Close Encounters Read Online Free PDF Page B

passing down my genetic defect.”
    â€œYou aren’t a twin, Julia. You never were. You’re being unbearably neurotic about the whole thing.”
    He stood up and looked out the window. His dismissiveness shocked me even as it was predictable in some way. He hadn’t believed me up until this point; why would he believe me now?
    â€œI’m going to die, Michael.” I grabbed the edge of my sheets, a sweat breaking over me. “The opportunity has presented itself. It’s Julie-Ann’s time now.”
    â€œLook.” Michael was at my side, patting my hand. “I know how incredibly traumatizing this is for you, Jul, but you are going to be fine. They’re going to do surgery tomorrow, and I’ll take care of you and you’ll recover and it’ll be fine.”
    â€œBollocks, Michael—you think you know everything.”
    â€œWhat?” He stepped back, slightly hunched as if digesting some indiscernible horror. I suddenly wanted to laugh at him, loud and boisterous, and wipe that fucking smirk off his boring old fucking face.
    â€œYou’re right, Michael.” I shook my head. I couldn’t spend my last night with him fighting. It could not be how I was remembered. I took his hand and held it to my face, washing his fingertips with my tears. “I’m just so tired and cranky.”
    When I woke up from the surgery I felt lighter, emptier, awash in a haze of partially numbed pain.
    â€œHi, honey.” I saw her husband standing over me, a soft look on his face. He reached to touch my shoulder. I was too groggy to pull away. “You did so well. You’re going to be OK.”
    â€œThe children?” I managed. Although I hadn’t wanted them, I know that she had, and to be honest, I would have raised them for her, no questions asked. With him? Certainly not. I couldn’t stand that smug, elitist bastard, and I never did understand what she saw in him.
    â€œWe can try again, Jul—or we can always adopt.” His hand touched my forehead. “Just rest, sweetheart. We’ll talk more when you’re feeling better.”
    Yes, I needed my strength.
    The fourth night I persuaded Mike to go home. He needed a shower; he needed to get back to work, and I needed to get away. I slipped on the frumpy clothes in which I had arrived to the hospital, rummaged through her purse to make sure that I had coins for the tube, and walked out of the hospital into that good night.
    You think that I am callous; that I don’t care that she’s not here anymore. That’s not true at all. I miss her terribly. I will be mourning her for the rest of my life. And maybe she’s not gone. Maybe she’s somewhere deep in there. And maybe when she’s strong enough or brave enough she will re-emerge, a phoenix among the ashes, and stuff me back into the peanut can like the coiled paper snake that I am.
    But it’s my time now. And I have to make the best of it. Life is short—we know that old adage. For me, life is even shorter.
    I do not know where I am going quite yet. Perhaps London—it is easy enough to disappear in such a large city. Except many of her colleagues teach at universities there—I doubt we’d run in the same circles, but maybe we’d pass on the tube, at the Indian market, at the park, and they’d squint and say Julia, where have you been? Michael’s a complete wreck , and I’d chuckle a bit and say Funny, you know I get that quite a lot, but I’m not her, the girl you always say I am. I’m Julie Ann. Sorry . And that’s where our story ends, I suppose. And mine begins.

THE BODY
    THE BODY WAS DRESSED IN JEANS and a grubby blue t-shirt whose collar was stained dark with blood. Lincoln viewed it from the ground, where she had tripped over it while making her way through the thick underbrush. A strange, red ogre stared at her, for the face had been mauled, beaten in, as if someone