I place my hand on the box.
It’s not warm.
We leave the building and the cab’s already outside waiting. There’s an advert for The Late Show on its roof. The wind gusts and Dad shields the box with his body while Mum and I pull the cab door open. The driver doesn’t help. We get in and speed away.
There’s a team of four guys boarding up the windows to an industrial building, screwing pieces of plywood to the frames. Further on, closer to the East River, there’s a woman with a stall, sitting there in a yellow poncho selling sandbags, twenty for a hundred dollars. Her sign says there’s a discount for bulk orders. It says the sandbags are military grade.
We don’t speak on the way back to the hostel.
Dad’s probably thinking about KT, but also about flight logistics, how much time we’ll need to check in and clear security, if carrying a box of human remains might hold things up even though they’ve been assured it won’t, whether the storm will delay the flight, and how they’ll get from Heathrow back to Nottingham. Mum’s likely thinking about KT. About how she lived a full life. They both seem calm. People say relatives need closure and they’re right.
I got closure almost a week ago.
Something shifted when her body went limp, when she stopped struggling. I’ve been calm ever since, but in some ways the cremation was cathartic for me. It marked the start of me coming to terms with the rest of my life as a solo twin.
Statisticians tell us that identical twins tend to die within two years of each other. That gives me less than twenty-four months of life left.
Imagine having an exact copy of yourself, behaving entirely differently in the world, experiencing it differently. There is a well-documented medical condition called twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. It’s where blood from your mother passes through one twin on its way to the other. The donor twin receives the good blood briefly before donating it to the twin, who then receives all the nutrients. This is what I believe happened to us in the womb, only with spirit. I was four when I realised she was the special one and I was the back-up. Same size and shape, but flat. Hollow. I was constantly reminded of my own shortcomings. The mirror-image version was always more important and seeing her, being with her, weighed me down.
Until now.
We pull up outside the hostel in Midtown and the streets are almost empty of people. Dad takes his time with the box of ashes. I hold the hostel door and then together we walk upstairs. He puts the box down gently on their bed. We hug in the hallway outside our rooms and it feels good to be in this hug, just the three of us. They finish packing and then we meet again in the hall.
‘Where are your bags, Molly? I’ll take them down for you,’ says Dad.
I check to make sure Mum is within earshot.
‘Mum, Dad. I’m so sorry but I have to tell you something.’
Mum frowns and Dad rubs his forehead.
‘What is it, sweetie?’ says Mum.
‘You’re going to be angry,’ I say.
‘Of course we’re not,’ says Dad. ‘Only tell us quickly, Moll. The cab’s outside waiting.’
‘I don’t know where to . . .’
Dad checks his watch and Mum says, ‘Paul, stop stressing. Listen to Molly.’
I swallow.
‘I’m not coming with you.’
‘I knew it,’ says Mum. ‘Paul, I told you she wouldn’t fly in this storm. Sweetie, I understand, I really do.’
‘If it’s not safe for planes to take off then they won’t let us fly,’ says Dad. ‘They’re the experts. Look, let’s talk about this at the airport, shall we? Or in the cab on the way there; we really need to get going. We don’t have enough on our credit cards to buy any more tickets; this isn’t a game.’
‘You two go and I’ll come back in a few days, a week maybe.’
‘We’ll stay here with you,’ says Mum.
Dad looks at her. ‘Have you both gone mad? We paid almost fifteen hundred pounds for these tickets, on credit. Grab your bags, both of you, and let’s get in the cab.’
‘It’s the way they present the news here,’ says Mum. ‘They make it sound like the end of the world, like there’ll be a tidal wave or something.’
Dad’s face is turning red. ‘Molly, Liz, please! Let’s talk about all this in the cab. This isn’t funny.’
‘I’ll walk down with you,’ I say.
I help them with their bags. Dad holds the box.
The cab’s waiting outside.