{"id":13226,"date":"2016-12-15T00:01:23","date_gmt":"2016-12-15T06:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/?p=13226"},"modified":"2016-12-09T10:46:58","modified_gmt":"2016-12-09T16:46:58","slug":"the-facts-as-i-understand-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/13226","title":{"rendered":"The Facts, As I Understand Them"},"content":{"rendered":"

1.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am an identical twin. Or was.<\/span><\/p>\n

_____<\/span>What\u2019s the right tense for having the same genetic material as a ghost?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

2.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the beginning, there was one egg. Then there were two of us.<\/span>
\n My whole life I have felt like half of something.<\/span><\/p>\n

_____<\/span>But is that right, exactly?<\/em><\/span>
\n 3.<\/span><\/p>\n

We arrived at twenty-seven weeks. Together, weighed less than four pounds.<\/span>
\n I was slightly larger. It was her amniotic sac that broke open, but mine followed suit.<\/span>
\n They tried to stop us being born for weeks after the rupture.<\/span><\/p>\n

_____<\/span>Why were we so bent on coming?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

4.<\/span><\/p>\n

They cut us out and rushed us to the NICU while our mother was still under.<\/span>
\n We were blue. We were not breathing, but we had our fists up.<\/span>
\n You could see our not-yet-lungs at rest inside our matchbox chests.<\/span>
\n You could watch them fail to balloon.<\/span><\/p>\n

_____<\/span>How long, exactly, were we without air? How long did it take?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

5.\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

She died after thirty-six hours. I lived. That should have been the last of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

_____<\/span>Why wasn\u2019t that the last of it?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

6.<\/span><\/p>\n

My body bears the marks of our arrival in the world. I am spastic, off-balance,<\/span>
\n hardly able to walk. Often, I wake up sure my body isn\u2019t mine. Often, I love being alive.<\/span>
\n I have nightmares that I\u2019ve left her for the wolves. I have nightmares that she\u2019s left me<\/span>
\n for the wolves.<\/span><\/p>\n

_____<\/span>Who am I without her, when I\u2019ve only ever been without her?\u00a0<\/em><\/span>
\n ____<\/span>Which one of us, exactly, did the leaving?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Molly McCully Brown<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1. I am an identical twin. Or was. _____What\u2019s the right tense for having the same genetic material as a ghost? 2. In the beginning, there was one egg. Then there were two of us. My whole life I have felt like half of something. _____But is that right, exactly? 3. We arrived at twenty-seven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":647,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[50],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-3rk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13226"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/647"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13226"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13304,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13226\/revisions\/13304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}