That was passion. That was the kind of romance that stories were written about, that launched a thousand ships. I knew the look in my mother’s eyes; even though I couldn’t fully understand it and had never experienced it myself, it strummed something deep and essential inside me. Something uniquely and painfully human. It was longing, an ache that was so real I could feel it exhale in the room between us. And it was the heartbreaking certainty that the thing she wanted most she could never, ever have. I witnessed the moment that she remembered—and lost him all over again.
My mother has never looked at Lawrence Baker that way.
And yet, for the entire month after they first met, Law showed up at Cunningham’s on Saturday morning and bought Rebecca a caramel pecan roll. On the fourth week, he dared to reach out his hand and tuck a strand of dark hair behind her ear. She let him. She also let him call her Reb, take her out on a few real dates, and a couple of months later propose with his grandmother’s wedding ring, a simple gold band that had been etched by years of wear and hard work. She still wears that plain ring.
I guess it’s a different kind of love.
Law knew Reb was pregnant with another man’s baby. And to absolutely no one’s great surprise, he took her anyway. Who else would marry Lawrence Baker? There’s no male equivalent—“bachelor” didn’t quite do justice to his situation—but he was clearly an old maid, gruff and past his prime and not husband material. Of course, Mom has never used those words with me. She paints the picture much differently, insisting that they needed each other, that they were an unexpectedly perfect fit. But it’s not hard to read between the lines. They’ve always been a mismatch: Reb with her music and her artist’s soul, her slender wrists and hair black as the river at night; Law with his shock of close-cropped, steel-wool curls, acne-scarred skin, hands as big as a bear’s paws. They’re night and day, dark and light, and though they seem to work in their own surprising way, it’s always a bit disconcerting to see. They’re a curious pair and always have been.
A couple months after I was born, my mom was pregnant again.
This time, a boy. Jonathan was born on May 8, exactly six weeks and two days before my first birthday. Law had made a few bad investments （Mom would never say what, just that things were tight）， so after Jonathan moved out of the bassinet, he moved into my crib. And I guess the rest is history.
Why we go camping with our friends to commemorate the window of time that we’re virtual twins is a bit more murky, but this is our third （and probably final） year, and I’m not about to question tradition. Still, something about this trip hums in warning, like the charge in the air around an electric fence. I can’t shake the feeling I’m in for a shock.
“I have the tent, the air mattress, and the cooler,” Ashley tells me over french fries from the drive-in on the edge of town. We’re sitting cross-legged on the lawn in front of the community center because Ashley’s walked over to keep me company during my lunch break. I suspect she needs a little adult interaction, and as payment for intelligent conversation, she’s brought a large order of Davey’s crinkle fries and a chocolate shake to share. She’s also brought the twins, and they’re side by side in a double stroller, babbling to each other and gumming french fries to mush. Bella’s fry squishes through her overzealous chokehold and hits the ground in pieces. I hand her another before she starts to wail.
“Sounds good,” I say, but I’m distracted, and Ashley knows it.
“What sounds good?”
“What you said.”
“Mmhmm. And what are you bringing?”
I lift one shoulder, hoping she’ll fill in the blanks like she always does.
But Ashley just gives me a disgusted look. “You’re half gone, aren’t you?”
I’m not sure if she’s talking about college, or the fact that my lunch break is almost up. A couple of my arts and crafts campers have already filtered past where we’re sitting in the shade of a giant cottonwood. I wave and smile as another one walks by, then force myself to give Ashley my full attention and say, “Just a little distracted, I guess.”
“Well, that’s nothing new.”
It’s not like Ashley to be so tart, and that more than anything convinces me of my tenuous grip on my best friend. I watch as she starts to gather up the remains of our lunch—a couple squeeze packets of ketchup and the huge cup with an inch or two of chocolate sludge in the bottom—and wonder why she hasn’t brought up Sullivan. The memory of our kiss makes me skittish, but when I open my mouth to come clean to my friend, the words shrivel on my tongue.