Photo: Juliet
It just so happens that my mother is a twin (with a fraternal twin brother). And my girlfriend, Juliet, is a twin (with an identical twin sister) who happens to have her hands full with busy toddler twins of her own (fraternal boy and girl). So a tsunami of twin energy struck when my mother, my girlfriend, the twins and I went to the Children’s Museum. Actually, I felt freakish and strange without a twin of my own.
My mother and Juliet’s twins took to each other like long lost brethren. Juliet and I strolled behind them, watching the most mature twin hold the littlest twins’ hands and lead them to the animal-shaped climbing rocks outside the museum. Juliet’s twins played and laughed and spoke in a mix of English and their own secret twin language, which only they understood, but that perhaps both Juliet and my mother once shared with their own twins.
Despite my twinless handicap, I’m lucky enough to have a girlfriend who gets me. She and I have our own secret love language. And right then, we looked at each other and smiled–fully understanding without speaking a word–that we were going to let my mother run ahead with the twins and hang back to milk this quiet moment alone for as long as it lasted.