Page 19 of Perfect Order
“Do you want me to contact anyone for you?”
“She was the strong one, brave. And now she’s…” I start to cry again.
He takes my hand and holds it while I cry into a mess of tissues. “A part of her will always live on in you.”
Already I feel a gaping hole where Kylie lived starting to open, years of her being a part of me—of us—slipping away. For long moments, I fear I’m not strong enough to do this. Then I think about how Mom and Dad are going to handle this, and I feel something inside me crumble. “I need time to call my parents and then…”
Dr. Ross stands and hands me a card. “Please call me and I’ll do whatever I can to help, Ms. Miles.”
Pulling my cell out of my bag, I clench it over and over in between my fingers before I press the numbers to our family home in New Hampshire. It’s picked up before it can ring. “Everything okay, Leanne? I thought you and Kylie were supposed to be twinning it tonight.” My father uses his favorite expression for nights he knew my sister and I would go out and he didn’t want to know what happened.
A choked sob escapes. I really don’t want to say these words. “Daddy, she’s…”
“What? What is it, Leanne?”
“Daddy.” It’s the only word I can manage. “Daddy.”
“Hold on, baby. Renee? Pick up the phone! It’s Leanne!” There’s a muffled shriek before, “No, it won’t wait a minute. Now!”
“What is so blasted important. I’m trying to pull a cake out of the oven,” my mother snaps when she picks up the kitchen handset.
I sob even harder at the everyday byplay I’m about to destroy. Maybe forever.
“Leanne? Sweetheart? What is it?” My mother’s voice changes immediately from annoyed to frantic.
“It’s Kylie. She’s…gone.” And that’s all I manage to get out before words become something none of us can manage through the shrieking and bitter tears.
There’s a universal pressure to be jubilant around the holidays. But don’t forget the internal trauma many suffer amid your colossal need for twinkle lights. Some people feel they need permission to have an unshakeable place to completely disconnect from cheer. Be their place of normal.
— The Fireside Psychologist
The sun is up the next morning before I’m finished with the arrangements to move Kylie to New Hampshire to our small town for burial. I’m mentally and physically exhausted. If it wasn’t for Dr. Ross, I’d don’t know how I would have managed to handle as much as I have. My parents are understandably inconsolable and left everything in my hands. “You know Kylie better than anyone else in the world.” I had to grit my teeth at my father talking about her as if she was still here, like she was just going to pop up next week.
When the only place I know she’s going to surface is my nightmares until I can figure out what happened to her.
“I don’t know how to thank you enough, Dr. Ross. You’ve been a complete godsend, you and everyone here I’ve come in contact with. I don’t know how I would have been able to process all of this.” The poor doctor has spent hours after his shift ended helping me make arrangements to have my sister’s body transported to our family’s home. I’ve been blindly signing paperwork, feeling with every stroke of the pen that it isn’t ink but blood pouring onto the pages.Is that how she felt when she wrote her music? I wonder absentmindedly as I draw a treble cleft through the condensation on the glass.
We’re standing side by side in a private family room next to a blacked-out window. The streets of New York appear lit with gold. To my analytical mind, it’s watching tangible chaos between the speeding cars. Kylie would say that’s just the dreams reaching up to grab hold. Bitterness swamps me. “She came to the city, and look at what happened. This isn’t the city of dreams; it’s pure fucking fool’s gold.”
I rein in my emotions. This poor doctor deals every day with life and death; he doesn’t need my grief weighing him down. “I apologize. As I was saying, you and your staff have been nothing but supportive and professional.”
He winces. “I’m not entirely certain about that, Ms. Miles.” At my frown, he sighs. “Someone on the staff leaked what happened to the media. We’ve had to call in security for every entrance of the hospital.”
I curse, my anger a welcome emotion. Frankly, anything is other than this overwhelming grief. “This is absolutely the last thing my family needs.”
His face becomes more strained, if that’s possible. “I agree. I know who I’d call in a situation like this, but I’m not certain if your people have someone different.”
My people? A dawning horror races through me, and I stammer, “Dr. Ross, I’m not sure who…” I’m trying to string together a coherent sentence to remind him it was Kylie in that bed, hoping I didn’t just sign a bunch of papers that declared me dead.
Me. Not my identical twin.
But he mistakes my confusion. “I’m sure your record label will be able to help.”
Racking my brain, I try to recall the name of the executive Kylie dealt with at Wildcard Records when she left the Neo Agency and come up blank. The only name that comes to mind is her attorney. “Carys,” I blurt out. “I just need to call Carys.” I’m very positive my twin would have her lawyer’s contact info programmed into her cell.
Dr. Ross gestures to the phone, but I’m already digging through my bag holding Kylie’s personal items. “I’ll give you a few moments’ privacy.” He walks toward the door and closes it behind him.
The moment it does, I’m frantically searching my bag for my secure cell. I press the only number in it and wait.
