“Sal? You awake?”
My friend Mary’s voice hollered from downstairs, startling me. Could it be afternoon already?
Feeling achy and dizzy when I woke that morning, Mom said, “It must be the flu that’s going around. Stay home today.” She kissed me goodbye and left for work. So, I’d stayed home alone that spring day in 1971, my sophomore year of high school. I mostly slept, read some, and listened to my favorite album, The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, over and over.
“Come on up, Mary. And bring snacks.”
She had let herself in. Practically a family member, Mary knew we never locked the back door during the daytime. She breezed into my room, balancing a tray with Cheez-It crackers and two glasses of 7-Up with lots of ice, just the way we both liked it. She plopped down near the end of my bed. I propped myself against my pillows and curled my legs into a lotus position. I knew yoga because my mother taught classes in our backyard—when in an up-mood, that is. Mom had mood swings. When up, she taught yoga, rode her bike all over town, talked nonstop, and rarely sat down. When depressed, she sat all day with the curtains drawn, smoking cigarettes nonstop and hardly speaking. Sometimes her manic moods embarrassed me. I wished she were like my friends’ mothers: without swings, just even.
With the tray of snacks nestled between us, Mary’s eyes twinkled as she filled me in on her day at school, who said what, and who was mad at whom. I laughed out loud at all the funny bits.
“I feel a lot better,” I said, snatching a handful of Cheez-Its.
I envied Mary’s long brown hair hanging loose and relaxed to just below her shoulders. My kinky black hair required crazy hard effort every night when I’d roll it onto empty tin juice cans, then wrap a scarf around my head to hold the cans in place as I slept, trying to fool my wild mop of hair into lying straight.
Mary was mid-story when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” she said, and trotted down the stairs. When she returned, she wasn’t alone. A man pushed past her, where she’d stopped in the doorway. He knocked her shoulder as though he didn’t notice her and burst into my room, stopping right beside my bedside. His broad smile looked odd, creepy even.
Panic lurched into my throat. Who was this stranger in my room? A robber? A rapist? All sixteen-year-old girls knew they should run away in this situation. But I saw no escape. I pulled my covers up to my chin, my fists clenched tight, trying to cover myself and wishing I were in clothes instead of my flower-print nightgown.
He looked about twenty-one, my sister Joan’s age. With his shaggy brown hair uncombed and messy, his jeans ripped at both knees, and his blue work shirt untucked, he looked like any teen in our town. But his vibe was weird. He scanned my room, first checking me out, huddled there in my bed, then my desk, my record player, and last he eyed Mary, still standing in the doorway, looking as though she’d like to bolt. Then, jamming his hands into his pockets, he paced back and forth by the window.
Would anyone hear me if I screamed for help? At that exact moment he stopped pacing and planted his feet dead-center at the foot of my bed. In a firm voice, like it was important that I understand, he said, “I’m David. Don’t you remember me?”
I gasped—my head snapped toward Mary. Her terrified, wide eyes insisted, Don’t let him know we’re afraid.
Next, with an eerie low voice, as though imploring me, the strange guy uttered, “I’m David. Joan’s twin.”
But my brother David had died—eight years ago.
My thoughts shot backward to that early morning in June 1963—the terrible last morning of David alive. The twins were fifteen. I was only eight. Joan had let me sleep in the extra twin bed in her room the night before.
David poked his head in, “Psst… hey, I’m leaving for my bike trip. Just wanted to say goodbye.”
I half-opened my eyes and smiled a sleepy smile at my irresistible big brother. How could he look so awake? The sun had yet to rise, and he’d already washed his face, and his eyes sparkled with excitement. I lifted my sleep-heavy arm and weakly waved.
“Bye, David. See you when you come home.”
Joan locked eyes with David. “Be careful,” she said.
The room spun. For years after the accident, I’d close my eyes tight and wish that the doctor had made a mistake, that David had not lost too much blood when the speeding driver barreled into him as he cycled across that country road, after a quick stop at the little market for a Coke. Maybe he didn’t die, I used to imagine.
I blinked. The stranger’s wavy dark hair did look like David’s. His hazel eyes were the exact color as David’s and mine. Could this be David’s ghost, manifesting now as a young man? Could he truly be home?
“Where’s Joan?” he asked.
“She’s away at college.” The words caught in my dry throat.
“Oh.” He looked devastated, disappointed, sad.
What the hell? Who was this person standing in my room, claiming to be David, demanding that I recognize him? I wanted him out of our house.
“You should leave now,” I heard myself say, having no idea where the strength to speak so forcefully had come from. Would this make him angry? Would he grab me? Instead, he lowered his gaze and dropped his shoulders, as though my words wounded him. Then he left my room. Mary and I listened as his slow, deliberate footsteps descended the stairs. We heard the front door close.
“What just happened?” I looked straight at Mary.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “But, Sally, you do know who that was, right?” My expression must have shown utter confusion.
“That was Mark Evans,” she said.
I did a double take. I’d heard of Mark. He’d been a classmate of David and Joan’s. People whispered about him. Odd, maybe a genius, possibly schizophrenic.
“I recognized him when I opened the door,” she went on. “He looked excited, had this giant smile. He asked if Joan was home. When I told him, ‘No, only her sister’s home,’ he stood on the porch for a moment, then asked if he could come in.”
I glared at Mary. “You should have told me who he was.”
“I thought you’d know him.”
I shook my head and swung my legs out to sit on the edge of my bed.
“My heart’s still pounding.”
“Mine too,” Mary said, moving to the window. I joined her, standing close so our shoulders touched. We spotted Mark, walking up the street, now only a tiny moving speck.
“Mary,” I whispered, “He resembles David.”
A small gulping noise came from my friend’s throat. “Yes, he looks a lot like David.”
I wiped warm tears from my cheeks. If only he’d been more careful.
Finally, we heard Mom’s car pull in the driveway. Mary picked up her backpack. “I’ll head home now,” she said. Our eyes locked for a second.
I was still standing at the window when Mom came in to check on me.
“Mom, something awful happened.”
She cocked her head, placed the back of her hand on my forehead, and smoothed my hair.
“You remember Mark Evans, right? From Joan and David’s class?” I told her everything. “I’ve never been so scared.”
Now my tears overflowed. I wrapped my arms around Mom. After a moment, she nodded her head and patted my back.
“There’s something I need to do,” she said more to herself than to me. She left my room and walked down the stairs. I knelt, trembling, in the upstairs hall, watching Mom through the banister rails. She sat at the small telephone table, paging through her book of phone numbers.
“Hello, Mark. This is Ann Hatch. I’m calling to thank you for stopping by the house today to let us know you are thinking about David. It means a lot to us.”
I stared, stunned. What is she saying? I thought she’d warn him never to return.
“Please give my best to your parents, and thank you again, Mark.”
A wave of astonishment washed over me. New tears poured down my cheeks, but now they were tears of admiration. Mom understood that when he came to our door, Mark believed he was David and had hurried home to share the good news—he was alive. Branches of respect for my mother spread through me. In that moment, I wanted no other mother.