Here She Lies

couple... or what used to make us a couple.
    I thought of Lovyluv, the interloper, and how she had invaded and eroded our couplehood. I thought of Bobby, who had allowed a stranger to come between us and was so focused on the wrong version of events, the easy version in which supposedly nothing had happened, that he was failing to grasp what was most important as it slipped away. I thought of Julie, my beloved, amazing twin, and how much impact she had on me just by being alive and reflecting me back to myself in a way that intensified every experience. I thought of my mother, who had been gone so long it was hard to believe she had ever actually been alive orthat I had once existed inside her body. I thought of my father, who had been ruthless enough to leave his family twice — once with divorce, once with death. I thought of my own daughter and how I felt her absorbed into every iota of my being. And then I thought about my self and realized that I had never been alone long enough to know what that really was.
    Watching Julie and Bobby for those brief moments before they vanished beyond the scope of the window, I had the strangest thought that if I’d had a gun I could shoot directly through the empty space between them. It was an alarming image; I didn’t know why I thought it. I scraped some mush off Lexy’s tray and spooned it into her mouth.
    Then I remembered last fall when I was heavily pregnant with my baby and out on the prison’s shooting range with Bobby and a few others for our required annual training. We were all wearing protective earphones and goggles, emptying nine-millimeters at a black-and-white silhouette that was chewed up, full of holes from practice. Suddenly I imagined my silhouette, pregnant, and realized what a big target I would make. I looked at Bobby, wondering if he could distance his emotions and fears, his imagination, from our practice with guns; wondering if he kept thinking, as I did, about how ironic and absurd it was for physical therapists to hone our skills in the destruction of the body. Fix ’em up, shoot ’em dead. But Bobby didn’t notice me watching him. His attention was sharply focused, his trigger finger squeezing, his bullets hitting the figure with precision. He was performing a job and doing it well, which impressed me and yet made mefeel peculiarly lonely. Why were we doing this? What exactly were our intentions for this day of rigorous practice? What were we afraid of? I really didn’t think that I, personally, could fend off a prison riot with a single gun and a few rounds of bullets. That was the moment I knew I wanted to leave the prison. My personal contributions there were relatively useless, weren’t they, if I had to learn to defend myself against my own patients? I didn’t like it there. I didn’t belong. I was not cut out for the job.
    That was the resonant feeling now, I realized: isolation. The memory of when I knew I could leave, before I ever learned about Lovyluv. I don’t know why the sight of Bobby and Julie briefly appearing together in the window so sharply recalled that feeling, but I realized I would never know what they were saying because I was separate from both of them, from my husband and from my twin. Not because there was window glass between us. We were just separate. I looked at Lexy’s lovely mush-covered face and knew that one day in the future even our connection would fade. It was an intolerable thought.
    I cleared her bowl and spoon, cleaned her face with a wet paper towel and sponged the high chair and surrounding area, telling myself, Snap out of it. Don’t think about stuff so much. There was a long day ahead with all kinds of complicated good-byes: husband, sister, baby. Tonight I would travel alone to Manhattan. I would be gone two days and nights, the longest I had ever been away from Lexy. Maybe that was why I felt so nervous.
    Upstairs, I threw on some clothes, changed Lexy’sdiaper and dressed her. I grabbed my camera and, back downstairs, settled Lexy into her stroller. I hoped Julie and Bobby were still out walking; I wanted to find them.
    They were and I did, though they weren’t specifically walking anymore. They were sitting on a bench under a weeping willow in Julie’s expansive backyard. The feathery branches ended five feet above the lawn, so I had a good view of them: Julie leaning back, her legs crossed at the knee; Bobby pivoted forward, elbows bent on spread knees, fisted hands supporting his