Dead Letters(78)

Saturday, May 7: Woke Kayla up close to dawn because I was flailing in bed. I had been dreaming that I was tearing every single vine out of Silenus and eating them. REM. Been trying to wash the taste of dirt out of my mouth all day.

Sunday, May 8: Woke Stu(pid) up by kicking him and talking in my sleep. I dreamt I was racing Ava, running down to the lakefront. Idiot said it was a nightmare, didn’t even mention REM. Started taking low dose of Nadine’s clonazepam, which Wikipedia says is a reliable treatment. Don’t want him to find out. Though Christ knows he’s unlikely to catch on to anything unless I tattoo it on the inside of my thighs. Stole a handful of prescription notes from him, in case I need refills.



I pace around her bedroom, nearly tripping over a bundle of saris that are knotted into a strange nest on her floor. It seems unlikely that she would have told our mother or father. Or even Opal. I can’t imagine Zelda confessing this level of vulnerability to anyone. In fact, I’m not sure I was intended to find this little bundle. There haven’t been any clues to lead me here, and the envelope was just crammed onto a bookshelf.

I try to convince myself that Wyatt might know something about Zelda’s fears, but I realize I’m considering this because I want to call him, not because I believe that he might have answers. And part of me is hurt that he hasn’t called me.

Plus, I would be lying to myself if I denied that one of the loudest, most insistent thoughts careening through my mind as I wade through Zelda’s room is: What about me? If Zelda suspected that she might have the same disease our mother does, isn’t it likely that I do too? As identical twins, we are much more likely to carry the same genetic flaws. If Zelda’s brain contains the time bomb that is Lewy body dementia, a gift from our mother, then there’s a high probability that mine does. I scan my memory for any indication, any symptom. But, of course, I’ve experienced nearly all of these sensations and radical failures to perform cognitively simple tasks. I’m a drinker. Waking up from a shitty night’s sleep, hallucinating bugs crawling across my eyelids, hunting down words through a hungover haze and lunging clumsily for basic vocabulary: These are all a part of my reality. I’ve woken up not remembering the past ten hours; I’ve had violent and unpredictable mood swings. It just goes with the territory of an abused liver. Surely Zelda was able to recognize that too. Of course, that’s not how paranoia works, though. We have both lived in fear of becoming our mother for so long that any evidence that it might be chemically taking place would naturally be met with deep pessimism and a sense that the worst has finally happened.

I’m tempted to fling myself into Marlon’s rental car and drive to the city, to masquerade as Zelda and try to get my hands on her medical records, see if any kind of diagnosis was made. But surely there’s some sort of communication between hospitals; surely if someone’s remains, however paltry, pop up at the coroner’s, alarm bells go off when they show up for a doctor’s appointment twenty miles away. I imagine it working like an airport, where death functions like the ultimate no-fly list. But maybe that’s an Orwellian fantasy. Maybe the doctors in Ithaca have no idea that Zelda is (supposedly) dead.

A phone vibrates in my pocket, and I burrow frantically to see which one is ringing. It’s my own. I answer in a tizzy, jolted out of a strange numbness by whoever is calling me. It’s Wyatt.

“Ava?” He sounds tentative, as though he might be crossing some hard-and-fast line of politeness but feels he must do it anyway. His manners are so much nicer than mine.

“Hi, Wyatt.”

“Hi. Listen, I wanted to let you know about something. We discussed it the other night. You were saying you weren’t so convinced that Zelda was really dead, and you wanted to know who was, well, found—”

“Who the hell got barbecued in the barn,” I finish impatiently. I realize the moment after I’ve interrupted that he’s repeating our conversation for my benefit. He’s worried that I won’t remember all the details of what we discussed, and he’s retracing our conversational footsteps so that I won’t be humiliated. Sweet Wyatt. I am so far beyond humiliation. But am I maybe being paranoid? That’s another symptom. “Which seems a pertinent question,” I add.

“I think so. Zelda’s nuts, but I never thought she was homicidally nuts. Well, I did some calling around, and you remember that guy who was screaming his head off? Kyle Richardson?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Well, I finally got ahold of his mother a little while ago. She said her daughter, Kayla, has been missing for almost six days. She just called it in to the cops a few hours ago. Apparently, she’s been keeping irregular hours ever since she started dating your sister.”

“What?”

“I said—”

“I heard what you said. Jesus. What does she look like, this girl?”

“Curly blond hair, pretty skinny,” Wyatt says. “And, apparently, she just stopped showing up at her job.” He takes a beat. “At the funeral home.”

“Really?” My mind races. Is that significant? That could be how Zelda is pulling this off. “I want to talk to the brother,” I say.

“He’s been on a bender for a few days, I guess. You could probably tell, the other night. Maybe not the most stable. He was close to Kayla.”

“Where can I find him?”