My Father’s Twin Jake K.M. Paikai
I am short, pudgy, and eight years old. My uncle has his arms wrapped around me. I mouth his instructions as he knots my purple tie with green diagonal bands. He is big and warm and tall. The name of the knot is Double Windsor. I mouth that too, and think about the time I went there with my father, once, and to other parts of England, France, and Spain. Not many other eight-year-olds know the difference between aragonio and castilliano. I, like those eastern Spaniards, had a sibilant s too, but that wasn’t a concern of my father, or my uncle, at the time. I still like his arms. When he arrived, it was late in the evening. He walked from off the plane like a pirate off a gangplank: his big bag hoisted over one shoulder, grin as wide as his broad shoulders. I was happy—last time I saw Uncle Aaron I was too young to remember. My mother held the left side of her face and then covered her mouth. She could see him, nearing the gate doors. To passersby, she was happily covering a smile or a laugh. Only I knew the truth of her expression, the meaning of the shakiness and of the welling tears. He came toward us; I rubbed my eyes. No beard, the wrong eye larger than the other, and shorter hair. I made a list of his inconsistencies. I still had to stop myself from running toward him and into his arms. I forgot Uncle Aaron’s imminent arrival and hoped that they’d made a mistake, that daddy wasn’t dead. Couldn’t be dead. We arrived home and mom made an obligatory cup of tea, which she said was Irish. She hugged me, then my uncle, and said she was going to bed. I hadn’t said much to him yet. His hand was like my father’s when he tussled my hair too, heavy. His voice was deep, but lilted on the wrong syllables. This was an impression of the real thing, a ghost that flew from across the Atlantic to our car, our living room, our couch. Mother hadn’t bothered putting me to bed. She thought that I wanted to enjoy my uncle’s company. I had been excited earlier that day as I ate the food that mom once again got from my favorite restaurant off base, Kebap. I was eating through my döner (which I liked mostly because of the way it sounded) and told mom all of the things that Uncle Aaron and I would do together. She nodded and looked at her soup. For days she just sat and watched me eat. She wasn’t talking much. Mostly she listened to me talk
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