Threads of Life

Chapter 3-3

I had watched television, eaten a bag of Cheezies, and m*********d two times.

He pushed his shoulder against mine. “Come on. There must be something.”

I certainly wasn’t going to tell him I m*********d two times thinking about Rickie Kasner.

“I’ll go first. There’s this eighteen-year-old guy at St. John’s who lost the bottom part of both legs in a car accident. Can you imagine? They fit him with these funny looking metal braces. They look like two big egg holders. He’s learning to walk on them, but he’s frustrated because he falls a lot. I usually play cards with him. He likes Crazy Eights. We should play. It’s fun. Today must have been a particularly bad day for him because he leaned over and whispered to me that he wanted me to get him a g*n so he could shoot himself. And he was serious.”

WeI was wondering what Simon said to him but didn’t ask.

“You want to know what I said to him?”

“No.”

“I told him that you don’t need legs to be Prime Minister of Canada or to have s*x with beautiful girls. That made him smile. Now, it’s your turn.”

“I ate a bag of Cheezies.”

* * *

I already told you that Simon and I slept in the same room. What I haven’t told you is that our house on Hampshire Court was a large house, with five bedrooms, two washrooms, and a den upstairs, and that despite the three empty bedrooms, and the den that could have been converted into yet another bedroom, Simon and I were crowded into one room. And why? Because Simon and my parents shared a belief that, without large doses of close proximity to my twin, I would become even more lethargic and unmotivated, and would certainly fail at everything.

And through my dedication to inactivity and mediocrity, I did nothing to change their minds.

* * *

But by age fifteen our bedroom really was too small. My bed looked like a tiny cabin half-buried under an avalanche of clothing and other paraphernalia at the foot of Mount Simon. I was determined to move.

It was a school day. My mother was in the kitchen. By the time I came downstairs, Simon had already run, showered, and eaten. And my father had already left for work. Their empty bowls and glasses were on the counter by the sink.

“Our room is way too small. I’m moving into one of the empty ones.”

“Are you sure you want to do that, honey?”

“I’m sure.”

My mother put a bowl of oatmeal in front of me. I got up, went to the pantry, and came back with a plastic bottle of maple syrup, which I stirred into the bowl until the oatmeal turned dark brown.

“You’ve never slept by yourself. You’ll feel so lonely.” She patted my head.

“No, I won’t be lonely.” I rolled my eyes at her and she smiled.

“I know Simon will be. He loves sleeping in the same room with you.”

“I can’t breathe in there. Roxanne doesn’t put anything away anymore. She just stuffs things under the beds or in the cupboard.”

Roxanne cleaned our house twice a week and I was sure her least favourite job was cleaning our room. An interior decorator with a degree in engineering would have found it overwhelming.

“Why don’t we talk to your brother first.”

“Why can’t I move?”

“Well, you know, I worry about you on your own.”

“On my own? I won’t be on my own. I’ll be in the next room.”

“Sometimes, I think if you didn’t have Simon pushing you, you would just curl up into a ball and not want to do anything.”

“That’s not true. I do lots of things on my own.”

“There’s something I should tell you,” my mother said. “Something I should have told you years ago. Maybe it will help explain the way I feel.” She sat down across from me at the table. “When I brought you home, you were the littlest thing I had ever seen. I had so much trouble feeding you. You fidgeted all the time, and you were colicky all day and night. After a couple of days of trying to get food into you, I thought I was going to have to take you back to the hospital so they could feed you intravenously again. I was so tired. I was sitting in the rocking chair in my room trying to calm you down so you would take the bottle and Simon was lying on a blanket on the floor. I didn’t know what to do. You were crying so hard your tiny body was shaking. I was ready to cry. I couldn’t think straight. I just needed to close my eyes for a couple minutes and take a few deep breaths. So, I put you on the blanket next to your brother and suddenly you stopped crying. Simon had moved his little hand on top of yours. When I told your father, he said it was an accident, but I didn’t think so. I think he was looking out for you. For the first time, you looked peaceful. I ran out of the room and heated up the bottle, and ran back and put it in your mouth, and you drank the whole thing.”

“I’m fifteen. I can feed myself.”

“I know, honey,” my mother said. She got up and kissed me on the forehead. “You need to get going to school.”

* * *

The next day, instead of allowing me to move, my parents told me that I should stay where I was because they had a surprise for me that was better than moving. A week later, while Simon and I were at school, they had the wall between our existing room and the room next door removed, doubling our space.

The extra square footage didn’t make a difference. In a few weeks, Simon’s belongings spread out across the greater distance between our beds and left me besieged again in the spoils of his life.