I tried to think of what connections they had to Anna. Charlie was Lily’s boyfriend, so he and Anna had probably spent time around each other because of that. Brian, I remembered, had been Anna’s lab partner in bio that fall. I wasn’t sure about Nick. His family had moved here six years ago, which meant, by Birdton standards, he’d practically just arrived.
Perhaps, though, one of them had a much greater connection to Anna than I’d realized. Maybe one of them was even the guy Anna had planned to see that night.
Or perhaps they were all simply vultures, drawn to the spectacle of it all, feeding on the collective grief.
Maybe the guy she was going to meet hadn’t even bothered to come.
I wondered if she’d thought of him when she fell.
If she’d thought of me.
—
AFTER THE SERVICE ENDED, WE drove behind the hearse to the cemetery, the long blackness of it stretching out in front of us, filling our windshield.
Once we arrived, the pallbearers—my dad, his two brothers, and his best friend—removed the casket from the hearse. We followed them as they slowly walked through the cemetery, each of them matching the others’ tempo, as if this was something they’d practiced.
They stopped at a hole in the ground, a spot near a group of old trees.
I stared up at the trees. Almost all their leaves were gone; only a few dry ones stubbornly remained, refusing to leave the branches behind.
More words were spoken. I didn’t even try to listen.
I was still staring at the trees when I heard Dad’s voice close to my ear.
“It’s your turn, Jess,” he whispered.
I looked down and found a flower grasped between my fingers. I didn’t remember someone handing it to me, didn’t remember accepting it. I stared at it for another moment; then I took a step forward and tossed it onto the casket, which had been lowered into the hole. The grave. Anna’s grave. The flower bounced softly against the wood before settling.
More flowers followed, until I could no longer make mine out.
Finally, Mom took a deep breath. “It’s done. Let’s go to the car, sweetheart.”
We started to make our way back to the car. Halfway there, my parents were waylaid by friends, so I turned away and watched as people continued toward their cars.
Watched Ms. Brown pause at another grave on the way and lightly touch the stone.
Watched one of my uncles pause at the edge of the grass and hug his wife, my aunt, close.
Watched Charlie take a discreet look around before pulling a flask out of his car. He took a drink, then offered it to Brian and Nick. Nick shook his head, but Brian took a long swig before handing it back. I looked for Lily, expecting to see her there with them. Usually she gravitated to wherever Charlie was, leaning into him as if having any air between the two of them was too much for her to bear.
Lily wasn’t there, though. I searched for her among the remaining crowd, wondering if she was still with the cluster of cross-country girls. Instead, I found her lingering back by Anna’s grave, finally by herself. Her hair fell around her face and her eyes were red. She was still holding a flower.
I started to walk across the grass toward her, and she lifted her head, looking me right in the eyes. It seemed that she paused for a second, like she was waiting for me, like she wanted to tell me something I needed to know. But then she tossed her flower onto the casket and turned away, vanishing into the crowd again.
Part of me would like to blame Lily for how it started, unfair as that may be.
It would be so easy to tell you that she pulled me in, set me on the path.
I think you’d believe me if I told you that.
THAT NIGHT, AFTER MY PARENTS went to bed, I went into Anna’s room.
I curled up on top of her quilt, my thoughts snaking around in my mind. I tried to straighten them out, to separate them into orderly piles, but they kept wrapping around each other, slithering out of my grasp.
Anna had stopped by my room before I’d gone to sleep that night. I couldn’t remember exactly what we’d said to each other. I couldn’t remember waking up during the night either. I was a heavy sleeper, but surely I should’ve been jerked awake when Anna fell—if not by the noise, then by the sharp sensation of the cord between us being cut. It felt impossible that I’d slept through the night wrapped in blankets and the delusion that nothing had changed—that Anna was still alive, that I was still a twin.
The weight of what had happened began to press down on my lungs like a physical force, so I sat up and got out of her bed. I walked over to Anna’s window, pulled open the curtains, and looked out at the ground underneath. I imagined opening the window and letting the cold air spill into the room. Imagined climbing out, carefully stretching my leg until my foot reached the very upper edge of the window below. Who were you going to see? I thought. Where were you going? And why didn’t you tell me?
I put my hands on the windowsill. For a moment, I pretended my hands were her hands, that I was her and she was returning to her room, quietly closing the window again after a long night out. When my hands started to shake, I moved them back to my sides. Stop it, I told myself. Go back to bed. Tomorrow you can start. Tomorrow you can see what answers you can find.
—
THE WEAK WINTER SUN STRETCHED over the bed, signaling a new day. I sat up and surveyed Anna’s room, trying to figure out where to start.
The police had searched her room, it was true, but
