The Identicals(6)

It was a solution Billy had taught them. He claimed that any argument in the world could be solved by rock, paper, scissors. No need for fistfights, lawyers, or war, in Billy’s opinion: all you needed was a hand and an understanding of the basic rules—scissors cut paper, rock smashes scissors, paper covers rock.

And then if you don’t like the outcome, Billy would say, you simply ask for the best of three.

In determining who would go with Billy, Tabitha shot rock and Harper shot paper. Harper won.

Tabitha accused her of cheating.

Cheating how? Harper had said. By reading your mind? But she let Tabitha “simply ask” for the best of three. Again, Tabitha shot rock and Harper shot paper. Harper won.

She was going with Billy.



It was fair to say that Harper’s relationship with Tabitha had never been the same after that. For a handful of years, they remained civil, but they were no longer friends. Billy left Boston altogether. He bought a house on Daggett Avenue in Vineyard Haven, while Eleanor stayed in the gracious four-story town house on Pinckney Street. Then, when Eleanor sold her shoe line to Steve Madden—a deal her attorney had advised her to delay until after the divorce—she bought a second home, on Nantucket.

The girls stayed with “their” parent every summer, and, as per Eleanor’s mandate, each traveled to visit the other parent during the holidays. Harper used to imagine their ferries bouncing over each other’s wakes and the contrails of their planes crisscrossing in the sky.

There had been one chance for the twins to reunite, and that was after Tabitha gave birth to her second child—a son, Julian—three months prematurely. Tabitha needed help, and Harper swooped in to save the day… but things had gone catastrophically wrong. Julian died, and Tabitha had seen fit to blame Harper—not only for Julian’s death but also for winning at rock, paper, scissors and for causing every single other misery of her adult years.

You ruin everything, Tabitha had said. Everything is your fault.

That was fourteen years ago, and the twins have barely spoken since.



Harper realizes that Reed is waiting for her to respond. She doesn’t like thinking about her sister or her mother, because this is what happens: it feels like someone has blindfolded and gagged her.

“I texted Tabitha,” Harper says. “She’ll tell my mother, I suppose.”

“Good,” Reed says. “Listen, I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

“So you won’t meet me?” Harper asks. “You’re going to make me call Drew?” This is a desperate, dirty thing to say. Harper told Reed that she has started dating Sergeant Drew Truman of the Edgartown Police Department, and it bothers Reed. Drew has the advantages of youth and a policeman’s physique and bachelorhood and his large extended family—and he’s a nice guy besides. Sergeant Truman and Dr. Zimmer know each other because of heroin overdoses. Drew has administered Narcan three times in the past year, after which he has taken the addicts directly to the hospital, where they were placed in Dr. Zimmer’s care.

“Don’t call Drew, please,” Reed says. “Just go home. Curl up with Fish.”

“Fish is a dog, Reed, not a person.” Harper says. “Billy just died in the middle of my reading off Pedroia’s stats. What you’re asking me isn’t fair, and you know it.”

“I’ll come in the morning,” Reed says.

“Tonight,” Harper says.

“Fine, tonight,” he says. “But late. Midnight. And not to your house—that’s too dangerous. I’ll meet you in the parking lot at Lucy Vincent beach.”

“Do you think that’s safe?” Harper asks. Before Reed was comfortable coming to her duplex, they used to meet in the back parking lot of the ice rink after hours. It would be deserted this time of year for certain, whereas the beach… “It’s nearly summer, Reed. There are people everywhere.”

“I realize this,” he says. “But I’m not driving down island.” He must realize how unkind that sounds, because he adds, “That’s the best I can do if it has to be tonight.”

“It has to be tonight,” Harper says. “Lucy Vincent at midnight.”

“For five minutes, so I can give you a kiss and tell you everything is going to be fine,” he says.

“Is it?” she says.

“Yes,” he says.



Harper goes home briefly to let Fish out. He is a dog, not a person, yet he’s standing by the front door waiting for her even though, more often than not these days, he sleeps on his Orvis bed and barely turns his head when Harper comes in. But today he’s right there, paws on her thighs, licking her face, giving her all the love he can. He knows. This brings Harper to tears. Her dog knows Billy died, but she feels the need to deliver the news herself. She grabs Fish by the muzzle and looks into his glacier-blue eyes and says, “Pops is gone, bub.” He keens and rubs his flank against Harper’s leg, and she has to practically push him out the door to her front yard, where he pees on the biggest hydrangea bush on the property. Then he comes trotting back into the kitchen, where Harper says, “Lamb tonight, in honor of Pops.” But Fish doesn’t snarf down his food, as he normally does; instead he looks up at Harper, as if for permission. “Go ahead,” she says. And with something like mournful dignity, Fish lowers his head to the bowl.