Within/Without

chapter fifteen.

Simon - July 2004

The first time I met my cousin Larry was the day my little sister was born.

It was the hottest day in July, probably, which wasn't exactly a good thing when you considered that the air conditioning in the entire maternity ward was malfunctioning. The hospital room was crowded, and that didn't help either. Mom was surrounded by so many people, I could hardly see her—Dad, of course, my aunts Regina and Fiona and Jane, my uncles Todd and Jeffrey and Cameron. There were first cousins and second cousins and my grandparents (all four of them) were there, too—not to mention the nurses that wafted in and out like a faint wind, trying to make space, asking Mom if she needed anything.

Nestled against Mom's breast, where she had been for the past twenty minutes, was the newest addition to the St. John family, Tabitha Ruth. It was an extremely biblical name, as were Noah's and mine, a trend my parents seemed obligated to continue. Nevertheless, little Tabitha yawned and scrunched her pink little face and reached a hand up to the sky, unaware of much else besides the feel of her mother's heartbeat against her side.

The door opened, and I turned, tired of watching from a distance as baby Tabitha was cooed over. Everyone said, "She's so beautiful," or "She's got your eyes, Hank," or "And that adorable button nose, Mary!" I wondered what they'd said about me, when I was born. Did they always know something was wrong?

It was Noah, sidling back in through the door with a can of soda. He was ruddy-faced and a bit sweaty, and his hair was so long that the edges of it looked more white than blond. Mom always said that's how she could tell he needed a haircut.

I eyed the soda. "Did you get me one?"

He clicked it open; there was that satisfying pop and fizz. Taking a drink, he said, "Nope."

"You're mean."

"No I'm not," he said, though he was wrong. Noah was ten and seemed convinced that an age in the double digits suddenly meant you were always right. "There's some guy outside, by the way. Says he's our cousin."

"Our cousin?"

"One of Dad's sister's sons. Larry."

"Larry?" I repeated—mostly mindlessly, as I was still eyeing the soda Noah had decided not to share with me. He really was mean. The meanest. Poor Tabitha, to be brought into this shiny new world and then have to deal with him. "I don't remember a Larry."

"That's because they don't tell you about me, squirt."

A tall, scruffy man entered the hospital room, undetected yet by the rest of the congregation. He had a bit of a belly but was otherwise lean, dressed in a worn sweatshirt and a pair of jeans with dust at the knees. Dirty blond hair tumbled, greasy, to his shoulders, and when he smiled, one canine was twisted awry.

I had never met this man before, but looking at him, somehow I understood just why that was the case.

Larry knelt down at my eye level. His eyes were like my Dad's—a dark, penetrating brown. He studied for a moment, before realization flashed across his face. "You're like me," he said, almost out of breath. "That's why they try to keep you from me. You're the one who's like me."

"Like...you?"

He prodded me in the chest. "That little thing you do when you switch faces? Switch bodies?" Larry said, and flashed his crooked smile. "I do that, too."

A gasp flew from my mouth like a bird from a cage; it was sudden, unexpected. "Really? I thought—"

"What?" Larry interrupted. "That you were alone? No. That's what they want you to think. I've been where you are. You can't control it, not yet. It might even drive you crazy sometimes. But you'll get it. I promise you, you'll get it. So forget all those lousy doctors, sticking pins in you like you're some sort of vegetable; they don't know shit—"