One of Two (AoA)

Ally and I grew up without a mother.

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"We're the bad people, aren't we?"

"Yeah."

"We killed Mama."

"Yeah. We killed her."

"That makes us murderers, right?"

"We're the bad people."

"How do we make it right?"

"We can't let anyone know."

"No one will know."

"Papa would be mad if we said it."

"Papa doesn't blame us. He blames himself."

"Nii-chan blames Papa, too."

"Nii-chan would hate us if he knew it was our fault."

"Nii-chan already hates us. I think he knows deep down that it's our fault."

"Yes, Nii-chan hates us.... why doesn't Papa hate us?"

"He hates us, too. He hates us, but he loves us too, because we remind him of Mama."

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Nii-chan hated Papa. He didn't say so out loud, but my first memory of him was of his silhouette by the fireplace, small and hunched, the lines of his back and his dark, almost black hair falling into his face, his small hands balled up. We couldn't have been more than three or four at the time, which means Nii-chan must have been almost ten. He never said so, but his eyes turned almost as black as coal whenever they looked at Papa, and at that moment, his form framed against the smoldering embers of the fire in late winter--I knew.

Our older brother hated our father.

Papa told us that Ally and I were once one person, one flesh and one body, and that the Goddess split us into two. "Why, Papa?" Ally asked him, and he held us closer.

"So you would never be alone."

This made sense to me. I had Ally; she had me. We were never alone, and rarely apart. There's no need to ever be truly lonely. I had someone who shared my flesh, my mind, my feelings, my thoughts, my secret fears and desires, my hates and loves. Ally and I didn't want to be individuals. We had small tics that made us slightly different from one another, but at the deepest level, we chose to be the same. We wanted to be one person, separated into two bodies. We didn't want to have to feel that loneliness that divides all people in their souls. Papa called it "Emptiness."

I had Ally to fill the Emptiness. She had me. We had each other.

Nii-chan didn't have anybody. I felt sorry for Nii-chan. But, looking at him made me afraid.

It seemed impossible to me to love anyone but Ally. I loved Papa to distraction, but there was always a part of him that held itself away from us; I think it hurt him a little to look at us, to hold us, to hug us or tell us that he loved us. It must hurt, I thought; it hurts Papa to look at us and see Mama in our eyes. And then the shame would begin again, the intense shame of We killed Mama!

From the moment I became conscious of Nii-chan's hatred for Papa, I realized that he should REALLY hate me and Ally. We were the bad people.

It made sense. Everyone who knew hates us. That's why we were made two. We had each other. We didn't have anybody else.

The Goddess made us two because we have no one else, and never will.

"I love you."

"I love you, too."