Recently, I walked into a small grocery store near my house and the owner, a shy but sociable man, looked up at me and said, “Are you you, or the o

The Yale Review | Jean Garnett: "There I Almost Am"

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2021-05-21 01:00:04

Recently, I walked into a small grocery store near my house and the owner, a shy but sociable man, looked up at me and said, “Are you you, or the other one?”

“i always wanted a twin,” some singletons say, and I believe them. To be a twin is glorious. We get lots of attention. Sometimes it’s an insulting kind—a man on a boat once said, “Don’t even bother telling me which is which; I won’t remember”—but attention is attention, and it feels good. Plus, we have each other, which is no small thing to have.

not long ago, stepping out of the rain into a crowded vestibule, there she was, my own face among strangers. Relief. We pressed our dripping cheeks together and instantly became, if not one body, then a kind of puppet that takes two operators, me fishing chapstick out of her bag, her biting into the energy bar I had in my pocket.

Up the stairs, surrounded by intimidating young people, we held our ground as though by forcefield, whispering and laughing, not needing anyone else. I thought, I have brought my second to this duel. You may know the feeling of taking proud shelter in a sibling, someone who knows how to assemble and disassemble you, someone with whom you share blood, history, memory. Imagine sharing not only all of that but also hair, skin, iris, nipple, the same winces of pain caused by the same herniation in the same cervical disks, the same laugh sounds and laugh lines, the very same early marks of age; the same face—your face, the signature that proves the youness of you—so that you can look at another person and think, There I am. There I almost am.