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Fiction • Knopf Canada
• Hardcover, 464 pages • September 2005
• $34.95 • 0-676-97795-2
ruby & me
I have never looked into my sister’s eyes.
I have never bathed alone. I have never stood in the
grass at night and raised my arms to a beguiling moon.
I’ve never used an airplane bathroom. Or worn
a hat. Or been kissed like that. I’ve never
driven a car. Or slept through the night. Never a
private talk. Or solo walk. I’ve never climbed
a tree. Or faded into a crowd. So many things I’ve
never done, but oh, how I’ve been loved. And,
if such things were to be, I’d live a thousand
lives as me, to be loved so exponentially.
My sister, Ruby, and I, by mishap or miracle, having
intended to divide from a single fertilized egg, remained
joined instead, by a spot the size of a bread plate
on the sides of our twin heads. We’re known
to the world medical community as the oldest surviving
craniopagus twins (we are twentynine years old)
and to millions around the globe, those whose interest
in people like us is more than just passing, as conjoined
craniopagus twins Rose and Ruby Darlen of Baldoon
County. We’ve been called many things: freaks,
horrors, monsters, devils, witches, retards, wonders,
marvels. To most, we’re a curiosity. In smalltown
Leaford, where we live and work, we’re just
“The Girls.”
Raise your right hand. Press the base of your palm
to the lobe of your right ear. Cover your ear and
fan out your fingers — that’s where my
sister and I are affixed, our faces not quite side
by side, our skulls fused together in a circular pattern
running up the temple and curving around the frontal
lobe. If you glance at us, you might think we’re
two women embracing, leaning against the other —
tête-à-tête, the way sisters do.
Ruby and I are identical twins and would be identical
looking, having high foreheads like our mother and
wide, full mouths, except that Ruby’s face is
arranged quite nicely (in fact, Ruby is very beautiful),
whereas my features are misshapen and frankly grotesque.
My right eye slants steeply towards the place my right
ear would have been if my sister’s head had
not grown there instead. My nose is longer than Ruby’s,
one nostril wider than the other, pulled to the right
of my brown slanted eye. My lower jaw shifts to the
left, slurring my speech and giving a husky quality
to my voice. Patches of eczema rouge my cheeks, while
Ruby’s complexion is fair and flawless. Our
scalps marry in the middle of our conjoined heads,
but my frizzy hair has a glint of auburn, while my
sister is a swingy brunette. Ruby has a deep cleft
in her chin, which people find endearing.
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I’m five feet five inches tall. When we were
born, my limbs were symmetrical, in proportion to
my body. Presently, my right leg is a full three inches
shorter than my left, my spine compressed, my right
hip cocked, and all because I have carried my sister
like an infant, since I was a baby myself, Ruby’s
tiny thighs astride my hip, my arm supporting her
posterior, her arm forever around my neck. Ruby is
my sister. And strangely, undeniably, my child.
There is some discomfort in our conjoinment. Ruby
and I experience mild to severe neck, jaw, and shoulder
pain, for which we take physiotherapy three times
a week. The strain on my body is constant, as I bear
Ruby’s weight, as I tote Ruby on my hip, as
I struggle to turn Ruby over in our bed or perch on
my stool beside the toilet for what seems like hours.
(Ruby has a multitude of bowel and urinary tract problems.)
We are challenged, certainly, and uncomfortable, sometimes,
but neither Ruby nor I would describe our conjoinment
as painful.
It’s difficult to explain our locomotion as
conjoined twins or how it developed from birth using
grunts and gestures and what I suppose must be telepathy.
There are days when, like a normal person, we’re
clumsy and uncoordinated. We have less natural symbiosis
when one of us (usually Ruby) is sick, but mostly
our dance is a smooth one. We hate doing things in
unison, such as answering yes or no at the same time.
We never finish each other’s sentences. We can’t
shake our heads at once or nod (and wouldn’t
if we could — see above). We have an unspoken,
even unconscious, system of checks and balances to
determine who’ll lead the way at any given moment.
There is conflict. There is compromise.
Ruby and I share a common blood supply. My blood
flows normally in the left side of my brain, but the
blood in my right (the connected side) flows to my
sister’s left, and vice versa for her. It’s
estimated that we share a web of one hundred veins
as well as our skull bones. Our cerebral tissue is
fully enmeshed, our vascular systems snarled like
briar bushes, but our brains themselves are separate
and functioning. Our thoughts are distinctly our own.
Our selves have struggled fiercely to be unique and,
in fact, we’re more different than most identical
twins. I like sports, but I’m also bookish,
while Ruby is girlie and prefers television. When
Ruby is tired, I’m hardly ever ready for bed.
We’re rarely hungry together and our tastes
are poles apart: I prefer spicy fare, while my sister
has a disturbing fondness for eggs.
Ruby believes in God and ghosts and reincarnation.
(Ruby won’t speculate on her next incarnation
though, as if imagining something different from what
she is now would betray us both.) I believe the best
the dead can hope for is to be conjured from time
to time, through a note of haunting music or a passage
in a book.
I’ve never set eyes on my sister, except in
mirror images and photographs, but I know Ruby’s
gestures as my own, through the movement of her muscles
and bone. I love my sister as I love myself. I hate
her that way too.
This is the story of my life. I’m calling
it “Autobiography of a Conjoined Twin.”
But since my sister claims that it can’t technically
(“technically” is Ruby’s current
favourite word) be considered an autobiography and
is opposed to my telling what she considers our story,
I have agreed that she should write some chapters
from her point of view. I will strive to tell my story
honestly, allowing that my truth will be coloured
a shade different from my sister’s and acknowledging
that it’s sometimes necessary for the writer
to connect the dots.
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