Doe Eyes
- Jenny Morelli
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
by Jenny Morelli
When the coroners finish extracting from beneath the fallen oak the rotting corpse in weather-worn clothes that was once my twin sister, I watch them, dazed and numb, carry her off through the morning mist.
I can’t move from this bed of despair and dead leaves nestled near where I found her mere hours ago.
I blink back tears. Rub my sleep-deprived eyes.
Stare at the still-smoldering cinders of last night’s Halloween bonfire.
Sniff back the stench of stale smoke and lingering lavender singeing my nostrils.
Shake my head to clear my fog of failures.
Run my fingers along the tattoo on my wrist, a lifeline with the words Life goes on, which ignites a parade of memories, an unwelcomed slideshow of images of the last thirteen months; of everything that led to this moment.
Elise hissing like a rabid cat for my sister to kill herself.
Aria spiraling. Cutting class. Cutting herself.
Meeting the brothers.
Dating the brothers.
Going to prom.
Ari pregnant by graduation.
Rapid summer wedding.
Catching Parker in an affair soon after the birth of their baby Becky.
Aria spiraling. Disappearing for weeks.
Mom crying You were supposed to protect her!
I tried, Mom, but I was helpless and desperate.
And then, last night, I found her in these woods like some sick party prank.
I’m crushed by the gravity of my guilt.
How could I let this happen?
How can anyone protect another from her own misery?
I wish you were here, Sis, so I could talk to you one last time.
I bury my sobs in my shaking hands, then I’m startled by a twig snapping.
I look around. Listen. Wait and hope.
And there she is. A beautiful doe-eyed fawn just past the diminishing curls of smoke.
She shuffles through dead leaves.
Lowers her head to drink from the stream.
And just like that, Ari’s here with me again.
I gulp back a sob as the fawn startles, lifts her head, locks eyes with me.
She chuffs. Stomps her hoof as a breeze picks up, funneling dry leaves around me.
‘That’s my spirit animal,’ Aria’s words whisper in the leaves.
The deer retreats and I almost scream ‘Don’t leave, Sis!’ but I can’t scare her off.
I have too many questions before she’s gone for good.
‘Why, Ari?’ I whimper. ‘Why didn’t you let me help you?’
‘Because, Gray,’ the leaves whisper, whirling around me. ‘Once upon a time, you were defiance, fighting against expectations, and I was desperation, trying to reach them. We balanced each other, and every day, I’d go to dance lessons, learn arabesques and pirouettes and you’d filth yourself in the unkempt yard with squirrels and birds and chipmunks…’
‘Until one day,’ I continue, my voice cracking. ‘Dad drove us to school, hit a small deer on the way, and you jumped from the car to cradle that poor fawn’s head in your lap cooing to her how beautiful her doe eyes are. You refused to move as she grew still and took her last breath, her syrupy doe eyes clouding over, as if you were making a pact with her that she’d be your spirit animal.’
‘Because of that,’ Aria jumps in. ‘You became the light and I became darkness, sliding deeper into the depths of depression with my epiphany that beautiful beings don’t last forever like in the fairy tales I worshipped with the princesses I longed to be and I spent my days wandering the woods for answers I’d never find.’
The leaves fall, settle intently around me.
I fist a handful of those leaves, crunch them into bits and pieces.
‘Because of that,’ I cry. ‘I found you a prince and you were happy again. We went to prom together, then got married and you had the most beautiful baby in all the land and lived happily ever after...’
‘Until,’ the leaves hiss and spiral into a small tornado, ‘my prince cheated on me with that wicked witch Elise and threatened to steal my baby girl.’
‘And you ran away without a word, without a fight…’
‘… and came to these woods to slip into a somber and serene slumber because I failed you, I failed Mom, I failed Becky, I failed myself.’
‘You may have believed you were a failure, Ari, but I’m the one who failed.’
I let the leaf crumbles cascade from my hands like hourglass sand, then dig for twigs and snap, snap, snap.
‘I failed you, Sis.’
I whisper those words into the wind to be carried across our worlds to the doe-eyed deer still spying on me from behind a tree.
‘I was supposed to protect you,’ I sob into her pleading doe eyes. ‘It was my job. It’s who I was.’
And just like that, the wind dies down, dead leaves fall as if not even they know who I am now without her to protect.
‘I was your sunshine, Sis, and your death has eclipsed me.’
The fawn steps out on wavering stilt legs, studying me, curious and cautious.
‘I’m nothing but shadows now, Ari.’
The fawn leaps across the stream and shuffles to the fallen oak where my sister was found wedged and decayed, an empty pill bottle clutched tight in her stiff fingers.
The fawn looks at me with pleading, syrupy doe eyes as the morning sun pierces through the skyscraping trees, chiseling into the forefront of my mind a clarity of what I must do, of what my purpose will be in this life without my twin sister. It’s the only way I’ll find some semblance of serenity; the only way to fix in my sister’s absence what I couldn’t in her presence.
I’ll fight Parker for my sister’s baby and raise my niece the best way I know how, with sunshine and smiles, and I’ll protect her because that is who I am.
The fawn nods like she understands, then prances off into the daylight, my sister’s aura an angelic halo cocooning her.
***
Jenny Morelli is a high school English teacher who lives in New Jersey with her husband and cat. She is often either inspired by her students or else they're triggering memories in her of when she was young and struggling with her self-confidence. She has been published in a number of literary magazines, including Spare Parts for a novel excerpt, Spillwords for several themed poems, and Bottlecap Press for her own chapbook This is Not a Drill.
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