Chapter 11: Caleb Carnegie

Laura had their complete attention. “To begin with, we are obviously twins, as everyone can see. But we are not genetically identical.”

“I’m sorry, Laura, I haven’t been to college. Can you explain?” inquired Steve.

“Well, first, Andrew, you asshole, send your son in law to college. He fucking saved your daughter. If you don’t, it won’t be Steve getting his ass whooped, it will be YOU. If necessary, we’ll get a loan for the tuition.

“And, (b), I mean, second, the biology is easy to understand.

“After sex an egg—fertilized by a sperm cell—begins dividing, duplicating, to become an embryo. This is what always happens. In identical twins, the original dividing cell splits into two clusters, each group developing into a baby beginning with the same genetic material inside.

“For twins like us, there were TWO eggs present and each egg was fertilized by different sperm cells. The sperms were from the same guy, or we would be much more different.

“As it is, have you noticed that we aren’t often confused? Only a few times has somebody called me, ‘Teresa.’

“We are very similar, but there are small differences. We are NOT perfectly the same, not identical.

“My pussy hairs curl to the left, but hers curl to the right.

“Oh, ha, ha, your faces! I’m teasing you!

“The reason I’m explaining this is that after happily living together for a long time, my sister suddenly fell into a severe depression. I felt fine, but she became acutely ill. Even suicidal.

“I didn’t understand, I didn’t know what to do, except eventually hospitalize her. While she was in ‘the big house,’ as she called it, they explained the biology to me. I had been worried the same mental illness would inevitably strike me next.”

Marina, already emotional from the rape story, was aghast. Andrew fidgeted, pale and wet-eyed. His impulse was to jump up and do something, anything, as if to help her.

“Andrew, chill, I’m fine now. Go on, Laura.”

“At first, they stupefied her with heavy sedatives, because she was such a threat to herself. Then they started scaling them back, looking for a balance where she could function. Obviously, I was beside myself with worry.

“I came back from the facility one warm Thursday night, taking two cold beers outside to our back patio. Two was my limit because I needed the insurance from my work. It was the only way we could afford her treatment.

“Next door (that way) lives our neighbor Caleb. He was in his backyard pulling weeds when he heard me crying, so he asked to come join me. Lucky for us, Caleb is actually a licensed therapist. Disbelieving, I said, ‘There is no way. You just want to take advantage because I’m crying.’

“He just smiled and pulled out his wallet. He had an actual State of Indiana License Card to document his credentials. Then he pulled out a photo and said, ‘This is my Ex.’ It showed a handsome young man with a large mustache.

“Oops. I didn’t know what to say, then I made it worse. ‘I’m so sorry for doubting you, Caleb. He’s adorable! I haven’t seen him around, I would have noticed him for sure. Where is he?’

“‘Artie’s dead, from HIV, years ago. I print new copies of this picture every year to keep close and remember him. We were lucky, because he didn’t infect me. (Not the right word, lucky.)’

“‘Don’t be embarrassed, Laura, you couldn’t know. And I’m too gay to make a pass at you. So please tell me, why are you crying?’”

“So I told him all about Teresa’s illness. I cried, and I raged; I went on and on. And, goddamnit, he’s a GREAT listener.

“I wound down eventually, and I just looked him and said, ‘What should I do?’”

“He sort of leaned back and told me, ‘I have a lot of therapy training, this means I know exactly what to do in these situations. I’m asking, then: How does this make you feel?’

“Oh, my God. It was five minutes before I could speak, I was laughing so hard. When I could put words together, finally, I told him, ‘I don’t care if you’re gay, Caleb, I want to have your children.’

“Long story short, I turned him loose on my sister, and well, here we are. This wonderful man has been so important to us, I’ve tried to pay him but he won’t take our money.

“It does make me sad that’s he’s so lonely. At least every now and then I give him a good blow job for helping Teresa. He wasn’t going to accept it at first, but I threatened to cut my hair short and paste on a mustache so that he’d think I was hot.

‘Oh, hell no, he said. ‘Here, but be nice about my wee little guy.’

“You guessed it, probably seven inches. But comfortably thin in my mouth.”

Andrew was wrung out. So many emotions in just a few minutes!

“Laura, for what he’s done I think I want to give Caleb a blow job. There is no place for me in this world without my Teresa and my Laura.”

“Dad!” sputtered Marina. “I understand your feelings, but let US give the blow jobs. I don’t think you’d be very good at it.”

Erica said, “Next door, you say? Gay, you say? Get Caleb the fuck over here, I need to talk to him.”