“Sorry isn’t good enough. You’re in detention for the rest of the day,” she said. “Go.”
Haylee didn’t look back. She lowered her head and left the bedroom to go downstairs to the pantry, where Mother put us if we disobeyed her about anything. She would not let the light be put on, either, and there were no windows. There was nothing to do but sit in the dark. Just having to stay in there for ten minutes was horrible. The rest of the day meant that Haylee would be in there for hours!
I did feel sorry for her, even though she had tried to get me in trouble. I felt sorry for her for two reasons. She just didn’t listen when Mother forbade us time and time again to say or do anything to hurt each other. Either she couldn’t obey that rule or she was just too stubborn to do it. This meant that she would get Mother angry at her again and again and would be punished again and again. No matter what, when one of us did something that displeased Mother, she was too angry to be nice to the other one, so I would have to keep myself from looking at her. It was best to stay away until Haylee was forgiven.
And of course, I felt sorry for Haylee sitting alone in the darkness. I couldn’t help it. Ever since we were infants, if one of us suffered some pain and began to wail, the other would, too. Once, when Haylee cut herself on a piece of glass she had picked up outside, Mother looked at the wound and then, using the same piece of glass, cut me on the same finger. She said she did that so we would always feel sorry for each other and understand what each other suffered.
Daddy saw the Band-Aids on our fingers and was curious.
“They both picked up broken glass outside,” Mother told him.
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“Amazing,” he said. “And cut themselves in the exact same place?”
She looked at me to see if I would tell, but I didn’t, just as I wouldn’t tell him what she had done to the second classroom desk.
“I’m not surprised,” she said. “And you shouldn’t be. What one does, the other does. They have since the day they were born. Your children are very, very special, Mason. When are you going to realize it?” She sighed deeply, as if she felt sorrier for him than for us.
He shook his head and didn’t continue to ask questions, which was what he did more and more.
Mother was right, though. After that, I did feel the same pain that Haylee felt, and she seemed to feel the same pain that I felt, although sometimes I thought she was pretending just to please Mother. For me, at least, it was almost supernatural the way I imagined myself suffering whatever Haylee suffered. But I could also enjoy whatever she enjoyed. If she took a piece of chocolate, I tasted it when she put it in her mouth. I would get myself a piece even if Mother wasn’t watching, but sometimes I didn’t and still felt as if I had eaten it. Would this always be? Would the enchantment last forever?
Right now, I could easily imagine how uncomfortable and even afraid Haylee was in the dark pantry. It was as if I was in the darkness, too. When Mother wasn’t looking, I sneaked into the kitchen, went to the door of the pantry, and whispered through the crack.
“I’m here, Haylee. You can whisper to me. Mother’s busy. She won’t know.”
She didn’t respond. I wondered if she was crying, sobbing to herself the way she sometimes could without making a sound. Sometimes her body would shake so hard she looked more like someone freezing. That would frighten me, and before long, I would be shaking, too.
“Are you all right, Haylee? You know what you can do to pass the time? Play that word game Mother taught us yesterday. You remember. Think of a number of letters, and then think of something like a tree. What on a tree has four letters? Remember? That would be either leaf or bark. Tell you what, I’ll give you some to think about.” I rattled off ten more examples of Mother’s game. She still didn’t whisper back. “Mother’s up again,” I said, hearing the sound of footsteps. “I’ll come back later.”
I slipped away and went back up to our room. I tried not to think of poor Haylee below in the darkness, but no matter what I did, the image of her sitting in the dark pantry alone kept coming back. Did she hear mice scurrying under the floorboards? We had heard that from time to time, and occasionally, especially in the pantry, we would come upon an ugly, scary spider. Whenever either of us was in there doing detention, just the thought of that made us itch and jump at the sensation of something crawling on us.
If we were placed in there together, we were forbidden to talk. Mother would listen at the door, and if she heard whispers, she would add another hour of detention. The first time we were in there together, we held hands, but the next time, we didn’t. Usually, it was because of something Haylee had done, but we both had to be blamed, even if I couldn’t have done it, too. Mother would get angrier if I tried to claim innocence while Haylee was guilty. The worst thing to do was be angry at Haylee for getting us in trouble and then have Haylee yell at me once we were in the pantry. There was no telling how much longer our punishment might be.
I heard Daddy come home early that afternoon and hurried out and down the stairs, hoping his arrival would mean Haylee would be let out of the pantry early, but Mother didn’t make any move to do so. I found them both in the great room. It looked as if she hadn’t even told him Haylee was in the pantry. He was telling her about something good that had happened at work. He paused when I stepped into the doorway.
“Kaylee? Where’s your sister?” he asked instantly. He was so accustomed to us greeting him together.
I looked at Mother.
“She’s being punished,” she said.
It was rare for one of us to be punished and not the other, so Daddy’s eyebrows rose like two question marks. “What did she do?”
“Mainly, she didn’t defend her sister but instead lied about her and blamed her for something,” Mother said. “My perfect twins don’t do that.”
“What did she lie about?” he asked.
“Playing with my jewelry.”
Daddy sat back, his face tightening. “Why lie about something like that? Was something broken, missing?”
“No, and in fact, no one played with my jewelry.”
“I don’t understand,” Daddy said, shaking his head. “No one played with it?”
“It was a test to see if one of them would lie about the other. Haylee did. She blamed it on Kaylee. She won’t do that anymore,” she added.