A Shrine to an Unknown God

I AM NOT WHOLE

ONE PARTICULARLY HOT JULY DAY, Marisol and I are restless. No matter what we do, we can't get cooled off.

Dahlia is off at a rehearsal that Marisol didn't need to attend, and Ezra is napping on the couch, an episode of that show he likes, House Hunters, playing dimly in the background.

We spend the morning at the beach, but the water is so warm it's practically boiling, and the sand is so hot that even if we sit on three towels it still burns our skin. So we go back up to Dahlia's house, but even with the AC on full blast, the heat still seeps through the windows and underneath the doors, this constant oppressive force. Frustrated, and hot, we go out to the pool, but even that water is boiling.

Finally, we go back inside and Marisol runs a bath of cold water, dumping a tray of ice cubes in. We sit together in the water, both of us still in our bikinis, the warm chlorine and saltwater from earlier rubbing off into the fresh tap water.

"Ahhhhhh." She tilts her head back against the wall. "Just the way mama likey." She speaks in English, and though it takes a second for my mind to connect the dots, I can understand her almost perfectly.

"You're weird."

Not only that, but I can respond to her.

"What?" Her leg rubs against mine, icy cold. "It's not weird. You're weird. What's weird?"

"Calling yourself mama."

"Whatever." She rolls her eyes, sinking deeper into the tub. "So I've been thinking."

"Oh, wow. Congratulations." I tap my knee against hers. "What about?"

"Shut up, you little smart-aleck. I've been thinking that you should meet my parents."

"What?"

I've already met Dahlia's moms, briefly, two sweet, plump white women, largely indistinguishable from one another. The only way I can tell them apart: the one that called Dr. Boivin is a brunette, and the one called Dr. Rot is a blonde. They both wear glasses and ponytails and eat frozen vegan lasagna and swing their heads when they talk. They move as a unit, always by each other's side, one soul in two bodies. I swear they can read each other's minds, or at least that they understand each other beyond the metaphysical level. When they came in, without looking to make sure there was a seat to land on, Dr. Rot sat down, and Dr. Boivin moved the chair behind her. Whenever one of them trails off, the other will pick up right away, as if finishing the first's thoughts.

Back in ancient times, humans had four legs and arms, two sets of genitalia, and a single head with two faces. (The genitalia could be a penis and a vagina, or two vaginas, or two penises. The ancient world was not as heteronormative as you've been taught it was.) Fearing that these beings would be able to overthrow the gods, Zeus split them in two, condemning them to a lifetime of misery and sorrow as they searched for their other halves.

This story has never sat well with me, though I know it to be the truth, as all myths are. I do not like the idea that I am not whole, that on my own I am not enough. But in those brief moments that I saw Dr. Rot and Dr. Boivin together, I think there is something fundamentally beautiful about it. It is not that on your own you aren't whole, or that you need another person to complete you—it is simply the idea that two souls could coexist together so peacefully, and effortlessly, because while they might now be two complete souls on their own, at one point in time, they were one.

When I met them, I kept my head down, and my answers simple. They asked me where I'm from—Greece. How I met Dahlia—the plane. What I'm studying, or thinking of studying—the English language. How I'm liking America—just fine. How long I'm staying—a while. The conversation was so quick, before Dahlia and Ezra ushered me outside saying sorry gotta go talk later, I didn't have the chance to slip up.