Page 21 of Iron Heart

Vaughn Aaron Lowe was born exactly two and a half minutes before I was. So, technically, he was my parents’ first child, and my older brother by those one-hundred fifty-odd seconds.

I only had a brother for four months, though. He would never grow up to be my playmate, or to pull my hair and tell me to stop being a pest. We would never argue over toys, or snacks, or which TV show to watch.

Vaughn Aaron Lowe died at four months old, of “crib death,” also known as SIDS. Any memories of him I have are buried deep in my unconscious mind. All I have are a few photos of his chubby face as he sits next to me in coordinated outfits, to remind me that I was once one part of a matched pair.

My parents tried to have more children, but it just wasn’t in the cards. So, I grew up an only child. An only child who always knew I was supposed to be one half of a whole.

My parents loved me for both of us, my mom was fond of telling me. I was their miracle baby. The one who lived. I knew I was cherished, and treasured. And if sometimes it got to be a little bit stifling to hold the responsibility of making up for the absence of my twin brother, I told myself I was lucky my parents loved me so much. Even when their marriage started going downhill around the time I hit puberty. Even when they both started avoiding each other in the house, and focusing most of their energy on me instead.

In high school, when I started thinking about applying to colleges, I felt a fair amount of guilt that I’d soon be leaving them alone together, without me to be the glue. But at the same time, I couldn’t wait to finally spreading my wings away from the loving, but constantly watchful eyes of my parents. To finally start my life — not as Tori, the twin who survived, center of her parents’ lives. Just as Tori. Me, myself, and I.

When I was diagnosed during my freshman year of college, one of the unpleasant revelations that came from the discussions with doctors was that Vaughn might have had the same condition. Might have, in fact, died from it.

And with that possibility, the world I knew seemed to shift on its axis.

My parents’ relationship, already strained, broke under the pressure. Within a year, they had separated, and soon after that, they divorced. My mother blamed my father for everything, since it turned out the condition had been passed on by him. She blamed him for Vaughn’s death. For my illness.

I had been the glue that held their marriage together. And yet, my condition was what finally broke them apart.

By the end of my freshman year, my mom had convinced me to move back home and continue my degree at the local college, instead of on the other side of the state. She got my doctors to agree that this was potentially the best course of action, until we knew whether we could get my disease under control through medication.

For the first time in my life, I felt fragile. Breakable. I felt like I was living on borrowed time.

It terrified me. But also, it infuriated me. I felt as though I’d been robbed of my future. I wanted more than ever to keep pursuing my dreams of an exciting career, where every new assignment would take me to a new place. But more and more, I realized that might no longer be possible.

I felt stifled. Like my only option was to settle on a life that in some ways felt more like dying.

My aunt Jeanneknew all of this. She was the one person I confided in about all of my frustrations. When I came to stay with her the summer after my diagnosis, I know it was a mighty struggle she went through to get my mother to agree to it. But Jeanne somehow figured out the right words to convince her little sister that her only niece would be safe and well-supervised in her aunt’s care. Because of Jeanne’s efforts, I was able to have an almost-normal summer — the first time I hadn’t lived fully under the shadow of my illness since I was diagnosed.

Back then, Ironwood was actually a refuge to me. It was the place where no one but Aunt Jeanne (and Savannah, of course) knew anything more about me than I wanted to tell them. As I continued my studies through my sophomore, junior, and senior years, I clung to the prospect of those summer holidays like a life raft. After my diagnosis, they were even more important to me then than they had been when I was a teenager.

The spring of my senior year, I phoned Jeanne up, telling her of my intention to come down to Ironwood to spend one final summer with her post-graduation. But to my immense surprise, she had brushed me off, saying it wasn’t a good time.

I felt utterly blindsided, confused and rejected by her refusal. Even more so because I hadn’t lined up any other plans for the summer. I was still trying to work out what I would do and where I wanted to live after college, knowing that I hoped more than anything to leave Columbus and my stifling home life behind. I had figured I’d work it all out that summer, counting on long talks with Jeanne and Savannah to help me try to make some decisions. Instead, suddenly, I landed right back at my mother’s house after graduation. With no job, no prospects, and parents who for once were united in trying to talk me into staying in town, so they could “take care” of me.

It was in the midst of that sad, aimless summer that my mother got the terrible call about Jeanne’s death.

I realized later that Jeanne had brushed off my request to come visit her because she hadn’t wanted me — or anyone else in the family — to know she was dying. She had wanted to go out on her own terms. And she’d wanted my memories of her to be good. She wanted me to think of her as the robust, no-nonsense aunt I’d always known — not the sick, frail woman she was destined to become at the end. She had taken care of all her funeral arrangements herself, before she got too sick to do so. By the time we got the call, she had already been cremated, the obituary sent to the paper, and the ceremony and burial details put in place. At her request, her lawyer called us at the appropriate time — and let us know that there was a will, and that I was the sole inheritor of Jeanne’s estate.

I’m pretty sure I know why Jeanne decided to leave the house to me, too. She knew how much affection I had had for the town as a child and young adult. She figured Ironwood might be a place where I could have a reasonably good adult life. I’d be able to control who did and didn’t know about my shitty heart. A place where I could once again come to feel normal.

And despite the fact that it’s not the life I wanted, I guess I have to admit that’s what Ironwood mostly has been for me.

It was horrible losing Jeanne. Even more horrible that I never got to say goodbye.

But knowing she found the energy at the end of her own life to take care of me has always consoled me. I’m so thankful to Aunt Jeanne that she gave me a way to escape. Even if my escape wasn’t to parts unknown, like I always thought it would be.

So, yeah. That thing I said earlier? About me not caring that Dante saw my pills?

That was a lie. I do care.

A lot more than I want to.

I don’t know why I cared so much about him specifically seeing them. Maybe it was just a reflex, nothing more. After all, he’s not anything to me. He’s not a friend. He’s barely an acquaintance. Someone who will be in my life for a couple of weeks, max.

But something about Dante makes me very strongly want him not to see me as an invalid.

It’s not him, exactly. It’s more what herepresents. He’s just so masculine. So…alive. He’s got this way of moving his body that’s distractingly hard to ignore. Like everything about him just kind of reminds me of sex. Of the sex that I’m not having. Of the sex I haven’t had for a very, very long time.