The Identicals(119)

A day arrives that seems important. There are balloons, presents, a cake delivered from someone named the Tiny Baker, who is, in fact, tiny and who brings a pug named Lucy Bean with her. Lucy Bean barks at Fish and bares her teeth as Tiny Baker hands over the cake. Fish merely shakes his head; pugs are difficult to take seriously.

It’s not Baby Day, he doesn’t think. He soon learns it’s Harper’s birthday, her fortieth birthday. She and the Doctor and Fish and Edie, the Surfer’s mother, will celebrate—light the candles, sing, eat cake—but there is something Harper must do first. She and Fish drive out to Cape Poge alone. Fish is confused. Harper has forgotten to bring her fishing pole.

“I know this may seem crazy,” Harper says. “But I’m going to wish Tabitha a happy birthday. She’s standing on the beach at Ram Pasture, on Nantucket, and she is going to wish me a happy birthday.”

Fish stares off into the distance. All he sees is water.

“With me on Cape Poge and Tabitha at Ram Pasture, we are as physically close as we can get while still remaining on our respective islands,” Harper says. She touches her protruding midsection. “She and Franklin are coming over on Friday so that we can close on Billy’s house, but that isn’t our actual birthday. It’s imperative we do this today.” She checks Billy’s watch on her wrist. “I call out to her at three twelve, because that’s when Pony was born. Pony will call out to me at three fourteen, because that’s when I was born.”

Harper cups her hands around her mouth and shouts, “Happy birthday, Tabitha!”

Fish stares off into the distance. Water and more water. People are nuts, he thinks. Even Harper.

But then, just about ninety seconds later, Fish cocks his head. It’s faint—possibly he’s projecting. But no, it’s real—a voice nearly identical to the one he hears every day, but just a little bit different. It’s a nuance only a very perceptive dog would notice.

“Happy birthday, Harper! Happy, happy birthday!”

Fish barks.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


I am a twin. I am not, however, an “identical”; I’m a “fraternal.” I have a twin brother named Eric Hilderbrand. Our mother named me Elin (pronounced “Ellen”) but spelled it in this unusual way, causing forty-seven years of confusion, because of our Swedish ancestry… and because she wanted my name to be perfectly symmetrical with my twin brother’s name. Eric and I have always been very close, but I have chosen to dedicate this novel to all of my siblings. We are a blended family of five, together since 1976. After Eric and me in the order comes my stepbrother, Randall Osteen (“Randy,” “Rand,” “the Bean”), who is absolutely one of the greatest guys in the world, despite early-warning signs that he would be troubled (he was a fan of the Quebec Nordiques, he refused to eat cranberry sauce with “can indentations,” and don’t get me started on the galoshes he chose to wear during the infamous Hilderbrand family Easter egg hunt). Rand is my usual partner in crime at Jazzfest in New Orleans, so we have secrets from the rest of the family. After Randy comes my stepsister, Heather Osteen Thorpe. Heather is my biggest champion, my loudest cheerleader, my everyday best friend. Did we dress up as ducks and perform roller-skating shows in the basement? Yes. Did I take her to fraternity parties at Johns Hopkins when she was fifteen years old and the standing president of SADD? Yes. No matter how low I get, I know I will never sink, because I have Heather. She is my buoy and my light. At the end of the line is my brother Douglas Hilderbrand, the youngest and most sensitive of us all. Doug reads all my novels and will nearly always call me crying when he finishes because the emotional terrain I choose to write about resonates profoundly within him. He has also been known to cry over certain Dan Fogelberg songs.

I could not have handpicked four finer human beings to have shared my childhood memories with: digging the hermit crab pools, badminton games, collecting beach glass and scallop shells, fighting for the outdoor shower, executing the old “round the apple tree” play in family games of football, home movies, writing letters to Santa, orchestrating elaborate ploys to get out of church, watching The Love Boat, blaring Foreigner’s “Hot Blooded” in the car—and years later, throwing our first parents-aren’t-home party (the details of which will remain in the vault for at least another decade, but I’ll say this: it involves cigars ground up in the garbage disposal). As adults, my siblings are not only exemplary citizens and my closest friends, they are also remarkable parents—collectively, of ten children. We lost our captain—my father—when all of us were in the midst of adolescence, but not one of us veered off course. Our relationship with one another set a solid, even foundation that we were able to build our respective lives upon.

I could never have written this novel without the generosity and open-mindedness of the people of Martha’s Vineyard. Of special note is the police chief of Oak Bluffs, Erik Blake. Erik answered hundreds of questions for me over the course of fifteen months; my debt of gratitude to him is enormous and eternal. I want to also thank Erica McCarron a.k.a. the “Tiny Baker,” Steve Caillhane, Mark and Gwenn Snider, Liza May Cowan, and all of the members of the Facebook group “Islanders Talk.” I had thought that as a Nantucket novelist writing about the Vineyard, I might be looked at askance—but nothing could have been further from the truth. Over the course of the past year and a half, I have a brand-new love, understanding, and appreciation of Martha’s Vineyard and all the wonderful, generous, thoughtful people who live there.