My mother found me lacking from the moment I was born. She never told me why; if I asked her she’d simply stare through me as if I didn’t exist. Some days the frustration of it made me want to scream and my twin would lay a delicate hand on my shoulder and let her calmness mellow out my anger.
It was our names that told the story better than I ever could: Celie and Lee. Hers light and airy and filled with music and life, and mine abrupt, simple, plebian. Firmly grounded. It was not lost on me that my name was simply her name cut short, made unflattering by the echo of what should have come before. Celie has told me over and over again that it doesn’t matter, that my name doesn’t define me.
But it does. It does. Names are the center for ideas: a place where concepts can bounce of each other and weave together into a tapestry that becomes the person you are. When you strip someone of their name, you strip them of all the memories and perceptions they had before.
I dreamed of leaving my name behind all the time. I dreamed of being free.
In the hospital everything seems to be normal. Ambulances come in and out of the parking lot, sirens blaring or conspicuously silent; patients come with questions and leave with medication or a few answers and more questions. It is in a hallway in the back the left wing that this illusion is shattered.
Two men stand in front of a thick metal door, their faces blank. They look eerily alike, these men. Almost as if they were mirror images of each other. They are watching for intruders, and they are rewarded for their vigilance when a beautiful woman rounds the corner of the hall.
She is familiar and they let her pass without word or issue. She walks through the door and jogs down the three flights of stairs that follow, pulling a thick cord with a name tag attached around her neck without a pause. There is no first name on the tag, only “DR. ALTO”.
In this forbidden basement floor it is almost entirely quiet. Dr. Alto walks down several hallways, turning left and then right. The only sound other than the click of her heels on the floor are low murmurings from several lab rooms she passes on her journey.
Only one room is different, and she finds herself pausing outside the door. Inside, she can hear someone singing, their voice ethereal and strong. Dr. Alto raises her hand to her throat, eyes alight, but the excitement ebbs when the singer’s voice cracks and falls into silence. She shakes herself and moves forward again, ducking into a room several doors down.
The two men are waiting for her, huddled over a long table full of vials. They look up as they enter and she nods at each of them.
“Ashton, Todd,” she says in greeting. They wave her over and start to tell her the newest breakthrough as she looks over the vials.
Soon, she tells herself,we’ll get there soon.
Growing up, Celie had the best of everything. The best clothes, the best shoes, the best friends…I didn’t even get to do anything outside of school, while Celie was in choir since as long as I could remember. And yet, I couldn’t begrudge her any of the things she had. I loved her too much.
Some days once I got old enough I’d walk to the historic building downtown where she had her private music lessons and listen to her sing through the door. Even muffled, she sounded more beautiful than any other person I’d ever heard. I would sing along to myself, copying the delicate vowels and the precise consonants. Something told me that I could have a voice as beautiful as hers if I ever had the chance.
After her lesson was over, we’d walk home together, arms linked and faces close. The most defined memory I have of those walks is a feeling of happiness and the sound of our laughter woven together.
It was during one of those walks that Celie tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and her arm fell from mine. I turned, smirking at her clumsiness, only to see her fall backwards into the street. I’ll never forget the sound the car made when it hit her.
Crunch.
My mother didn’t speak to me for four days after Celie died. She would act out the same routine every day: wake, shower, eat a single charred piece of toast, and then sit in her chair in the corner of the room, next to the silent piano. She would spend the day vacantly looking out the window, eyes seeing nothing. I suspected the only reason she chose to rest her eyes on the glass was so she never had to see my face.
The fourth day I sat on the floor in front of her and begged her to look at me. I rested a hand on each of her cheeks and tried to turn her face to mine. I needed something, anything from her. She didn’t fight me; her hands rested docile and loose on her lap, pretty pink finger nails shining opaque in the afternoon light.
It was her neck that declared her defiance in its refusal to turn, her eyes that stared determinedly over my shoulder and never at me. I felt bitterness rise thick and choking in my chest. After all, what had I expected? She hadn’t ever seen me for who I was even when Celie was alive.
I almost gave up. I almost walked away, out of the house, out of the city, on and on until I reached somewhere that no one looked at me and saw her. But in that moment when my fingers started to loosen against the taught, perfectly made up skin of her cheeks, she looked at me. Something undefinable changed in her face. She looked almost…happy.
“Celie?”
For a long moment I didn’t reply. And then, sickness and longing twisting in my gut, I nodded.
Today is the first day of the clinical trials. Dr. Alto crosses her arms and taps an impatient foot as the men gather up the appropriate equipment. They aren’t in their personal lab today, but the large one that takes up the center of the basement floor.
Other scientists are gathered around outside, glaring at Dr. Alto and her assistants as they pass. The halls are full of the sound of fervent whispering, the quiet noises blending together into a roar of half heard words. Dr. Alto clenches her hands into fists and pushes her way through the crowd while Todd and Ashton wade through behind her.
It is like this every time a group is asked into the big lab. Everyone is after the same resources and prestige. Everyone is fighting for someone they’ve lost. Dr. Alto smiles grimly and walks into the big lab, taking in the perfectly arrayed instruments and the mother and daughter who wait for her. It doesn’t matter how the other scientists feel.
She’s already won.
They put my name on Celie’s casket. I couldn’t help but stare at it as I sat in the first row of pews at the funeral. The wood of the seat was hard against my back and the bottom of my thighs, and the black of my dress looked harsh against the paleness of my skin. My mother sat next to me, hair and makeup flawless and eyes completely tearless. When you first looked at her, she could be mistaken as solemn and grieving, but I could see the gentle turn of her mouth at the corners.
Ice crawled up my spine. She thought I was dead and she was smiling. Or maybe she knew in her heart it wasn’t me and was planning something horrible. The world felt contorted and awful around me, the floor tilting under my planted feet like a ship in a gale.
This wasn’t right. This wasn’t right. Why the hell did I do this?
#
After the funeral mother asked me to come with her to the hospital. I just nod and follow along, feet careful on the ground. I miss Celie. I feel like I’m falling apart. I don’t understand why I’m doing this or what I’m looking for or even who I am anymore. It wasn’t Celie’s name I wanted. I just wanted…
Tears flow down my face and hit the sidewalk. I watch the trail I leave as I walk behind mother, along the crosswalk, up the street and around the corner. She reaches back and grabs my neck, hard. Hard enough that I know those pretty pink fingernails are tingeing red.
“Don’t you grieve for her,” she snarls. “She was nothing, an extra.” Her hand gentles on my neck a bit, and I can feel blood start to trickle under my shirt collar. She lets go entirely and runs her hand forward to cradle my cheek. Her eyes are shining and a bit mad.
“Celie?”
I nod slowly, paralyzed.
“Sing for me.”
#
Dr. Alto sits on the floor with the little girl, eyes shining and face open. They look remarkably alike, the girl and her. The features are nearly exact, the hair the same shade of black. The mother stands behind the girl, face worried and a little disturbed, as her daughter runs a wondering hand over Dr. Alto’s face.
“You look just like me!” The girl laughs and Dr. Alto smiles softly.
“Maybe you look just like me,” she replies. “Or my twin sister.”
The mother of the girl clenches her hand on the clipboard she’s holding so tight her knuckles go white. “Look,” she says, “I think I’ve changed my mind about this whole thing. I—“
Dr. Alto looks up at her with a gaze that silences her immediately. “You knew what you were getting into,” she says evenly. “You signed the papers, took the money.” Her gaze falls back on the little girl and she tickles her until her concerned frown turns into a giggle. “Now take your check and get out.”
#
It takes years for my mother to die and for me to reclaim my identity. The older I get the more I distanced my self from her, and the more I felt our connection solidify. I can’t help but feel like half of me is missing, and even mother is better than nothing.
But even though all this time has passed, I miss the way Celie sang and how we always used to walk while leaning on each other. I miss the way we curled up together at night and laughed so quietly together that even mother’s sharp ears couldn’t hear. I miss feeling like I was never alone.
I stand in the front of the church at mother’s funeral and feel a rare determination. Now that I am truly free, now that she is gone, I have to find a way to get Celie back. I have to fix it all somehow.
I walk out from the pew in the middle of the service while our family and friends stare at me in horror. I know I look uncanny, leaving my mother’s funeral with a beaming smile on my face, but I don’t care. I’m going to bring her back.
I’m going to bring her back and make everything alright again.
#
“No.” The mother says, but Todd has her before she can say anything else. He glances at Ashton and the brown haired assistant uses his lanky legs to run across the floor and open a door so she can be dragged out.
The girl begins to cry and Dr. Alto runs a hand gently over her hair as she pulls her miserable little body into her lap. “Shhh.” She tells her. “I’m here. Neither one of us will ever be without one another now.”
A dark skinned man enters the room and looks down at her where she sits on the floor. Dr. Lee Alto looks up at his solemn face and smiles.
“Director, meet our first perfect clone. I’ve named her Celie.”
She laughs, joyous. “Isn’t she beautiful?”
Note: Undergoing extensive revisions