no. 2 (2006): 250–260, at
http://www.atypon-link.com/AAP/doi/abs/10.1375/twin.9.2.250
.

108 Fraternal twins can run in families: Pamela Prindle Fierro, “If I Have Twins in My Family, Will I Have Twins?” at
http://multiples.about.com/od/pregnancy/a/familytwin_2.htm;
P. Lichtenstein et al., “Twin births to mothers who are twins: a registry based study,”
British Medical Journal
312, 7035 (1996): 879–881, at
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2350609
.

108 Neonatal death is five times higher for twins than for singletons: Audrey C. Sandbank,
Twin and Triplet Psychology: A Professional Guide to Working with Multiples
(London: Routledge, 1999).

108 For triplets, the chance of infant death is eleven times higher than for single babies:
http://www.nature.com/jp/journal/v23/n5/full/7210950a.html
.

108 50 percent of all twins are premature:
http://www.nature.com/jp/journal/v23/n5/full/7210950a.html
.

108 90 percent of triplets:
http://www.nature.com/jp/journal/v23/n5/full/7210950a.html
. See also
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101027985
.

108 twins who are small for their gestational age: author's interview with Dr. Avner Hershlag, December 9, 2009; “Liza Mundy: Multiple Births ‘Changing Our World,'” February 23, 2009, at
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101027985
; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, press release, “National Birth Defects Prevention Study Shows Assisted Reproductive Technology Is Associated with an Increased Risk of Certain Birth Defects,” November 17, 2008, at
http://www.cdc.gov/media/pressrel/2008/r081117.htm
.

108 A twin is four times more likely to be born with cerebral palsy: Isaac Blickstein, M.D., “Do multiple gestations raise the risk of cerebral palsy?”
Clinics in Perinatology
31 (2004): 395–408; author's interview with Isaac Blickstein, June 8, 2007.

110 twins born as a result of fertility treatment: Michele Hansen, et al., “Twins born following assisted reproductive technology: perinatal outcome and admission to hospital,”
Human Reproduction
, published online (May 20, 2009):
http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/dep173
.

110 The crude summary of how IVF works: American Pregnancy Association, “In Vitro Fertilization: IVF,” May 2007, at
http://www.americanpregnancy.org/infertility/ivf.html
; author's interviews with fertility specialists Dr. Avner Hershlag, December 9, 2008, and Dr. James Grifo, December 9, 2008.

116 the UK and several European countries have: Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, “Multiple Births and Single Embryo Transfer Review,” February 2009, at
http://www.hfea.gov.uk/en/483.html
.

120 In 2008, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine recommended: American Society for Reproductive Medicine, “Guidelines on Number of Embryos Transferred,” November 2008, at
http://www.asrm.org/Media/Practice/
Guidelines_on_number_of_embryos.pdf
.

130 she lists twenty modern myths about twins: Eileen M. Pearlman and Jill Alison Ganon,
Raising Twins: What Parents Want to Know (And What Twins Want to Tell Them)
(New York: HarperCollins, 2000).

130 Spillman's 1991 study: Isaac Blickstein, Louis G. Keith, and Donald M.
Keith, eds.,
Multiple Pregnancy: Epidemiology, Gestation and Perinatal Outcome
, 2d ed. (Abingdon, England: Taylor & Francis, 2005).

130 “It is known that mothers of preterm twins”: ibid.

136” ‘Twin shock' can overwhelm the best-prepared mother”: ibid.

137 “parents are reluctant to separate their twins”: ibid.

139 “Several mothers have plainly said”: Dorothy Burlingham,
Twins: A Study of Three Pairs of Identical Twins
(London: Imago Publishing Company, 1952).

140 “Labels or personality styles are assigned to each twin”: Michael Roth-man, “The ‘Self-Twin' System” (master's thesis, Derner Institute, Adelphi University, 1999).

146 “The ‘pushing away' and ‘holding on'…”: Ricardo Ainslie,
The Psychology of Twinship
(Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1997).

147 won the National Poetry Slam championship:
http://www.aifestival.org/index2.php?menu=5&sub=2&id=363
.

151 “On the one hand, some of these twins articulate an ideal fantasy of twinship”: Ainslie,
The Psychology of Twinship
.

154 “One striking feature in many twinships”: ibid.

155 “With identical twins, the similarity in looks”: Dorothy Burlingham,
Twins: A Study of Three Pairs of Identical Twins
(London: Imago Publishing Company, 1952).