Hunter Falls

When they would wake in the night, I’d take them to Hunter Falls. A car ride up the hill and down the hill and around that road that goes and goes and doesn’t know when to end. Their eyes would be open and they’d be chanting in unison. I thought twins doing things like that was made up, but no. From the time they first spoke, they spoke together. As one. Not all the time, but whenever they wanted to adjust the dynamics. I was their mother, but I was one. They were two. I would drive up to the old factory where there used to be manufacturing and meat and grist and employment. On one side, there was that fading mural. A waterfall. Hunter Falls Meat and Dairy. I’d leave them in their car seats with the heater going and one of the windows cracked just enough in case somehow the doors locked. Standing outside smoking a cigarette, I’d hear them reciting what sounded like a nursery rhyme. This all started when they were two, but it carried on like that well into the third and even fourth grade. The Twin Bullies of Babcock Elementary. Better bullies than being bullied, my mother used to say, because her granddaughters could do no wrong. She was something of a bully herself.

Next to the factory there was a second building that used to be a textile plant. They’d converted it into upscale studio apartments, and it was the sort of place you lived if you were in medical research or a paralegal. I put my cigarette out on the gravel and counted the windows. Three up, four to the right. That was his window. His light was on, but that didn’t mean anything. He always fell asleep with the light on. Inside the car, the radio was playing Taylor Dayne and the girls were humming along. I used to call in and request songs. Dedicate them to him. It was my version of a spell. My mother toyed around more with that stuff than I did. I kept it cute. When she found out I was pregnant with the girls, she waited until I had cried myself sick on her old cough, and then she took a lock of my hair over to her friend’s place in Scovie. When the girls were born a month early, overweight and healthy as a fresh thermometer, my mother took all the credit. Her granddaughters were each born with hazel eyes and very little peace. Peace will get you in trouble, she said, I want their insides churning until they’re old and rasping. Let them have a little bit of whiskey blood.

That was how I found out she drank while she was pregnant with me.

I don’t think the girls ever slept through the night. Maybe once or twice when they were infants, but after that, they’d wake up with the terrors, and I don’t mean crying. Crying was welcome. Crying was what babies are meant to do. My girls would wake up choking. Choking on nothing, but choking all the same. I became a regular at the emergency room until one of the nurses told me her son had night terrors, and that my girls would age out of it. Whatever you do, just don’t wake them up, she said, Stay with them until they fall back to sleep. It can startle you, yeah, but it’s nothing to worry about. I worried anyway. They’d cough. Spit on each other. I had to put them in separate cribs, but then they’d wake up screaming. Reaching for their sister. But they weren’t awake. I knew they weren’t awake. During the day, my girls were lovely. That peace my mother assured me wasn’t there displayed itself prominently. It was only during the evening when I’d taste whiskey on my tongue and the sound of hissing would come down the hall from their room. I’d be watching music videos and game show reruns and it would sound like a cat had gotten into the house. I’d go into their rooms and one would have her little hands around her sister’s neck and the one being strangled would hiss and I’d yank the choker away and suddenly she’d be awake and wailing and why did I do that? What did the nurse say? Don’t wake them up. Whatever you do, just don’t wake them up.

I began putting off bedtime as though I was the child. When they got older, they’d say, Momma, tired, and I would ply them with the promise of a movie. A cartoon. Some treats. Stay up with Momma, huh? Just a little bit later? My boss at the Cumbie’s was getting irritated that I kept showing up late, and a customer had complained that they caught me sleeping behind the register. Take them for a ride, my mother said, That helped when you couldn’t sleep.

You don’t get it, I said, They are sleeping.

But I tried it anyway.

With their eyes wide open, scratching and kicking at me, I would get them into their carseats and we would drive around town. Familiar places seemed to have unique effects on them. When they were gripped by the terrors, they couldn’t bear to be near a school or a car dealership. Shopping outlets were only mildly offensive. It was only when we drove by the Hunter Falls mural that they calmed down. Their breathing regulated. They began to talk softly. One time I even heard them laughing, but it was a resentful laugh. I had found the antidote and they hated me for it. Or that thing inside them hated me. I parked the car and realized where I was. His apartment was right there. Why would this place bring them serenity? Why would this be the aloe to the way my girls burn?

I tried other locations, but it only made them more enraged. So, back to Hunter Falls we went. The only car in the parking lot that late at night aside from the occasional drug dealer or lady of the night with one of her customers. His light was always on. I wanted to take the girls up the stairs and have one of them under each arm when he opened the door.

Guess what I named them, I’d say, Go ahead. Take a guess.

Standing outside on a cold late mid-February night, I took a long hit of my Marlboro, and then flicked it towards the mural. A sound of rushing came at me. A sound of immersion. The waterfall in the mural poured blue paint down into the parking lot and I heard my girls bellow with glee. They loved bathtime. They loved water parks. They loved me and they loved each other. The car was swept away, and as I turned in a circle, I noticed that the water wouldn’t touch me. It didn’t want to wake me up. Across the street, the light stayed on, but it was always on.

I can’t remember it ever being off.