Here She Lies

clump of people at the side of the road, some standing, some crouching. They all seemed to be focused on the same thing.
    “Mommy will be right back,” I whispered to Lexy. “Sit tight.”
    I walked toward what appeared to be the center of activity. Hovering together in an area defined by taut strands of yellow police tape were officers in uniform and others in regular clothes who looked official. It was their expressions: serious, focused, at work. Outsidethe barrier was a collection of people I decided must be neighbors; they seemed excited in a way the police were not.
    I stepped to the side where I could see what was happening inside the tape. After a moment, someone left the group that was clustered together and someone else moved forward. And then I saw what they saw: a woman lay on the ground. She looked frozen. Her eyes were open, pupils large and fixed, and one of her legs was bent at a strange angle. Her head was hinged dramatically backward and her neck seemed covered by a shadow. Or maybe... maybe it wasn’t a shadow... maybe it was... it was her neck, sliced open with clean precision, and this cleavage of her flesh was filled with dark, glistening blood. There was so much of it! A pool of blood spread steadily around her.
    I felt a terrible sense of familiarity, almost a déjà vu, except I was sure I had never experienced this moment before. It felt completely foreign and completely wrong. And then I understood my strange reaction: the woman — she was us. Her name leapt out of me: “Julie! Julie!”
    The murmur of voices quieted as every face turned to look at me. I couldn’t tell if I was walking or standing still; it was a heaviness I can’t explain. Then as the shock wore thinner I began to see differences between the woman, the body, on the ground and us. Her legs were heavier than ours, her body rounder, her hair thicker, though it was our same shade of reddish brown.
    One of the uniformed officers stood up and walked toward me. “You okay, Ms. Milliken?”
    “I’m her twin sister.”
    “Oh.” His was the same measuring stare I’d encountered a thousand times, when someone’s surprised mind doubted you.
    “Who is that?” I asked.
    “Local woman, cleaned houses for some of the folks along this road.”
    “What happened?”
    “She was killed.”
    “Killed” was almost putting it nicely. The woman’s throat had been slit, her blood was emptying out on the road and the way she was lying, like she’d fallen backward, looked like someone had come up behind her, depriving her not just of her life but of the knowledge of who took it. It was the worst thing I had ever seen with my own eyes.
    “When?”
    “Don’t know. Pretty recently. Listen, ma’am, you’d better step back. There’s your sister, over there.” He pointed behind me, to my car. I turned around and there was Julie, reaching into the backseat, scooping up her niece.
    My heart pulsed at the sight of Julie, and hungered at the sight of Lexy, who was crying again. I had no idea how much time had just gone by — probably just a minute or two, but it felt like much longer. My poor baby was exhausted and probably afraid. Julie was bouncing her in the air, trying to cheer her up, but Lexy was wiggling, uncomfortable. I wondered if she thought Julie was me, a mommy who looked like Mommy but who wasn’t Mommy, a mommy who smelled just a little bit different and sounded just a littlebit different and was a little bit thinner but otherwise was Mommy. A mommy who wasn’t Mommy and who was Mommy. It must have felt like an insult after the long, difficult day. She was too young to know about identical twins. I hurried over to take her in my arms and comfort her.
    I kissed Julie’s cheek as Lexy dove at me. Never in my life had anyone been so certain of the difference between me and Julie when we were standing next to each other. Lexy’s complete lack of hesitation was gratifying, but even so, I said to Julie, “She really thought you were me.” I said it because she couldn’t have children of her own and I could, and so we would have to share.
    “No, she didn’t,” Julie said. “But thanks for saying so.” She smiled at Lexy, who glanced back and forth between us, looking baffled. Then Julie circled me with a warm arm and I became aware of her unique and familiar smell, part perfume and part her : a rich musk that was more affection than fragrance, that meant I was home.
    “Julie, what happened here?” I asked.