I look at my reflection in the window and my head is shaking by itself, willing all this away.
‘Are you OK, Molly? Is there anyone you can be with until you fly over here?’
There is nobody. ‘Fly over there? Dad, I . . .’ I can hear sirens from outside their Manhattan hotel room. Pulsing sirens. ‘What is that?’
‘Fire truck,’ says Dad. ‘It’s nothing. What did you want to say?’
‘I’ll come,’ I say. ‘Of course I’ll come. Is there a fast ship to New York?’
He says, ‘No, sweetie,’ in the soothing tone he’s used ever since I was a young girl. ‘We’ve checked. But the plane is safe. It’s completely safe.’
I swallow audibly. ‘I know it is,’ I say. ‘Statistically. I know it.’ One in a million. Less than one in a million. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll do it somehow. I . . .’
‘You have your breathing exercises, Molly. You’ll be OK.’
‘It’s just . . .’
‘What is it?’
‘I always thought I’d know, you know? I always thought if this ever happened I’d feel it somehow. Sense it.’
‘We didn’t sense it either, Moll.’
‘But you’re not twins. It’s totally different.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. Do you need help booking a flight?’
I take a deep breath. ‘I can do it.’
‘She looked so perfect.’ My father sniffs again but he does not cry.
‘But how? How did it happen? This cannot be.’
‘We don’t know yet, Moll. But the people here say she wasn’t in any pain at the end.’
Those two words shake me.
The.
End.
After we say goodbye I place my phone down on the bedside table and push my hands down into the mattress and ball my fists. I’m shaking, but I’m not crying.
Time passes. I feel numb. Detached.
When I get any news – good or bad – I tell my sister straight away. And she tells me her news too. That’s what we do. If I choose a paint colour for a wall or I find a new soup at my favourite café then I tell her. Every little thing I do, I tell her. This is the kind of thing I would tell her immediately. She is the other half of me.
Was the other half of me.
My God.
The world doesn’t feel right.
I walk through into my kitchenette and stare into the stainless steel sink. Her reflection stares back at me. I blink hard and take a pen and a piece of notepaper and sit down at the table.
My hand is shaking. I watch the pen, and the rollerball tip is waving around in the air. I put it down and pick it up again.
I write the word List. A well-known coping strategy. Order from chaos.
I write New York. I can’t bring myself to write Flight tickets.
She’s gone. She’s really gone.
Pack case. Usually this would take me a week or more.
How will Mum cope with this?
Passport.
How will I cope?
Money.
I will never see my sister again.
Tell boss.
I take my phone and Google ‘Katie Raven’ but I just get links to her Twitter and her Instagram and her Facebook. Then I find articles written by her for the Columbia Daily Spectator, and an article about her volunteering at the Morningside Heights Homeless Shelter. I search entries from the past twenty-four hours but find nothing.
I check her Instagram.
The last photo on the grid is from three days ago. Central Park, October sun washing over one side of her face, highlighting the scar in her eyebrow. She looks so relaxed. I start to tear up but I continue to focus on her face, her hair, her smile as the image distorts through a saline lens. I wipe my thumb over the wet phone screen and her face shrinks. I release my thumb and it grows again to fill the screen. What do I do now?
An hour later I feel different.
Composed, but also empty.
More alone than you could ever realistically imagine. I entered this life with my twin sister and part of me thought I’d leave with her as well. Now I’m here all alone. A singular half.
The best thing I can do right now is be practical. Get things done. Mum and Dad need my support. I’ll tick off the items on my list and then once that’s in order I can let myself feel the pain. I can give in to the grief.
I Google ‘safest airline in the world’ and start researching. I narrow my options to five airlines that fly daily from London to New York. I need to take this more seriously than ever before because if my parents lose me now then they will have lost everything.