Preface
Every tragedy has its origin. And this one is no different. It starts with an inseparable bond between cousins who grew up more like sisters. Annemarie and McKenzie did everything together. As young girls, when they weren't in school, singing in the church choir, or running the Jupiter dirt roads to the water banks for turtle eggs to sell, they filled their time braiding each other's long thick hair on their grandmother's shotgun smoking porch planning to share their future. They wanted to go to the same schools, drive the same cars, get married on the same day to brothers, and would make an exception for cousins, so they would never be too far apart. They even wanted to have home births and have their babies share the same birth date. So far, everything that they had planned for came true.
West Tampa, winter 1987, now both twenty-five, they lay in adjacent rooms, in their grandmother's shotgun home, fighting for their lives and the lives of their firstborn, with only the help of their midwives to assist them through the cold and the pain. Their husbands, who were both away in Uncle Sam's war, were brothers and weren't due to come home for at least another three months. They could hear each other 's moans of agony and pain echoing through their grandmother's house as they were directed and coaxed to push through the ring of fire. The pinewood shiplap in the old house seemed to inhale and exhale with each contraction. The birthing process felt like forever before two new sharp cries echoed off the walls. Even though exhausted, Annemarie was eager to check on her cousin, so they could share their newfound joys and feed their newborns together. She had her midwife assist her to the wooden wheelchair that her husband, Verdell, had made her before he left. Placing a baby in each arm, Annemarie rolled down the hall, anxious to tell McKenzie about her twins. But the closer the midwife pushed her to McKenzie's closed door, she began to panic. Once in the room, instantly, Annemarie sensed something was wrong. She didn't hear a baby. Only hers were cooing. Through the weak firelight, she saw a baby lying flat on her cousin's exposed breasts, eyes wide facing her. She could see the death that swam in them. Annemarie searched her cousin's face for confirmation of the terribleness that she already knew in her heart. McKenzie let out a low and gut pulling roar that seemed to shake the room. Her midwife rushed over to take the stillborn. McKenzie fought to keep the baby in her arms, using the warmth from her body to attempt to wake him. When that didn't work, she tried to feed him. His body remained limp and unresponsive. Now in tears herself, Annemarie looked at her own two baby boys. She knew right away what she had to do. She grabbed one and placed it on McKenzie's chest and nuzzled the other to her own. At first, McKenzie turned her face away, not touching the newborn on her chest. The warm and squirming little body grabbed at a long-braided plat that hung down in McKenzie's face and tried to nurse the end. The light in McKenzie's eyes brightened a little as she looked down to see Annemarie's baby laying on her chest. His toffee color, full head of slick black hair, and almond-shaped eyes looked very similar to her features. Quickly glancing at Annemarie, McKenzie was confused at the beautiful baby boy on her chest and the other baby boy, who was just as handsome, if not more, in her cousin's arms. Annemarie quickly explained that God blessed her with a baby for each of them, that she had not fed him yet, and if McKenzie wanted a baby, he was as good as hers. With both men off at war, Annemarie needed to spare her cousin from heartache. What harm could there be in giving a twin and keeping the secret? She and Verdell couldn't afford two, and she couldn't stand to see her favorite cousin, her sister, in despair. The boys were fraternal and wouldn't be hard to play off as cousins she reasoned. One brown-skinned the other just a tad darker. They only shared a birthmark shaped like a crescent moon, no bigger than her thumb, at the nape of their necks. As the boys got older, there were none the wiser, but as secrets do, they began to eat at the soul. Known or not, the essence of it seeps in and devours everything that is good until it is all only a triggered memory.
