Virginia Hamilton (3 page)

“We who are their family have to keep in mind certain things,” she said.

“Like what?” Justice asked.

“Well, that your brothers don’t only look alike, Tice. They also have identical inherited information called genes. They have the same blood group and the same brain patterns. They came from one fertilized egg, just as you did. But the
two
of them came from one egg and it divided into two identical parts. And that’s as close as two people ever get to being, feeling, seeing and looking like one another.”

Mrs. Douglass took a deep breath, calming herself a bit. Justice wondered why she seemed so excited, and she watched her mom closely.

Mrs. Douglass continued, “You weren’t far wrong when you said one was like a reflection of the other. But it shouldn’t seem creepy. Because for them it’s natural. Their kind are known as mirror identicals.”

“Really?” Justice said.

Her mom nodded. “Tom-Tom is left-handed,” she said, “and Lee is right-handed. Tom-Tom parts his hair on the right while Lee parts his on the left.”

“Right!” Justice said. “I knew that, but I never kind of put it together.”

“Well,” Mrs. Douglass said, and paused a moment. “I myself have been guilty of thinking there’s something odd—you know, I’ve told you stories. But perhaps odd is normal for them. Just remember that nearly every moment each one has to face the spitting image of himself. Levi once told me it felt like he was seeing himself and someone exactly like himself at the same moment. He said it was like ‘feeling double.’ And I could almost understand what he meant.”

Justice laughed suddenly, and nodded. “Must be like when I look in a mirror. I sometimes can feel myself looking at myself. I’m the reflection, and the reflection is me. I can ‘feel’ both going on and on forever. Boy, but for Thomas and Levi it must be really weird.”

They were quiet a moment. Then Justice said to her mom, “Tell me about them again.”

She loved the stories her mom could tell. Funny and sometimes strange things about the boys when they were babies. She pulled away from her mom to lean against the counter.

“Tice, I don’t think I have the time today,” Mrs. Douglass said.

Justice slowly pivoted, turning halfway from her.

“Maybe I should stay home this morning,” her mom said, studying her.

Justice peeked around. This was something unexpected—her and her mom together for an entire day, the way they used to be.

“Oh, but I can’t, hon, not today. Tice, I’m sorry! There’s usually a quiz in the middle of the week. Anyway, I shouldn’t miss classes when they charge you an arm and a leg to take them.”

She watched her small, dark-eyed daughter suck her fingers.

“Ticey.” Mrs. Douglass came over to her. She gently turned her daughter to face her. “You’re my favorite girl, you know that, don’t you? And your dad’s, too. You’re the girl we always wanted.”

“Mom!” she managed to whisper. Her face flushed and she covered it with her hands as her eyes began to tear. But with great effort she managed to control herself.

“I gotta go,” she said, finally. She did not enjoy having her mom leave her, and she felt much better about it when she left the house first, rather than the other way around. Also, she didn’t like being home with her mom not there to make it safe.

“You sure you’re okay?” her mom said. She peered at her daughter.

Justice hid away her feelings of apprehension. “I’m okay. Bye. See you later, Mother-gator.” She gave her mom a quick kiss on the cheek.

Mrs. Douglass gave her a nice one back. “Bye, sweetie. I’ll call to check around noon.”

Well, I won’t be here, Justice thought. She paused at the kitchen entrance. “Can’t you tell me just the one?” she said. “About what happened when you’d call one of them for something?”

“What?” But quickly Mrs. Douglass understood what Justice was referring to. “I don’t have the time, Tice, I really don’t.”

“Yes, you do, too. I don’t care if you tell it fast.”

“But you know that story,” Mrs. Douglass said.

“I know I know it. At least, I do when you tell it. Just tell it—please?”

Mrs. Douglass sighed. “If that’ll get me to school faster …”

Grinning, Justice ran to stand before her.

“Okay, here it is,” her mom began. “The boys were about three years old when I happened to notice something. I’d call out for Thomas to come to me. In summer, the screens would be in like now. He usually would be outside and he’d hear me and he’d come running. Well, I’d call for Levi the same way. You’d find him either in or out with Thomas—he never seemed to prefer indoors or outdoors, he was satisfied as long as Thomas was with him. Anyhow, I’d call for Levi, and Thomas would come to me. I’d tell Thomas to tell Levi I wanted him. And back would come Thomas by himself. If I wanted Levi for something, I’d have to go get him. Otherwise, I’d get Thomas every time.”

Justice stood there, fascinated. “Age four,” she said.

Without a pause, Mrs. Douglass continued. “When the boys were four years old, there was a slight change. I’d call for Thomas and he would come. I’d call for Levi, but I would get Thomas
pretending
to be Levi. Or I would call for Levi and both boys would show up. That’s it.”

Justice had listened with rapt attention. She knew the story by heart and she still loved it. But, for some reason, this time she had to know more.

“What does it mean?” she asked softly.

Her mother shrugged. “I think probably they were just trying to sort out who they were,” she said. She sighed and hurriedly turned back to her work at the sink, where she began rinsing lettuce for sandwiches.

“Well, do you think they’ve sorted it out by now?” Justice asked. And then sucked in her breath as a sudden inspiration came to her. She didn’t wait for a reply, but said, “You know what
I
think? Age three or age four, you always got Thomas when you called. But you never got Levi of his own free will—right?”

Her mom didn’t answer. With the water running and her mind on getting to school, she might not have heard.

So Justice went on her way. She did have her own business to attend to. She swept through the house in strides much too long for her short, muscular legs. Walking as if she were seven feet tall made her sneakers squeak importantly on the hardwood floors. Thomas had repeatedly warned her that sneakers made black marks on the paste wax.

“Liar—liar!” Justice had singsonged right back at him. Just the other day, too.

By the time Mrs. Douglass realized that her daughter hadn’t had anything substantial to eat, it was too late and Justice was out of the house. Outside, thoughts of her sometimes peculiar brothers and even her mom receded for Justice as she stood in the shade of the front porch.

“Oh, nice. Neat!” she said.

The sun beat down on grass and driveway. It was the sort of glaring light that made their white house with black trim look brand new.

“Bet there’s not a cloud.” She leaped from the porch out over the steps onto the short walk to the driveway. She saw that the sky was a forever blue. Just the kind they say in Ohio country is a California sky. Her dad liked to say that the forever blue with no moisture must arrive from westward by hopping a dawn freight train of the B&O Railroad.

There were a few clouds, Justice noticed. White, fluffy things, hardly moving, like sleeping puppies of the sky.

“It’ll get hotter’n hell,” she cussed to herself, “but I’ll be back home by then.”

Unlocking her bike at the edge of the steps, she afterward tucked the chain-lock key on its cord under the neck of her T-shirt. And hopped onto her bike, as agile as a cat on a fence. Bike-riding three-speeds thrilled her and took most of her time and energy. Justice rode all of the streets in town—once in a while with two or three girls from school. She’d ridden some distance out along country roads, past farmhouses and long lanes, all by herself.

Best of all, she liked biking on her own, to stop wherever she pleased. But today she had no time to freewheel. Like yesterday and the day before, Justice had sure, awful work to do.

F
ROM HOME, SHE TOOK
the gravel lane fast on her three-speed, risking a slide on sharp stones. She loved the way the lane and her house were situated at the end of a narrow blacktop road called Union. At the entrance of the property was an enormous cottonwood tree, at the top of which Levi often sat reading his books. The cottonwood had to be the biggest tree in the world; certainly bigger than any Justice had seen. Slowing to pass it, she looked up from under thousands of leaves and tens upon tens of stretching branches.

You grand, you tall woman, she thought. Better than a hundred and fifty years old, I bet.

Levi had said the cottonwood was older than a century, but he hadn’t said it was a woman.

Little kids of long ago making toys of your leaves.

He’d told her that Indians of past centuries had to have lived close to the tree. “Find a cottonwood,” he’d said, “and you’ll find fresh, running water, good for cooking and drinking.”

Maybe back then, she thought. But there was no running water on the property now.

Cottonwoman forever stands alone. You’ll find a black walnut tree nearby to stand as tall as she.

Levi had explained how the scarce black walnuts grew wherever cottonwoods and sycamores stood. Sure enough, a black walnut, brittle-limbed with age, stood to the side of the field they owned.

High up in the cottonwood, leaf upon leaf commenced a rustling. On the base branches, leaves hung limp and lifeless. Suddenly the whole height of the tree was caught in a gentle current of air.

Well, woman, pull on your shawl, it’s just so cool up there!

Justice laughed, screamed with the giggles and tore down the blacktop Union Road. At a wide street called Dayton, she paused to look both ways, then wheeled across it onto Tyler Street, which would take her clear across town.

Justice used each of her speeds to see that they all worked properly. Squeezing the hand brakes, she brought the bike nearly to a standstill. Before stopping completely, she pulled on the pedals and raced ahead once again. She speeded, nonstop or skid, clear to Xenia Avenue, where she waited for a year for the light to change to green. For cars to stand at attention for her. Finally, the light changed. She glided safely across the avenue, still on Tyler where it narrowed with tight, sleepy houses on either side.

“Not a lot of space for houses over here,” she said to herself. “Not like the open field where I come from.”

She pretended she had come to town on the B&O line like the freight-hoppers of years ago that her dad once told her about. They had come undercover of the forever sky, fleeing a great dust bowl—something Justice couldn’t quite picture. But she noticed there sure were a lot of freight-hoppers around today. Boy and girl hoppers carrying the books they’d read on the long B&O ride from California. They hurried along, crossing Tyler Street and turning onto Xenia Avenue.

Actually, they were students going to summer school.

Glad I’m not big, Justice thought. Having to study even when school’s out—brother! How can you hop a freight with your pockets full of pencils and stuff?

Tyler Street inclined gently and ended at a broken-down street called Morrey, which ran along the railroad tracks.

Can’t they ever fix up this street? Now I can’t speed.

She had to glide her way with care around potholes and broken shoulders of the road.

Ought-a be a law! Won’t be long, though, on this ragged road. Just a short minute. Then to cross the tracks onto the Quinella Road.

Blue sky stayed with Justice. She was hot in the denim jacket. Perspiration rolled down her temples to her chin. Soon she found herself beyond the dirty work of broken-down roads and ready for the hard.

She turned left off Morrey Street and onto the lip of the Quinella Road where the B&O tracks cut across it like two silver scars. Next came a round knoll of road like a chin before the Quinella began its crazy three-quarter-mile curve and winding way down.

Brother! Levi don’t know a thing!

She wasn’t nearly as afraid of the fast plunge and deep shadow of the Quinella Road as Levi had thought. Justice almost loved it; had ridden it since Monday—mornings and afternoons; even one evening when she found the chance to slip away. Not many her age dared ride it. She’d heard tell that new drivers of cars who had driven the Quinella could pass the test of any mountain road.

Better believe it, too.

Justice never thought of the road as up but as always plunging down, as if it went under the earth. Of course, she knew it headed down and away to open country of some corn-and-cattle kind.

The Quinella Road had a low guardrail on one side, with trees behind it that covered the dangerous edge of a jagged hill. On the other side, it was dirt wall, wet with natural springs and covered with bright green moss. Justice dared not look at the wall high up. She must keep her eyes on the downroad, keeping her pedals even as she coasted the first curve.

She gained terrific speed, with wind and shadow turning her sweat cold. Here she soon felt chilly. And here, too, near the shoulder with the guardrail, she might skid and maybe bash her brains.

She felt confident, as if some sure and certain luck would keep her safe. And the roll and coast of the Quinella thrilled her to her heart. Laughing, she gripped the handlebars. Her curls were soon plastered back from her forehead in waves. She felt wind pressure on her eyeballs, and her mouth went dry. At the crest of a plunge she’d not fixed firmly in her mind, her stomach suddenly rose and turned over. With a gasp, she flew off the seat and nearly wrecked.

Chrissakes! But her luck was still grand.

She steadied and all of her thoughts passed behind in the wind. Seeing each detail of wood and weed, she forgot them immediately. And plunged on and ever down.

Until, three quarter-miles later, there was a pause, a recess of a flat place in the Quinella Road.

Ready.

Justice craned her neck around to check the last long hill behind.

Nothing coming down.

She studied the forward road.