Honey Marie
My father murdered my twin
When my father murdered my twin sister
they did it the basement in Denver. They had a table
with sawhorses
and sawdust to catch the blood.
They made me eat the sawdust after. My
father was wearing a mask but I am sure it was him, I
recognized him anyway. He chopped off one arm with an axe and then
the other, and then one leg. This was on the eve of our birthday
because he wanted to
send her back the day she came, the same hour if
possible and we were
born at 12:41 and 12:51. It was so awful to watch her
suffer. A part
of me died that will never live again.
He raped her with one of her arms, and was going to
continue to
torture her but she died. She died before they were
ready. They were
angry.
They put me in a coffin with her body and buried us
in the
backyard. I don't know how long I was down there but I
do remember
the sound of earth hitting the top. When they opened the
coffin it was
snowing.
They did terrible things to her dead body. They
made me do them too
and I don't know how to get through that. They fed her
tongue to our
dog. They removed her eyes her brain. They made me eat
her brain. It
had been long enough that there were maggots. At the
time I thought
they were worms. They told me one of the worms stayed
inside and that
if I ever told it would get bigger and kill me.
After that I got sick. So sick I ran a terrible
fever for days. I
kept asking for Elizabeth. They told me I was
delerious.
All of these things I've remembered for a long time
except the
threat about the worm eating me. And then on Monday I
remembered they
put her head near my bed where we had slept together
before, her head
with no eyes no body lips sewn shut. Sitting there in
the dark. It was
so horrible, I can't ever express.
The worst thing this month has been realizing they
saved little
pieces of her bones. That they used them, maybe still
do. I hate that
they have any part of her. I hate them so much for
killing her. I hate
them so much for killing Christopher.
Honey Marie, twin to Elizabeth
Missing Elizabeth
With my twin Elizabeth I felt whole. It never occurred
to me then- twirling in our ballerina
costumes, hers purple, mine blue, that that wholeness
would soon end. We lived in a
house that looked normal, but it wasn't. When
Elizabeth and I first came to stay with our
father in Denver we weren't allowed to play outside in
the front yard together. One of us
could go to the store with our stepmother but not
both. And of course we didn't want to
be separated, but neither did we want to stay home in
the care of our older stepbrother.
Such "choices" were the barest symptom of the horrors
of that household.
"Either Elizabeth goes to the basement for a hour or
you do. Decide." Other times it was
the garage, the closet. A dresser drawer. I was the
one who got the dresser drawer. I
remember that it smelled, that it was hard to breathe.
That I almost got my fingers caught
while the drawer was being slammed shut and the loud
creaking that the drawer made. My
fear for my fingers traumatized me most. Long after
Elizabeth was dead, my parents kept
that dresser with the drawer that never worked
properly after that day.
I was jealous of Elizabeth's ballerina dress. I wished
I had gotten the purple instead, how
much prettier it was that the blue one! I know I
voiced I wanted hers instead of mine. I
didn't get it. All the other things we faced- how did
we "decide?" I don't know. But I know
though we fought perhaps even viciously at times, we
somehow came to agreements. Our
family tried to divide us but they couldn't, we only
loved each other more. We were each
other's comfort in a dangerous house. I think now
Elizabeth knew we deserved better. She
was the more vocal twin. I smiled and pretended
because I was scared. I tried to keep her
quiet if she cried or screamed. Elizabeth expressed
the hurts, I tried by being silent to
keep it all from getting worse.
It did get worse. And I still feel, an irrational
feeling that if I could have been somehow
better, somehow saved her, she'd still be alive. When
my father murdered her I was and
am still beyond shock, still beyond terror. My
reaction then was to be angry with my twin.
As if, by changing her actions as a six year old she
could have prevented her own death.
And it was safe to be angry at her- she wasn't the one
still holding a knife to my throat.
For years I did not talk about my twin. Silence was
trained from an early age. I still have
trouble speaking out. I guess a part of me is still
angry with my twin for leaving me. But
most of the anger now has given itself to sadness- my
poor twin sister! In the choice of
being separated in life we never decided who would go
and who would stay. If I'd been
asked I'd gladly have gone in her place. When I
despair I remind myself that life was given
to me and I owe it to Elizabeth to give myself a good
life because she didn't get that.
I miss you Elizabeth. And I know as we knew divided by a
closet door that at some point
the separation would end. One day we will be together
again. I love you so much my twin.
Honey Marie
