Things had not been easy lately. Robert saw in Grace, in the quick moment of eye contact, the sadness that had gripped the fourteen-year-old since the death of Robert’s father. The grief of the one twin had been so enormous that sometimes Robert felt as if her pain was larger than his own. Grace had been extremely close to her grandfather. Lily, too, but not nearly as much as her sister. Of course, Lily had done a great amount of weeping, but it was Grace who sometimes couldn’t even get out of bed—yet underwent a heap of nightmares—and had started therapy to relieve herself of her grief.    

Robert rubbed his eyes tiredly as the car rumbled forward to their destination. There had been a great deal of confusion around Grace after the death. Robert didn’t think it possible that his daughter could be so saddened about Walter’s passing that she would need therapy for the coming months. Even he himself had moved on. The death had been over six months ago. Things were turning back to normal. Walter’s birthday had passed without too much sound; the hot summer air was turning crisper and windier with the coming of autumn, and life was trudging on like it had before. Walter had lived a good eighty-nine years.    

Even though Robert knew his mother Bea was sad, he also knew the woman would be ecstatic to have her two granddaughters for a visit in the last week of summer vacation. It was time for the girls to see her again, Robert knew. He regretted the fact that he had to work, had to rake in the income for his and his daughters’ and his wife’s sake, and that he couldn’t see Bea as well.    

“I hope she still makes her apple pie as well as she used to,” said Lily.    “You might have to help her,” Robert said. “She knows the recipe, I’m sure of it, but her hands might not be able to cut the apples. You know she’s been having more and more difficulty with motion recently.”    Grace remained silent. She loved apple pie, but she loved her grandfather’s chicken noodle soup even more. Robert said her name, and she met his eyes in the mirror again. 

“Please try to have fun,” he said quietly to the girl.    

She looked away, out the window. Robert couldn’t see Lily’s face, but he was afraid of her expression. Lily lost hope when she saw her sister sad. They were twins and they were best friends, and they were always alert of what the other was feeling. Robert could not have asked for better daughters. They were his two favorite people in the world.    

Robert smiled a little in recognition as they arrived at the station. It was an old station; a big building made of stone, with faded red words over the entrance. Serene Station. Robert had been here so many times when he had just moved to the County. The town was small, and the station was the escape to anywhere. He stopped the car and leaned back. Grace was staring at the empty seat next to Robert. Lily looked back at him.    “I want you to have fun, too, Lil.”    

She returned his smile, but it was a little sad. “I will.”    

“Grace?”    

“Hmm?” Grace blinked and looked at Robert. Her hand flew to her neck to touch a necklace that was no longer there; one her grandfather had given her when she was young but had accidentally lost a few weeks prior. She had always had the tendency to play with the charm when she felt uneasy or at a loss for words, and now that it was no longer there, it made her even more uneasy each time she wanted to tug at it but touched bare skin instead.    

“Will you have fun?” Robert asked gently.    

She nodded vigorously.    

The three of them stepped out of the car and Robert rushed over to his two little girls. He loved them so much he felt like his heart would burst. “Be good to each other and your grandmother. Most importantly, be good to yourself.” He always said that last part. He thought being good to yourself was essential. “I’ll see you in four days,” he whispered into their ears, as if it were a secret. “I love you.”   

“I love you,” said Lily and Grace.    

He let them go. Waved a few times more. They took their suitcases and off they were, two big girls on a journey by train. An hour in the train, precisely, but it was probably the biggest thing they had done in their fifteen-year-old lives without being accompanied by a parent. Robert smiled and stepped back into his car when they were out of sight. There was absolutely nothing to be worried about. The girls had their tickets, and they were surrounded by people they could ask questions to, and Bea would pick them up at the other end. Robert’s heart was warm as he sat down and rolled away from the station.

« « «

“Len said he hated my dress yesterday,” said Grace, thoughtfully sipping on her tea. People rolling suitcases marched past. Some of their eyes slid over Grace’s dress and over her general beauty. Lily didn’t think she was as beautiful as Grace was, but she didn’t mind because she didn’t like to be the center of attention anyway.  Grace continued, peering down at the dress Bea had sewn for her as a Christmas gift two years back. “He said the flowers on it were ugly.”    

“Don’t listen to him.”    

“I know. Who would want to be him, anyway? He’s not kind at all.”    

The girls were taking advantage of the money their father had given them for their trip. The train was not arriving until 10:05, and they still had a half an hour. Lily touched her ticket, which was crumpled up in her pocket. She was perhaps more excited about the train journey with her sister than to see their grandmother. Bea was going to be sad, anyway, and it might not be as much fun as it was when grandpa was alive. So Lily thought about the endless conversations they could have on the train; conversations which had already started here at the little café in the station. Grace and Lily had the best discussions, because they always knew what the other was thinking. Sometimes, Lily would look at Grace and they would burst out in laughter because their eyes had said everything.    

Grace somehow knew everything about everyone in their school, and she loved to tell Lily about their lives and the rumors that went on throughout class. There was nothing unkind about her demeanor as she told her sister the reports, however—despite some of the stories being negative, there was always an unprejudiced air around Grace as she spoke. She was simply retelling the facts, because she loved facts.    

Grace loved books, too. She was intelligent and possessed a great memory, something Lily had always envied. Grace was creative, too, but Lily prided herself, secretly, on being a little more artistic than her sister. Grace was great with words, like their father, and she knew exactly what paint to use when creating something in her mind—but although Lily’s art was more chaotic, there was always something more beautiful hidden within the streaks of pen and pencil. Lily didn’t show a lot of people the things she drew, whereas Grace was always looking for critique on her work. It didn’t bother Lily that her sister was slightly more talkative than she was; rather, it helped her in times she didn’t know quite what to say, because Grace was always behind her with a few powerful words that would make all discomfort okay again.    

Lily looked up to Grace as if she were a superstar, a celebrity. Sometimes she wondered if Grace looked up to her, too—or down to her, because Lily was somewhat shorter than she was and a little more hidden away than the brilliant shining aura of the less vulnerable twin.    

Perhaps it was just Lily who looked at Grace this way. Lily was hypersensitive of whatever her sister did, because Lily wanted to be like Grace. It was a sisterly competition, as all siblings experience, but one that did not bother Lily at all because, in the end, the spotlight was a place for her sister and not for herself.    

Lily watched Grace stir her tea. Grace always got chai when they went out to a café; Lily got green tea. They were sitting in a cozy booth not far from where the train would arrive. For a second, Lily peered at the passersby bustling by the little teashop. It was as if the sisters were in a bubble of rest and calm, whereas the stress in the outside world was high.    

“Len has a hard time at home,” said Grace. “No wonder he’s so mean to everyone.”    

“How do you know that?”    

“Well, I’ve heard so, for one thing. Yvonne told me one day that his parents divorced recently, due to his father being an alcoholic. You can see that his life his hard. I mean, whenever someone walks up to someone else and tells them their dress is ugly, you know something is up in their personal lives.”    

Grace was going to be a psychologist; Lily could just feel it. She was aware Grace was very good at seeing what was inside a person regardless of how they acted.    

“It doesn’t matter,” was Lily’s opinion. “He shouldn’t say your dress is ugly. It’s mean and degrading.”    

Grace smiled a little. “His words don’t mean a thing to me and they shouldn’t mean a thing to you either, Lil. Look at that dog there.”    

A woman walked by carrying a tiny Chihuahua in pink clothes. Lily laughed at it when the owner wasn’t looking; Grace’s expression was merely amused. She didn’t laugh much anymore, Lily had noticed recently, yet she and was always the one to point out certain things she knew would make Lily giggle. Lily didn’t ask Grace now why she didn’t smile more often, because she had asked many times before. It all came down to grandpa Walter and his death. Grace had been extremely close to Walter, while Lily was closer to Bea. Walter’s death had hurt Grace more than anything in the world, and in all aspects did it show. Grace still did what she always used to do—she still painted, sometimes, and she still wrote, but everything she did was less than it used to be. Like a jacket once fancy and new, now worn too often.    

Still, Grace was Grace, and there was nothing Lily did not love about her.    They finished their drinks and Grace inspected her watch. “Shall we go? We should go to the platform soon.”    

“Wait a second,” said Lily, and with a small nod from Grace, she disappeared into the bathroom. As she returned from the toilet and made her way back to their table, she noticed something odd. Grace’s lips were moving slowly, but there was no one standing next to her she could be speaking to. Lily would have thought the girl was singing to herself, had Grace been a singer and had her face not been moving around with expressions of fright and worry. When Grace saw Lily, she jumped and stopped speaking to herself immediately. “You scared me, Lil.”    

“What were you—“    

“Hm?” Grace pretended she was dumb.    

“Never mind.”    

As Grace stood and picked up her suitcase and coat, Lily examined her. She couldn’t stop thinking about the fact she had seen Grace speak to herself more often. Lily thought she was the only one who’d ever noticed, but she had never had the heart to tell someone. It was probably harmless, anyway.    

“Lily, I—“ Grace stopped herself as they walked out of the café.

“Something wrong?”    

“I don’t feel very well.” Grace rubbed her forehead.      

Lily touched her sister’s arm. “We’ll ask for some hot tea and a blanket on the train. Give me your suitcase for a second so you can put on your coat.”    

They stopped in the middle of the aisle and Lily scrutinized her sister as she put on the coat with suddenly trembling fingers. They were out of the café and into the busy world again, where impatient passengers dodged them on the swift way to their trains.   

The train to Bea and Walter’s house would be arriving in a few minutes, read the board overhead. As Lily and Grace took to the stream of passengers again, Lily noticed the whiteness in her twin sister’s face and the blank look in her eyes. Oh no, thought Lily, Grace is sick. There goes our exciting journey. She had imagined Grace would have a fun idea of something to do on the train, like a made-up game, and that at the end of the trip the girls would come out of the train rolling about in laughter. Now, Lily could only imagine the boring ride as Grace slept beside her.    Grace reached up and lay a hand gently on Lily’s shoulder as they came to a stop in front of the tracks. Lily hadn’t expected that, and she turned to Grace immediately, expecting her sister to pass out. Grace’s eyes were wide, however, and not ready to lose consciousness.    

“Lily, I meant to tell you…” Her mouth opened and closed again, as if her mind were whizzing for a way to explain what she wanted to say. “I wish I had more time to clarify…”    

“Grace, what are you saying?” Lily took her sister’s hand in her own. Her ears perked as she heard, in the distance, the train approaching. Its name was the Serene Express. “I don’t understand,” she said.    

“Promise me you’ll do good in school and stay the kind and brave person I’ve always seen in you, always loved you for.”    

“Grace, what—“    Grace dropped her suitcase. She started running toward the tracks, so fast that Lily had only a split second to realize what was happening and to shriek Grace’s name, in vain. The people, at first so desperate to get by them, didn’t prevent Grace from running any further, even though they could have seen coming what happened after. They didn’t take her by the shoulders and bring her back to Lily. They stepped aside, in fright, when they saw the girl barreling toward them. They let Grace pass.    

The tracks approached Grace quickly. Lily screamed her sister’s name, asked what are you doing? so many times she lost count. Lily ran, but there was no use in trying to catch up to her sister—and she watched, in despair, in defeat, as the train advanced as fast as light—the conductor would never be able to see the girl—    

The lights in the front of the train blinded Grace’s jump, blinded what happened next. Lily screamed; observers screamed; there were police and guards doing their best to keep everyone calm—they were moving toward the passengers and ushering them away from the dreadful scene, but Lily was standing too far away still and there was no one who realized that Grace had been hers, her sister, her cherished—in a split second, Lily was left alone in a world that did not feature the beauty of her sister any longer.