Kindred Read online

  “Anyway, I have a task to do, something really secret and important.”

  “Doesn’t everyone,” I mutter, but he doesn’t hear me.

  “I really can’t tell you about it, but I can’t get over that I was picked. I was chosen!” He whoops with sudden glee and hugs me roughly. I can’t help but catch his excitement. He is my brother. I hug him back, tightly.

  “Don’t slack off,” I warn. “You’d better get this done, whatever it is. You wouldn’t have been asked if it wasn’t important.” I don’t know why I don’t tell him about my own experience. Maybe I am ashamed that mine was so awful, while his was glorious. Maybe I can’t bring myself to admit that I have failed God, while he seems set to succeed. I have always been the steady one, the reliable one. I want to tell him that, but I don’t.

  “God, you think I don’t know that?” I wince at his curse. “As soon as I get back from visiting you, I’m on it. I have a plan.”

  “Good,” I say. “That’s good. Are you sure you should be taking the Lord’s name in vain?”

  “Chill, okay? Believe me when I tell you the Big Man is above such things. He doesn’t care what you call anything.”

  The night has grown chilly, and I hug my light cotton sweater around me.

  Mo says he’s leaving tonight, driving four hours back to his university even though he’d just arrived this afternoon. An eight-hour drive for a three-hour visit. But I don’t try to talk him into staying. I know the cost of procrastination where divine missions are involved.

  As we make our way down the path in the rapidly fading light, I realize that I can’t face going back to campus. Going to my room, reading three chapters on the Constitution, writing a fifteen-page paper, preparing for a quiz—it all seems like meaningless fluff, a ridiculous waste of my time and a charade I can’t go through. With Mo beside me nearly glowing with zeal and excitement, I realize that after such a colossal mistake, I can’t go back.

  “I have news too,” I say, hearing the words come out of my mouth and knowing suddenly what I am going to do. “I’m leaving school.”

  “You mean you’re transferring? Did you change your mind about going to Tech?”

  “No,” I say. “I’m dropping out.” It is the first time I have thought about it, but I immediately feel better. I need to move on. I need to answer some questions.

  “Holy shit, Mom and Dad are going to freak!” He does a little dance. “You know what this means?”

  I shake my head.

  “I’m the good one! I’m the good son and you’re the prodigal daughter. Hallelujah, who thought this day would ever come?”

  “Glad it made your day.” I pretend to kick him and he dances out of the way. But sensing some of my despair, Mo settles down.

  “Miriam, you’ve never done anything in your whole life without a good reason,” he says. “You don’t even sneeze without thinking about it first. If you’ve decided to drop out, then knowing you, you spent a month making lists of pros and cons. Am I right?”

  How can I tell him I have literally decided to drop out this minute? “You know me,” I say tightly. “Besides, I’m only eighteen. I have time before I have to settle down.”

  “See? I’m not worried about you. You know how to take care of yourself. Forgive me for delighting in my temporary role as the favorite—we both know it won’t last long. You’re probably going to write the Great American Novel and I’ll be the loser brother again.”

  I feel a swell of love and exasperation.

  “Mo, you’re full of it.”

  We share a smile as we reach his car, a beat-up, rusty black Suburban.

  “Be careful, okay?” I tell him. “Whatever it is you’re supposed to do, it might be dangerous.”

  “Nah,” he says as he climbs into the high cab. He starts the truck with a roar and then rolls down the window. “You take care of yourself, and remember, I’ve got friends in low places.”

  “Don’t you mean high places?”

  “It’ll be high enough soon enough.”

  “Wait, what?”

  The taillights flash red as he shifts into gear. “Don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out!” he says. “I talked to someone who has all the power and all the answers. Someone who rewards his followers. Who does that sound like? The one who, just for laughs, put Job through hell? I don’t think so. I met the guy with the real power. He’s gotten a hell of a bad rap.” He snorts at his pun. “He’s amazing and awesome. He’s everything I ever wanted to be—charismatic, brilliant, generous. I hope you’ll get to meet him one day. You’d love him.”

  I stare at him in slack-jawed horror.

  “Tell me you’re joking.”

  He grins. “I got to go. Call me, sis!”

  Satan, Lucifer, Azazel, the devil. My twin brother has met the devil, likes him, and is now doing him a favor.

  I lift my hand in an automatic wave, struck dumb by his words.

  IV.

  BACK AT THE LIBRARY, I sit alone, trying to process what I’ve discovered. Twins who are approached by the far ends of the good-evil spectrum? Yeah. I don’t bother Googling, I know there’s nothing online about this. I chew my thumbnail as I try to decide if I should pray for my twin’s soul. But honestly, that might only make things worse. I tell myself maybe the rules are different for someone like Mo. Mo’s real name is Moses. Yes, my parents actually named us Miriam and Moses. They liked that they’re siblings in the Bible, and better them than Tamar and Amnon, since Amnon rapes his half sister Tamar and then is killed by his half brother Absalom, who is then killed by his father’s soldiers to avenge Amnon’s death. They figured any of those three might be a bit over the top. You think? Still, Miriam and Moses? It’s just wrong. When we entered elementary school, Moses somehow turned into Mo and the nickname stuck. It was a better fit, although pretty much any name would be. I tried to go by Miri, Mir, and M., but none of those nicknames ever caught on. Everyone kept calling me Miriam, and sometime around tenth grade I gave up.

  Our parents divorced when Mo and I were eleven. At first there was talk of separating us, keeping me with Mom and Mo with Dad. Maybe alternating summers with us together with each parent. Mo put an end to that. He’d been listening in on the other phone as Mom’s lawyer first suggested the possibility of a split. Mo didn’t even tell me. He attacked. Vandalism, trouble at school—he pulled out every weapon in his eleven-year-old arsenal. Within a month we were all seeing a therapist, who emphatically recommended keeping us together.

  “Twins,” he reminded my parents, “are closer than traditional siblings. Modern science is still learning about the emotional and perhaps even mental bond between them. The trauma of separating them at this age could be”—he paused—“incalculable.”

  Mo looked over at me and gave me a thumbs-up.

  My parents figured out a way to share custody that didn’t mean splitting us. Instead of moving back to England, Mom kept her job in the theology department at the university and moved out of the city, to an old, rambling cottage in the country. Dad, also a professor of theology, bought a large apartment downtown. They saw each other at staff meetings and occasionally in the hallways of the department, but off duty, they pretty much ensured they wouldn’t see each other at the grocery, bank or any other public setting.

  Mo and I, attending the same school, switched months living with our mom and our dad until we left for college.

  I rub my knees, half noticing that they feel achy and hot. I briefly wonder at this weird constellation of problems that has suddenly erupted. My stomach, my joints, my energy level. I’m irritated and a little scared. I’ve never had anything worse than a cold. I never get sick. I was so annoyed and jealous when Mo got mono and I didn’t. He missed a week of ninth grade.

  I shouldn’t be surprised Mo is enamored with the devil. He always had a different way of seeing things. Apart from that week of mono, which he managed to parlay into getting out of a final project in our European history class, he was also our high
school mascot at football games for our last two years of school—which meant he traveled with the football team to away games. He was the founder of the school’s poker and investment clubs, organizing the school’s first poker tournament, with the prize money, a thousand-dollar scholarship, put up by local businesses. Naturally he won, even though he didn’t need the money.

  No one else had his extensive social network, his connections. He was always ready for a laugh, saying anything that popped into his mind. And Mo noticed things most people missed.

  The summer of our senior year, Mo and I spent a lot of time at the local pool.

  “Check it out,” Mo said, pointing at the sunbather near us. “It’s the third time she’s sprayed crap on herself.”

  The woman was gorgeous, with a tiny sky-blue bikini highlighting curves even I had to admit were eye-catching.

  “I’m going to investigate,” he said, winking at me before ambling over to her. He should have looked ridiculous—a high school boy, short for his age and wearing Hawaiian-print board shorts that hung way too long. Instead, he looked cocky and, in a way I couldn’t define, like someone who knew what he wanted and liked what he saw.

  Within seconds the two were chatting away, and I found myself scooting over a couple of lounge chairs so I could eavesdrop.

  “It’s for my job,” the woman said, waving at the suntan lotion.

  “Oh, you’re a stripper?” Mo said.

  I couldn’t suppress a wide-eyed glance at the two of them. His nerve asking someone that blew me away, and I expected her to storm off in a huff, maybe slap him on her way. Instead, she was mildly surprised.

  “How did you know?”

  I nearly choked on my soda. Mo shot me a look.

  “Who else needs a perfect tan?” he said with the world-weary ennui of a frequent strip-club patron. Two boys in identical blond haircuts and matching swim trunks hurried over, dripping and shivering slightly, to beg for ice cream money. She reached into the beach bag on the ground next to her and pulled out some crumpled bills.

  “My husband’s a contractor,” she told Mo once the boys were out of earshot. “With the market turning the way it did, we lost so much money that we were close to bankruptcy. I stripped in college and I was still in good shape, so …”

  “And the money’s good?” asked my shameless brother.

  “Look, I don’t turn tricks, I don’t lap-dance, I just strip and I make about twelve grand a month. In six more months we’ll be completely out of debt and I’ll quit.”

  My brother nodded thoughtfully. “I have to ask, are they real?”

  “Excuse me?” Her tone grew cold.

  “Your nails,” he said, straight-faced.

  “They’re fake,” she said, studying her hands. Then she paused and cracked a smile. “Both of them.” This time I thought I might need the Heimlich to get a piece of ice unstuck from my throat, and my choking fit was loud enough to catch her attention. She looked over at me, then back at my brother, and smiled.

  “You two look identical.”

  I scowled as Mo cracked a joke about his “manly” sister, but let him get away with it. I knew it bothered him when people said we looked alike. He was always small for his age, with ridiculously long eyelashes. Eventually we went back in the water, where Mo promptly dunked me and tried to pants me, yanking at my bikini bottoms. I retaliated by splashing so much that one of his contact lenses floated away.

  “See,” Mo said later as I drove us home. “Not all sin is bad. Sometimes it can save good people.”

  It was an old debate in our family. The nature of good and evil. Free will. Thoughts versus actions. Intent and consequences.

  “We both know she’s not quitting in six months,” I said. “After they’re out of debt, their car’ll need repairs. And after the car is fixed, the kids’ll need braces. There’s always going to be something. How long before she is doing lap dances? If she earns twelve grand stripping, she’ll make more turning tricks. I’m not saying she will, but she’s living in a dangerous place.”

  “Miriam,” Mo said, sighing and closing his eyes. “Shut up.”

  I don’t know why I expected telling my parents that I’m dropping out would go well. Neither one of them screams, calls me names or makes threats. But that hurt, baffled look on my dad’s face goes a long way toward curdling the chowder I had for lunch. My father simply asks me why, and I know he expects a better answer than a shrug. “College is stupid,” I mumble, half ashamed. “It’s a waste of time.”

  “What’s so much better than improving your mind and preparing yourself for a career?”

  Considering the shock of my announcement, it’s impressive he stays so calm. He has a temper, though it has mellowed with age. The compressed lips, the tightening around his eyes … I brace myself, thrown back to age ten, when he could reduce me to tears with a look. He doesn’t yell at me now. He looks old and tired. He looks disappointed. I think about this from his perspective, and it doesn’t look good. If he would get nice and pissed, then I could be defensive. This weariness just leaves me feeling guilty.

  What am I leaving college for? What better options do I see for myself? Good questions. Ones I don’t have answers to. I consider telling him about my visit. But I can’t find the words. Tell my father—the learned rabbi, the tenured professor—that I have been given a mission by an archangel, only to fail? There are lots of things I regret, but not telling my dad about meeting Raphael isn’t one of them.

  My mother cries when I tell her. Her small house in the country is the antithesis of my father’s modular Swedish Modern city apartment. We sit at the kitchen table with mugs of tea.

  I’m shocked when I see her eyes well with tears.

  “No, Mom, don’t,” I say, grabbing for the hand not holding the tea. “Please don’t.” Answering tears well up in my own eyes.

  When she sees that, she smiles, and soon both of us give a watery chuckle. I have always cried when others cry. I can’t help it. She pats my hand and then grabs both of us a tissue. I blow my nose and bury my face in my mug of tea, avoiding my warped reflection.

  “I’ll pray for you,” she says. “To help you find your way. For clarity.”

  “Thank you.”

  She doesn’t ask many questions. But then, she never has. She always is receptive to talks, confessions, but she doesn’t probe. After that first show of emotion, she’s much calmer and doesn’t seem as devastated as my father, though clearly she’s confused. I don’t tell her about Raphael either, though as a former nun I think she would have taken the news better than my father would have. But it doesn’t seem right to tell one parent and not the other. Ever since the divorce, I try hard to be fair. To keep things balanced.

  In the end, we reach an agreement. My parents won’t try to stop me from this oddly destructive (from their point of view) hiatus from college. In return for this benevolence, I’m to call in once a week and report where I am and what my plans are for the upcoming week.

  This is a very decent agreement, but I feel slightly sick from my deception. I never say I have a plan, but I don’t dissuade them from their assumption that I must have something in mind.

  After I tell my mother my big news, I call Mo. I start to talk but soon choke up.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks. I hear the intense concern in his voice. Until I started crying, he was probably e-mailing or watching a game. Mo tends to multitask. But now I can feel him turning away from everything except the sound of my voice. “Miriam, what’s wrong?”

  I want to tell him. It’s like a weight in my mouth, in the back of my throat, the words choking me. “I can’t tell you on the phone,” I manage to say. My chin is wobbling from the effort to hold back.

  “So come see me.” He knows I’m at Mom’s, which means I’m ninety minutes away by train. I hear rapid clicking as he checks train schedules online. “There’s an Amtrak that leaves in an hour. Get your ass on it.”

  The train station closest to Tech is a lov
ely pale gray building from the early 1900s, with all the beauty that architects seemed to invest in their work back then. Rising two and a half stories, its façade has weathered gently, radiating calm stability. Sea-green stained-glass windows glow like planets in the evening. But the area of town the station is in hasn’t aged as well. An interstate overpass looms above the parking lot, so everything is in perpetual gloom and clatter, while the surrounding empty lots are enclosed in chain-link fences, as if to prevent shards of glass, crushed paper sacks and other urban flotsam from escaping. I step off the train and see Mo leaning against a pillar, waiting for me. When I see him—the crooked smile, that wiry energy—I can’t hold back any longer. I run over and hug him fiercely. After a second of startled surprise, he wraps his arms around me tight.

  “Hey, Miriam,” he says softly, his face in my hair. “You’re okay.”

  I finally let go, already feeling better.

  We walk back to his car, and sitting there in the parking lot, the car idling, the heat on, I spill all my secrets.

  Mo’s dark eyes grow round with excitement, and he starts laughing. “No way, no way, that’s so freakin’ awesome!” I should have known my brother would have an unpredictable response. “That’s what you’re all upset about?” He shakes his head before letting out another howl of laughter.

  “But don’t you see?” I say, trying to get his attention, to break his maniacal laughter. “I failed. I. Failed.”

  “Miriam,” he says, placing a warm hand on my shoulder. “You didn’t fail. You saved the girl, while the bastard bad guys fried. That’s all anyone wanted you to do. And you did it.”

  “You didn’t see her face, Mo.” My stomach still twists and cramps when I remember the pooling blood and the way Tabitha’s eye drooped so low I could see the entire curve of her eyeball. “She’s good. Good with a capital G. Bible good. She’s kind and sweet. She wasn’t supposed to be hurt.”