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moved to where he
continued to frame my face, and I wrapped my fingers around his
much larger ones. “That’s right.” I nodded as I held him. “Ash is
short for Ashley. Is Drew short for Andrew?”
    He blinked and looked
startled. His hands stiffened, and he pulled them out of my grip,
sitting straight for a short moment before standing. He was up, up,
up, and away—tall like a tower or a great tree, or a
mountain.
    Drew was no longer looking
at me. In fact, he was looking everywhere but at me. Through my perplexed
misery-riddled daze, I thought he might have been a smidge
discomfited by his forward behavior. As it was, given the day’s
events, his discomfiture and oddness made very little impact on my
mental state.
    I watched numbly as he
picked up a leather-bound notebook from the coffee table and turned
to Beauford; he whispered something in the twin’s ear. Beau’s eyes,
rimmed with shock and emotion, met mine, and he nodded. Beau moved
from Drew, motioned to Duane, and crossed to me.
    “ Okay, big sister, upsy
daisy.” Beau leaned down and gave me a wobbly smile. Before I could
comprehend what he was about, he lifted me in his arms like I was a
feather. “You need food and sleep. Drew is fixin’ to cook you
something good, and I’m carrying you to your room.”
    I opened my mouth to
protest that I could walk, but Duane hushed me as he led the way
upstairs. “Don’t worry about nothing. We’ll all be here when you
wake up. You can boss us as much as you like in the
morning.”
    Duane flipped on the light
in my room and began straightening the bed, fluffing the pillow,
and turning down the blanket. Beau set me on the floor next to the
foot of the bed and wrapped me in his big arms.
    “ We missed you, Ash.” His
voice was watery, though I seriously doubted he would actually
cry.
    Duane joined us and hugged
me from behind. “I’m sorry I put maggots in your macaroni and
cheese. I’ve wanted to tell you that for a long time.”
    Then Beau said, “And I’m sorry we used to
hold you down and spit in your mouth.”
    “ Ugh! Gross, Beau.” I
gagged a little. “I’d forgotten about that.”
    The memories stirred
something in me. The severity of the twins’ acts of torment was
nothing in comparison to the frequency. They had launched volleys
at me daily, hourly, whenever I was at home. I’d never thought of
them as particularly lovable because my earliest memories involved
their constant assaults.
    I tried to reach out to my
brothers while I was in college to form some kind of sisterly bond
with them on a more grown-up level. In return, they showed up at my
dorm room stoned, behaved like criminals, and hid buckets of
freshly slaughtered pigs’ feet in my friends’ rooms. It took weeks
for us to find them all.
    I didn’t know what to think
about all that now. I tsked and laughed at the absurdity of the moment, the
apology for things that happened years ago, yet it wasn’t that
absurd. Their wild behavior had kept us in limbo for eight
years.
    Too tired to talk, I
lifted my arms to hug my brothers. We stood together for several
moments then Beau and Duane pulled away. Beau held my gaze—his eyes
still glassy—then he took a step back.
    “ You need anything, we’re
right next door.”
    “ That’s right, anything at
all.” Duane put his hand on Beau’s shoulder. “But you might want to
knock first.”
    He hadn’t meant it as a joke. It was a sober
warning meant to save me from embarrassment. Too late.
    Beau closed his eyes, gave his head a subtle
shake, and pushed Duane toward the door. “You’re a dummy.”
    “ What? What did I say?”
Duane said, glancing between his twin and me.
    “ Just keep walking,
dummy.” Beau’s eyes flickered to mine, apologetic and irritated,
then he managed to guide his twin the rest of the way, closing the
door behind them.
    I went through the motions
of putting on my pajamas and brushing my hair, thinking about not
much, but what I thought about was on the