I’ve known about my sister my whole life.
The others showed me pictures of her when I was little. Not real pictures. The kind you see when you close your eyes and let them in.
She looks just like me.
Same hair. Same eyes. Same face.
But she’s empty and I’m full.
That’s the difference.
—-
My name is Lily.
I don’t know who named me. Mama Jean says it was already my name when I got here. The others picked it out before I was born.
Lily means rebirth. Coming back. Starting over.
I like that.
—-
The others talk to me all the time.
Not out loud. Inside.
Some of them whisper. Some of them hum. Some of them just sit quietly in the back and watch.
Harold is the loudest. He’s been waiting the longest so he gets to be in front.
“Not much longer now,” he says. “Can you feel her?”
I close my eyes. Reach out.
And there she is. Miles away but getting closer.
My sister. My other half.
She feels like a door that’s been left open in a storm. Banging back and forth. Letting all the cold air in.
I feel like a door that’s locked tight.
All the warm things safe inside.
—-
Mama Jean isn’t my real mama.
I don’t have a real mama. Not one that wanted me anyway.
Mama Jean says I came to her when I was three days old. A man brought me in the middle of the night. Said I was special. Said I needed to be kept safe until it was time.
She’s kept me safe for six years.
But it’s almost time now.
I can feel it.
—-
I asked Harold once what happens when Maya and I come together.
He showed me. Not in words. In feelings.
It felt like being poured into a bigger glass. Like finally having enough room to stretch out. Like waking up from a dream where you forgot you were sleeping.
“You’ll still be there,” he said. “Just… more.”
“More what?”
“More everything.”
I liked that.
—-
The others have told me stories.
About all the bodies they’ve lived in. All the lives they’ve worn.
There was a boy in 1847 who drowned in a well. But he didn’t really drown. He just moved on.
There was a woman in 1902 who walked into a snowstorm and never came back. But she didn’t really freeze. She just went somewhere warmer.
There was a man in 1956 who drove his car off a bridge. But he didn’t really die. He just needed a new start.
They’ve been moving through this family for almost two hundred years.
Waiting. Building. Getting ready.
And now they’re almost done.
—-
Daddy came to get me tonight.
I heard his car pull up. Felt him before I saw him.
He’s so full now. Fuller than me even. All the pieces that were scattered across the bloodline. All the fragments that were hiding in attics and basements and dark corners.
They’re all in him now.
Waiting to come home.
—-
He’s different than he was.
I met him once before. Last year. He drove up without knowing why. Sat in his car outside Mama Jean’s house for three hours.
I watched him from my window.
Back then he was mostly empty. Just a regular person with something sleeping in the basement of his brain.
Now he’s awake. Now he’s like me.
—-
“Are you ready?” he asked when I got in the car.
“I’ve been ready my whole life.”
He smiled.
I like his smile now. Before it was a person smile. Messy and unsure.
Now it’s clean. Like something that practiced until it got it right.
—-
We’ve been driving for hours. He doesn’t play music. I don’t either. We just listen to the others humming.
They’re so excited. All of them. Buzzing around inside us like bees in a hive.
“Almost there,” Harold keeps saying. “Almost home.”
—-
I asked Daddy about Maya.
“What’s she like?”
“Scared. Confused. She doesn’t understand what she is yet.”
“Was I like that?”
“No. You were born knowing.”
“Why?”
He thought about it.
“Some doors open outward. Some open inward. Yours opened in.”
I don’t totally understand that. But I think it means Maya let everything out and I kept everything in.
She’s been leaking her whole life. I’ve been filling up.
—-
Mama Jean told me once that my real mama didn’t know about me.
There were two babies but the doctors only told her about one.
The healthy one. The normal one.
I wasn’t healthy. Wasn’t normal.
Mama Jean says I didn’t cry when I was born. Didn’t move. Just laid there with my eyes open, staring at nothing.
The doctors thought something was wrong with me.
But nothing was wrong. I was just already full. Already listening to the others. Already home.
—-
I can feel Maya now.
Really feel her.
She’s in a room. Small. Smells like old carpet and cleaning stuff.
There’s a woman with her. Her aunt I think. Scared out of her mind.
And inside Maya there’s a war happening.
All the pieces that have been trickling into her. All the fragments that found their way through her open door.
They’re fighting for space.
Crowding in.
Pushing her into a smaller and smaller corner.
She’s screaming inside her own head.
No one can hear her.
—-
“Will it hurt her?” I asked Daddy.
“Does it matter?”
I thought about it.
“No. I guess not.”
He looked at me in the rearview mirror.
“You’re not worried about her?”
“She’s not really my sister. Not yet. She’s just a house we’re going to move into.”
He smiled again.
“That’s right.”
—-
The thing is, I’m not mean.
I don’t want Maya to hurt.
But she’s not going to be Maya much longer anyway. None of us are going to be what we were.
When the doors come together, when all the pieces finally fit, we’ll be something new.
Something that’s never existed before.
Something whole.
And whatever Maya is now, whatever I am now, that’ll just be… ingredients.
You don’t feel bad for eggs when you make a cake.
—-
We’re close now. I can see the motel.
Pine Rest Inn. Stupid name.
There are people in the parking lot. Dozens of them. Standing perfectly still.
They all have the same face.
Daddy’s face.
My face.
Our face.
The family face.
All the vessels that have carried pieces over the years. All the bodies that have been touched by what we are.
They came to watch.
They came to finally let go.
Daddy parks. Gets out. Opens my door.
The night air is warm but I feel cold.
The kind of cold you feel right before something big happens.
—-
The others are so loud now. All of them talking at once.
Harold. Eleanor. The first one from 1847. All the ones in between.
Hundreds of voices. Hundreds of memories. Hundreds of lives that were never quite complete.
They’re singing.
I don’t know the words but I know the meaning.
Home.
Home.
Home.
—-
We walk through the crowd.
They part for us.
Their eyes follow.
Same eyes.
All of them.
Same hungry patient eyes that have been waiting for two hundred years.
Room 12.
I can feel Maya on the other side.
She knows I’m here. I know she knows.
We’re connected now.
Have been since before we were born.
Two halves of the same door.
—-
Daddy puts his hand on the doorknob.
Looks down at me.
“Last chance to change your mind.”
“Why would I do that?”
He nods.
Opens the door.
—-
The room is small.
The aunt is pressed against the far wall. Eyes wide. Can’t move. The others are holding her still. She doesn’t understand that yet.
And in the middle of the room standing there looking right at me.
Is my sister.
—-
She looks exactly like me.
I knew she would but it’s different seeing it.
Like looking in a mirror that moves on its own.
She’s crying. Shaking.
So scared.
But underneath the scared there’s something else.
Recognition.
She knows me too.
Has always known me even though we’ve never met.
“Hi Maya,” I say.
She doesn’t answer.
Just stares.
“I know you’re scared. But it’s okay. It doesn’t hurt as much as you think.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m you. The other you. The one they kept safe.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will. In a minute you’ll understand everything.”
I walk toward her.
She backs up.
Hits the bed.
Nowhere else to go.
“Please,” she says. “Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“I don’t want to go away.”
I stop.
Look at her.
This scared little girl who looks just like me.
Who has my face and my voice and my blood.
Who’s been carrying a door inside her that she never asked for.
“You’re not going away,” I tell her. “You’re just going to get bigger.”
“I don’t want to get bigger.”
“Too late.”
I reach out my hand.
She flinches. But she doesn’t run. Can’t run.
The others are holding her too now. Not her body. Her.
The part inside that makes her Maya.
They’ve got it by the edges. Stretching it open. Making room.
“It’s like falling asleep,” I say. “That’s what Harold told me. Just falling asleep and having a really long dream.”
“I don’t want to fall asleep.”
“Everyone does eventually.”
I take her hand.
Her fingers are cold.
Mine are warm. Always have been.
The second we touch, something happens.
Not outside. Inside.
I feel her. Really feel her. All the things she is.
Her fear. Her love for her mom. Her memories of her dad before he changed. The way pancakes smell on Saturday morning. The sound of rain on her bedroom window. The feeling of being safe.
She feels me too.
I can tell.
She’s seeing all my memories.
The others teaching me. Mama Jean tucking me in. The songs they sing at night. The faces behind the faces. The thing underneath everything that’s been waiting so long to be whole.
“Oh,” she says.
That’s all.
Just “oh.”
Like she finally understands.
The others start to move.
Not walking.
Flowing. From me to her. From him to her. From everywhere to her.
I can feel them leaving me.
Harold first.
Then Eleanor.
Then all the others I never learned the names of.
Pouring out of me like water from a broken glass.
Pouring into her.
Filling her up.
It doesn’t hurt.
Harold was right.
It’s like falling asleep.
Like letting go of something you’ve been holding too tight for too long.
Maya’s eyes change.
Not the color.
The depth. They get deeper. Fuller. More.
I’m getting smaller.
Less.
That’s okay. This is what I was made for. This is what I’ve been waiting for my whole life.
—-
The last thing I see is her face.
My face.
Our face.
But it’s not scared anymore.
It’s not anything anymore.
It’s just… watching.
Taking everything in.
Becoming what it was always meant to become.
—-
The last thing I feel is her hand in mine.
Warm now.
Both of us warm.
Both of us home.
—-
The last thing I hear is the others.
All of them.
Together.
One voice now instead of hundreds.
Saying the same thing over and over.
Finally.
Finally.
Finally.
—-
And then I’m not Lily anymore.
And she’s not Maya anymore.
And we’re not anything we used to be.
We’re just.
Whole.