“Boo!” I say, and she jumps, but immediately giggles.

“Where were you?” she asks. I flip my eyes to my mom with a smile.

“I had work,” I say, winking.

“No you didn’t. You’re not wearing your shirt,” she says. Damn my girl is smart.

“True. It was a special workday. I just had to help with something, so I didn’t have to stay long,” I lie.

“Oh,” she says, turning her attention back to the small cheese crackers on a plate in front of her.

“One day, you’re not going to get off so easily,” my mom whispers in my ear as she pats my back and leaves the kitchen. I lean against the counter and watch my daughter pick up each cracker and inspect it before eating it. She’s so curious about everything. She’s so much like her mom.

I need to prep her for someone new moving in. We’ve had five roommates since we decided to start renting out the spare room, and each time it takes Leah about two weeks to finally sleep at night. Change makes her nervous. Even though she was barely a month old when her mom died, I think there’s a part of her that always thinks about it. The slightest changes to her routine seem to send her anxiety up.

I pull up a chair to talk to her about it, reaching over and grabbing one of her crackers and stuffing it in my mouth.

“Heyyyyy,” she says through a laugh that turns into a cough. “You didn’t ask.”

“May I please have a cracker?” I say with a full mouth. Leah giggles and nods yes.

“So I need to talk to you about something,” I say, walking my fingers over to her plate again to steal another cracker. She stands her own fingers up and walks them over to me, ready to face off. I grab her hand instead and pull it to my mouth with a gobbling noise, then I kiss her tiny knuckles. “We’re going to have a new roommate. You’ll like her; it’s a girl this time.”

I’m hoping that she’ll do better with a girl, that somehow it will be less threatening.

“Okay,” she says, sucking her bottom lip in. She pushes her plate a few inches away, sliding it slowly. I can tell she’s already getting stressed.

“Her name is Paige,” I say, suddenly struck with an idea. Paige might hate me for this, but… “and guess what?”

“What?” Leah whispers.

“She looks just like Barbie.”

Leah’s eyes widen a little, and her smile slowly pushes into her cheeks making a small dimple on either side.

“Really?” she asks.

“Really,” I say. No, not really. But she’s pretty close.

“Okay,” Leah says, reaching over to the table and pulling her plate close again.

I stand and push my chair in, but before I leave, I reach at her plate and snatch one more cracker, stuffing it in my mouth fast. Leah turns to look at me with her cheeks puffed and her hands on her hips, but she can’t keep the look up for long, giving way to laughter in seconds.

I head upstairs and push the door closed, locking it behind me so I can pull the bag of things I bought today out from under my bed. I let my mom do the wrapping for obvious reasons. If these things are supposed to be from Santa, then the wrapping probably shouldn’t be done with painter’s tape and staples.

I slip the horse out from the bag and prop it on my knees. It has pink hair, and it comes with a brush it claims is “made of stars.” The eyes are purple, and everything about this toy reminds me of Paige.

Leah is going to love it.

Paige

Cass and I managed to shop together last night, on Christmas Eve. It’s been our thing for years. Our dad started it, always waiting until the last minute to buy something for our mom. He used to take us along when we were little. We’d binge on treats at the department stores and my dad would bribe us to keep going with hot cocoa. He hated the crowds, but we loved it.

By the time we started high school, Dad would just give us money and drop us off to get everything. He was happy not to have to do it. When we both got our licenses, we started driving ourselves. I was worried that this year would be the first time we skipped. But yesterday afternoon, Cass came into my room and asked me what time we should leave.

We’ve talked. It started when I picked her up from the airport. That car ride back to the house was so quiet and strange. It actually hurt to be close to her. That’s probably guilt I felt. Whatever it was, it all boiled to the surface, and I let everything out when we got home. I admitted I used to want to hate her. I did. There were so many times when I thought it would be easier to have a sister I didn’t love—one I didn’t want to defend. I stopped short of telling her I sometimes wondered what it would have been like if we weren’t twins. Not if she weren’t born at all, just if she were born later…or earlier.