Rose and Eve are small. Head to toe; they grow lopsided.

They grow from two eggs, fertilised by separate sperm.  Rose and Eve are dizygotic twins.

Tiny legs

Tiny arms

Tiny spines.

They are nearly born on the mountain, Rose and Eve. Nine weeks too early—a spontaneous birth.

They are small enough to fit into the palm of their father’s hand. They are small enough to sleep together in a crib. They are small enough to sit on their mother’s lap eating chips. They are small enough to be lost in the grief of their father’s death. They are small enough to pay for children’s entry to the Easter Show on their eighteenth birthday.

Rose and Eve are curious observers. They watch their mother hide her glass of whiskey behind the oats. They watch the rage pour out of her in slow unending tears. They watch the suburbs blur into an endless line of red tiles to Granny Ryan in Erskineville. They watch Jenny Johnson pierce her cousin’s ears with a dirty needle. Finally, they watch the mist roll in and wear black to their year-twelve graduation.

Rose and Eve. Liberated. They are free to have separate bedrooms for the first time. They are free to live where no one knows they are a twin. They are free to stay out dancing until 3 am. They are free to eat sausage roll sandwiches for dinner. They are free to say no.

Rose and Eve are small. They are small as they digest the news their mother is dying. Forty-one years. Not old. Not young. They are small as they sit in the hospital room, waiting to see her and they can almost smell her cigarette smoke still lingering somewhere. They are small as they pack up their mother’s house after her funeral and give away the toys she bought for the grandchildren she’ll never have. Rose and Eve are small as they stand in the middle of the living room they played in as children and breath in the ghosts of their past. Finally, Rose and Eve are small enough to fit into the palm of their father’s hand.

Image by Jo Curtain