Ghosts in the Supermarket

I longed to feel your presence for so long. A sound, a vision, anything to tell me you were still with me.

Even so, I didn’t expect to see you here, now, as I stand in the supermarket, at the self-service checkouts in the hometime rush, the unkind lurch of last night’s wine after another evening with Mum rising in my throat. I glimpse a flash of red hair and my stomach drops, the same way it does on a rollercoaster, when the cart trundles slowly to the top and you know the drop is coming. Only this time, it’s not exciting.

I know it’s not you. But in my mind, for one moment, she is.

Red hair, just like mine. Just like yours, though you always called it copper. Yours was always glossier. Like spun gold, tinged with a flame of mischief.

You’re three customers ahead now. Your pale face – our face – smiles at the phone conversation you’re having. You step forward, oblivious, one arm laden with groceries. I stand frozen in the queue and the sleek tiles feel like quicksand.

Five years.

My hands shake and my grip on the basket loosens. It falls from my grasp, clattering onto the floor. An onion rolls out and makes its escape. Customers tut and sigh around me; I hear their displeasure, a collective hiss. But all I can see is you.

I’m not moving. My breath is quick, fast. The robotic voice of the end checkout announces its freedom with a booming thank-you. The line grows, a snake made of flustered faces and tired eyes that glare at me, at the woman who won’t move.

All I want to say is sorry.

I watch you as you swipe your groceries: fruit, soy milk, a bottle of wine. I know you preferred gin. Or vodka. I think of vodka and my heart stops. You had four that night. Four vodkas with coke. You were fine, you said, as we shimmied into the evening, tipsy on booze, high on promise, thoughts of the future dancing in our heads to the tune of the thumping music. We’d just graduated – you in English Literature, me in Physics. So different, yet so alike.

That’s the problem with twins. People tend to forget you are separate beings. They see you as one collective person, a life tethered together so closely you may as well be one. With us, that wasn’t the case. There you were, confident and bright, a presence so strong you were unmissable, unstoppable. Your eyes were blue like a summer sky; mine seemed simply pale in comparison. Identical, yet worlds apart.

I need to say I’m sorry.

You’re finishing up now. Swiping your card, collecting your shopping, smiling that wide, red-lipped smile at the air. The queue grows ever longer. Someone steps past me, pushes in. I don’t care. All I care about is that you’re here.

Only I know that it’s not you. It is just a likeness, someone so similar that she is ghost-like. The ghost I’ve yearned for, if only to utter those words to you.

I’m sorry. 

Finally, I reach for the upturned basket. I wonder if anyone else is looking at us, seeing the similarities.

You’re leaving.

I step from the queue, past the snaking line of people. I follow you as you head for the doors. I just need to see you. I need to look at your face again, see you smile. Just like you did the last night I saw you.

Just as you did before you decided to head home. ‘I’ll take a taxi,’ you said.

Just before the man I'd fancied, set my sights on for weeks, had approached us. Asked me to stay.

Before you beamed and said, ‘I’ll be fine!’ then tottered through the dancing crowd and out into the night where the lights of the harborside twinkled on the waves. ‘I’ll see you later. Have fun, sis!’

Before you slipped into the freezing water. Before you drowned as I danced, unaware.

I never saw you smile again. Until now.

I know it’s not you. It’s merely a lookalike; a doppelganger, an illusion of you. But as I tap her on the shoulder and see her turn, regarding me with a slight hint of confusion, something inside me feels whole again. ‘Hi?’ she says, pleasantly.

‘I’m sorry,’ I mutter. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

And with that, I walk away. Knowing that one day, I’ll see you again. And we’ll never be apart.