by Diana Gustafson
We shared a clear memory of our conception–a single unlucky zygote in a woman who was too young, too unsettled, too poor. Her ovum had tried to engulf the unwelcome sperm and bite off its tail, expecting to digest it out of existence. Sadly, that didn’t work. The woman summoned a rare metamorphic magic that induced a spectacular zygotic split. One became Two identical bean-shaped beings she implanted in the lush lining of her womb. Face to budding face. From then on–or so I thought–the two of us would always have each other.
Every day for nine months, the woman nourished us with love and a love of music: Mozart, Leonard Cohen, and The Rolling Stones. When our tiny, wrinkled selves squeezed out of her dark, muffled world into the brilliant noise of the There and Then, we sang out in joyful protest. She named me Suzanne and my sister Angie and wrote our names in loopy script on bassinet cards she placed above our heads. She stroked our downy skin with her long, slender fingers, laid us face to puffy face in the same incubator, and whispered. Dear ones, you will always have each other. Then she tied her curly brown locks in a messy ponytail and slipped out the back door of the hospital just as the moon lifted like a milky balloon above the city horizon.
As children, we were seldom apart–even at night. Angie was a gymnast and climbed out of her crib and into mine, where we lay, pudgy fists touching as we jibber-jabbered until we fell asleep. As pre-schoolers, we insisted on sitting side by side on the same park swing, our toes pointing to the clear sky and singing at the top of our lungs, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.” Not until grade three did we feel safe letting go of each other’s hands as we walked to school. By that time, we’d perfected head whispering. Talking to my sister without speaking was a comfort in a world where we were a curiosity; where teachers and friends had trouble telling us apart; where some treated us like one person in two bodies.
When we were ten, we competed in the piano duo section at the Kiwanis Music Festival in Toronto, and played our favourite womb music, Papageno’s duet from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” When our names were called, our hearts fluttered. Eyes focused on the Yamaha grand piano in centre stage, our black ballet flats brushed across the shiny hardwood. Arms at our sides, our fingers scrunched the satin of our black dresses, and we bowed to the judges and the audience. Backs straight, we settled side by side on the ebony piano bench and swayed in unison as the music rose and fell; our hands glided and crossed over the ivory keys, our wrists flat, our fingers curved. Head whispers helped us maintain our rhythm and synchronicity. When we played the last note, we lifted our hands in the dramatic way they’d taught us.
Angie head whispered. We did good.
I smiled. It was perfect.
Then I heard it. A sound reflection. I am proud of you, dear ones. I looked at Angie. She grabbed my hand. She’d heard it too. Breathless, we hurried off the stage.
Again, on the morning of our thirteenth birthday, Angie and I gazed at our naked pubescence in the bedroom mirror, fascinated by the changes we saw in our bodies. Without warning, our reflections rippled and morphed into a single diaphanous vision: She was tall and elegant with soft brown curls and chocolate eyes.
My forehead wrinkled. Is this who we will become?
Angie brushed my hand. Maybe this is the woman who gave us each other.
Angie’s response vibrated every cell of my body. By the time I had the courage to sneak another glimpse, the dream-like figure had softened and shifted. Only our wide-eyed images stared back at us.
Moments like those stirred our curiosity. When we started high school, Ms. Hatch, the librarian, fed us every resource she could find about twinness. Angie, the biology nerd, received links to studies about identical twins. Me? I wanted to learn everything I could about head whispering. Ms. Hatch said the experts called it twin telepathy. But I knew what Angie and I shared wasn’t telepathy. It was something special and different.
* * *
It’s Thursday afternoon in mid-summer. The sun is brilliant in defiance of every sensible message in the Here and Now. I shower and dress. I put my ukulele in its case and take the bus to the hospital. As I stare out the window, I replay a vision, like a slide deck. If I could remove one slide, I could magically change the outcome.
Maybe if we hadn’t bought bicycles, she would have taken the bus to the grocery store.
Maybe if the city had built bicycle lanes instead of a new sports stadium.
Maybe if the guy in the parked car hadn’t opened his driver door into Angie’s path catapulting her ten feet into the air, crashing helmet first onto the unforgiving asphalt and compressing the weight of her delicate body on her cervical vertebrae, crushing her spinal cord.
Seated at Angie’s bedside, my ukulele pressed against my chest, I fingerpick the chords to our childhood song and imagine her head whispers joining me in rich harmony. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.”
The respirator clicks and wheezes.
“You make me happy when skies are gravy.” I exaggerate the last word. As kids, we’d thought it was hilarious to rewrite words to familiar songs. I searched Angie’s face. No smile. No eye twitch of recognition.
You’ll never know, Angie, how much I love you. Please don’t take your sunshine away. I head whisper these words because I cannot bear to sing them aloud. And because I hope in her deepest unconscious, she can hear me. I rest the ukulele at the foot of the bed and hold Angie’s cool hand. I open my mind for the sound of her voice but hear nothing.
The blips on the cardiac monitor trace the adagio of a funeral dirge.
* * *
It’s been three weeks since Angie left the Here and Now. At first, I lay in bed. Inert. The sun rises. The sun sets. As if the world didn’t know everything had changed.
The half of me that was Angie is missing. My body throbs with phantom pain. Her leaving, a brutal amputation. I want to scream. To howl. Without breath in my lungs, I am mute. There is no one to finish my sentences; to speak to me without uttering a word. I fear I cannot be whole without her.
My cell phone rings unanswered. The battery dies. The house is silent. There is no reason to go to the university. To show up for my part-time job. Groceries delivered to the house are stacked in my fridge where they grow furry white mold before I toss them in the compost bin and carry the leaking bag to the curb for pickup.
Days turn into hazy weeks.
I know Angie is gone. There is no one to miss her but me. What difference would it make if I disappeared? Dehydrated. Atomized in the wind and blown through an open window.
My neighbour, Joan refuses to let me disappear myself. Every couple of days, she raps at my front door. I ignore her until I can’t bear the insistent knocking. I drag myself out of bed or off the couch–whichever milestone surface I’ve reached that day. Her hands cradle cinnamon rolls or oatmeal cookies or chicken noodle soup. “I’m so sorry, Suzanne.” She smiles with her mouth, but her eyes are sad.
She is more generous to me than I was to her when her husband died last year. I wish I had the emotional energy to feel guilty about that. But I don’t. I thank her. As she descends my front steps, she says, “Take your time. It’s a long journey back to normal–whatever that is.”
It’s late Wednesday afternoon, and Joan knocks at the front door. I want to hide, but she sees me collapsed on the couch, her nose pressed against the unfrosted sidelight. She holds up a covered container. I open the door. She lifts the lid to release the savoury aroma of Angie’s favourite meal, a warm, cheesy square of lasagna. Joan hesitates before letting go of the container. “Every Wednesday, I go to a grief support group. We meet at the community centre downtown. Sometimes we talk. Mostly we just meditate.”
I shake my head.
Joan continues. “Mira is our group leader. She’s new. She’s amazing. I can’t explain what happens. None of us can. But it’s good–really, really good.”
Feeling nothing is far better than feeling something. And I certainly don’t want to feel good. Feeling good is an insult to my sister, who can no longer experience this life.
“Grieving is hard work, Suzanne.” Joan is gentle but encouraging. “I’ll come by after dinner. If you want to go, great. If you don’t, that’s fine too.”
If I don’t go, I know Joan will keep pestering me. I brush my teeth, yank a comb through my curls, and throw on one of Angie’s t-shirts. When Joan and I arrive at the community centre, people mill about; sorrow etches their faces, but they nod and murmur greetings as they create a circle of folding chairs. One by one, we take a seat, eyes downcast, spines straight against the chair back, hands in our laps. The early evening sun buffs the wooden floor.
Mira floats in. She is tall and slim. Brown curls tumble over her shoulders. As she settles into her chair, quiet descends around us.
“Welcome, everyone.” Her voice is sweet music. “In tonight’s meditation, I invite you to consider the possibility that there is more than one plane of existence.” She pauses. “Let’s begin.”
My muscles tense. Something about her unsettles me, yet her dulcet tones sing to me.
“Close your eyes and clear your mind.
Inhale deeply through your nose.
Fill your belly, then your chest.
Hold it. Feel it swell your heart.
Then let it go. Just let it go.”
A vision edges in. Angie and I are in the living room practising yoga poses before bedtime. Hero pose. Child’s pose. Upward dog. Butterfly fold. Knee to chest. Corpse pose. Angie’s body lies crumpled on the street.
A deep ache ripples across my chest. I can’t do this.
Dear one. Focus on your breath. Mira speaks to me without uttering a word. An unbidden thought. A head whisper. When your mind weaves a story, acknowledge it, and then return to your breath.
What is happening? Maybe I’m losing my mind. My palms are sweating. I’m going to throw up. I flee. My back is pressed against the wall in the corridor–something hard and real to ground my feet to the rippling floor. Five minutes or more pass before my heart stops hammering against my spine.
When Joan and the others appear in the lobby, I do not hear their footsteps as they glide an inch or two above the floor. Their bodies are soft as if they’ve emerged from a long, tender embrace. Joan’s face is unimaginably serene.
The two of us drive home in silence except for the low-pitched hum of the tires on the road.
A week passes and Joan knocks on my door. “Please give us another try.” She hands me a chicken pot pie still warm from the oven.
“You are too kind, Joan. I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes.” Her eyes crinkle when she smiles. “I know you felt something, Suzanne. I saw it in your face.” When she raps on my door an hour later, I sigh deeply and follow her to the car.
Mira welcomes the group as we settle into our seats. Her chocolate eyes smile across the circle at me. I’m glad you returned, dear one. I shake my head to empty her words like loonies from a piggy bank. I focus on my breathing, the rise and fall of my chest, the cool air enters my nose, and the warm air flows out. In and out.
Six breaths. Drop into your heart. Listen to your soul’s whisper.
My muscles relax. I feel calm. My body is light. I am floating. Weightless.
With each breath, I ascend.
With each exhale, I fall back.
In and up; Out and back.
Lifting into another space before dipping back out.
Twelve breaths. Breathe in peace. Breathe out sorrow.
I am a smooth stone skipping across the surface of a space between the Here and Now, and the There and Then.
One more breath and I am embedded in a vast emptiness where there is neither dark nor light. I hear no sounds, yet silence rings in my ears.
I have no body, yet I know I exist, as in a womb, surrounded by a warmth I have not known since my conception. Time collapses on itself.
Then… a presence. A duplicate.
Faces me. Melts into me. I know you. I am you.
Like metamorphic magic, I absorb the duplicate.
I am absorbed by it. Becoming one. Becoming whole.
Peace is palpable. Time seems endless.
Time ripples and stretches. The boundary snaps. I descend from the quiet of the There and Then into the brilliant noise of the Here and Now, and I sing out in joyful protest.
I feel her long, slender fingers touch my skin. A sound reflection whispers, You will always have each other.
When I open my eyes, Mira is gone. As in the beginning, she slipped out the back door, just as a milky balloon moon lifted above the horizon. My regret at her leaving flutters away like loose sheet music in a soft breeze. But in the quiet moments, I will listen for her voice and watch for her diaphanous image in a mirror.
In the days and months to come, Joan and I will never speak of Mira’s gift and the magic that returned our dear ones to us. We will care for one another. We will share evening meals. When a Rolling Stones track plays on the car radio, we will turn up the volume and sing in harmony. We live in peace in the Here and Now.
© 2026 Diana Gustafson All rights reserved.
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