The Identicals(98)

“Get out,” Tabitha says.

“Tabitha.”

“Get out,” Tabitha says.



Back at her duplex, Harper throws her bag and Ainsley’s bag into the rented Jeep. She is still shaking when she goes to pick Ainsley up at Five Corners.

“Change of plans,” she says with false cheer. “We’re taking the ferry home tonight.”

“Aww,” Ainsley says. “How come we can’t stay?”

“Because,” Harper says. “We can’t.”





TABITHA


She watches Harper screech out of the driveway. After feeling a vengeful sense of triumph, she collapses on the bed and cries fresh tears. She goes all the way back to the original hurt: it’s not fair that Tabitha got paired up with Eleanor and has spent her adult life being held to impossible standards while Harper got to go with Billy and do whatever the hell she felt like doing. Running drugs! Sleeping with Billy’s married doctor!

What happened the night Julian died was Harper’s fault! Who else’s fault would it have been?

And yet, with Harper gone, Tabitha feels an absence way down in her core. Harper is, for better or worse, her twin. They aren’t the same person, not at all, but Tabitha knows Harper, knows her down to her bone marrow, her tiniest cells. Does she love her sister? Yes, she acknowledges this. But the anger is all-consuming. Tabitha needs to even the score. She needs to exact revenge so that she and Harper are on equal footing. Tonight is her chance. Right now.

She gets into the FJ40 and drives to Our Market, in Oak Bluffs, where she buys a very cold bottle of Domaines Ott rosé and a basic corkscrew—and, while she’s at it, a couple of nips of J?germeister. The cashier looks at her strangely and says, “Harper? I thought you left island.”

Tabitha smiles brightly. “I’m back!” she says.



She drives up island on South Road. She turns off on a dirt road because she needs a quiet place to drink and think. The road dead-ends at some trees, but beyond the trees, Tabitha sees water. She carries her purchases out to a small beach, where she is instantly attacked by mosquitoes and no-see-ums. She doesn’t care. This place has what she needs: solitude.

She has forgotten to bring a cup; she will have to drink the cold rosé from the bottle, like a Proven?al hobo. Oh, well. Since she is pretending to be Harper, she might as well start acting like Harper.

She takes long draughts of the wine, then sucks back both nips. Her head spins. She hasn’t eaten in… days. Since lunch the day that Franklin first vanished. The wine loosens Tabitha up; she’s able, finally, to breathe all the way in and all the way out, to loll her head on her neck, to stretch out her arms. Another few sips, and she will be on her way.



Back in the car, she regroups. She collects her hair in a ponytail and smiles into the rearview mirror. In her own mind she looks as different from Harper as anyone could, but the rest of the world sees them as identicals. Even Eleanor and Billy used to have trouble telling them apart. One year, Eleanor mislabeled the twins in the photo she sent with the Christmas card, and she never noticed. Tabitha and Harper had debated pointing it out, but they ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the uproar. Eleanor would either have thrown the batch of cards away and made them sit for the photographer again—or, worse, she would have stated that no one would know the difference and so what does it matter?

In Tabitha’s memory, Harper had been more upset about the mistake than Tabitha was. She had lobbied to tell Eleanor, but Tabitha silenced her. Tabitha remembers feeling indignant about Harper’s discontent. Why wouldn’t Harper feel grateful about being mistaken for Tabitha? Why did she so vehemently want to establish her own identity?

Back in the days of growing up, Tabitha had loved Harper more than Harper loved her. Is that possible? The year Tabitha had become a pony, Harper was the only person allowed to ride on her back, although friends and younger neighborhood children had asked. And throughout the entirety of their childhoods, Harper was the only person Tabitha would let brush her hair or scratch her back or apply her suntan lotion. Harper had been born with a thicker skin. She didn’t care how she looked; she didn’t care about grades or activities in school. She put in just enough effort to meet Eleanor’s impossibly high standards, although she didn’t much care about Eleanor’s or Billy’s approval.

That indifference, of course, would catch up with her later.

Tabitha drives out South Road toward Aquinnah, keeping her eyes peeled for the simple wooden sign. She can’t remember where it is exactly, but she’s sure she’ll recognize it when she sees it.

Maybe she was distracted and missed it, or maybe it was closer to Chilmark than she thought. When she crosses the bridge, she knows she’s gone too far, so she turns around and heads back. She will find it. She has to. But she hopes it will be soon, because she’s losing daylight.

Good old Sheep Crossing… the first cottage after the turn is where my brother-in-law is hiding out.

Did he say the first cottage after the turn? Left or right? That night at the Outermost Inn seems like a long time ago.

Then, just as Tabitha begins to wonder if she and Franklin even took South Road—maybe it was State Road?—she sees the sign: SHEEP XING. Yes! This is it. She hits the brakes. Doubts gather in her mind like gawkers hovering around the site of an impending disaster. What is she doing? What does she hope to achieve? Tabitha drives past the first driveway on the left very slowly so that she can get a good look at the house. It’s a simple saltbox with gray shutters and white trim; it looks like any one of a hundred homes on Nantucket. There’s a black Lexus in the driveway and a racing bike leaning up against the porch railing. Black Lexus = doctor car? Does Reed Zimmer ride a racing bike? Tabitha knows nothing about the man. She doesn’t even recall what he looks like; she barely glimpsed him after being slapped and doused by his wife. All Tabitha registered was a male presence on the other side of Sadie, trying to control her.