The Two of Us

By Victor J. Banis

“The happiest day of their lives was probably the day their father died.” I said that to the police when they questioned me, and I don't think I did the Wallace twins any disservice by saying so.

Doctor Wallace was born to money, but by means of a felicitous marriage to a woman of similar means and little spirit who died soon after the twins were born, and by a single minded and often ruthless devotion to the management of his investments, he had multiplied that initially modest wealth many times over.

“A man without a heart,” some described him, but I do not think that is so—I believe his love for his money was a grand passion indeed, and if there was nothing of affection left over for his sons, I suspect he thought the cost well worth it.

Death, however, is the one investor who can't be cheated, and in time he collected his due and those twin boys, now of a majority, inherited both a considerable fortune and, for the first time in their lives, a measure of freedom.

They had grown up, though, in the care of a constantly changing number of housekeepers, with no one close but one another and while they must surely have felt a sense of release to watch that gilded coffin lowered into the ground, they were entirely unprepared at this late stage in life to venture into the larger world where they might have had some pleasure of the money that was now at their disposal.

I say it to their credit, they satisfied themselves with tending the garden rather than increasing the crop, living very modestly, for men of such wealth. Their house was far from a cottage but neither might one have described it as a mansion. They entertained hardly at all and rarely went out, seemingly content with the company they had known growing up: their own.

Of course, some said, “they are peculiar, aren't they?” but there were many who had long felt an abiding sympathy for those poor, neglected waifs, and no one blamed them now for cherishing their privacy and one another to an extent that might have been regarded as unseemly under other circumstances.

I had lived all my life next door to them and I was not only their attorney, but I suppose I was as close a friend as they had ever known, which is to say, not very. They sometimes came over to my house for a drink, always together and never when any other friends were present, and from time to time I was invited to theirs, though these invitations seemed more dutiful than heartfelt.

The truth is, I don't think, not having known it before, that they missed the company of others very much, and I never left them without hearing, in my mind if not my ears, twin sighs of relief that they were once again alone.

There were those who attempted to win their friendship, or more. They were, if not handsome, certainly comely young men. Adam was the older by about thirty minutes, and appropriately somewhat more somber. Robert was the gayer of the two, if only marginally.

He was the more athletic, as well. They played tennis on their own court, and one could see at a glance that Adam was invariably outplayed, and Robert swam every day in their small pool.

He ran, too, always in the early hours before sunrise. Sometimes Adam plodded accommodatingly along beside him, but most mornings when I got out of bed and glanced out my bathroom window, I saw Robert jogging along by himself in the predawn darkness, looking determined if unenthusiastic.

It was the only time that I ever saw either of them alone. Even in their conversation, they referred to themselves together. It was invariably, "The two of us like our whiskey neat," Or, "the two of us would like to have you come over for a cocktail." I found that both charming and sad at the same time.

They were twenty-five now, still content to live apart from the rest of the world. I saw little likelihood of their ever marrying. If either of them, indeed, had ever dated, I was unaware of that fact. I did not give much thought to that aspect of their lives. It seemed to me it was no concern of mine.

It was at this point in time when matters having to do with their investments took Adam, who generally handled their business affairs, to California . Robert was intended to go as well, more for the company than for any practical purposes, but just days before their departure, he came down with one of those bugs that visit us all from time to time. I was surprised that Adam did not postpone his trip, and I said as much when I brought Robert some chicken broth the day after Adam left.

"Oh, we talked about it," he said, a bit off-handedly, it seemed to me, "but it was one of those things that couldn't be put off. Anyway, he's only going to be there a short while."

Which, as it happened, turned out not to be the truth. What was originally to be four or no more than five days became a week, and then two. By this time, Robert was quite recovered from his illness, but I could see that he was afflicted in a different way. He looked understandably lonely, increasingly so as the days passed, and I made it a habit to drop in almost daily, and several times I had him over for a simple dinner, for which he seemed grateful, though he was never what one would call stimulating company.

"You know," I ventured one time—as close as I ever got to interfering in their private affairs, "you could just hop on a plane and go out there."

"Oh, I'm terrified of flying, if you want to know the truth, I can only do it when Adam is there to hold my hand," he said—rather too quickly. But, a bit later, he said, out of the blue, as if he thought it needed more explanation, "You know, he said it was better if I didn't come. He said he hadn't a minute to spare, day and night, and I would only be bored out of my mind."

It seemed odd to me, considering how close they had always been, but despite having known them most of their lives, I was not an intimate and supposed that there were things between them that I could not be expected to understand.

The two weeks became a month; then six weeks. It was by now clear that Robert was beyond loneliness. He was obviously despondent. Though we had seen little enough of one another over the years that we had been acquainted, I now had become his chief, perhaps only companion. He got into the habit of dropping by my house every day, sometimes more than once a day. I did not mind particularly. I could not help feeling a tender sympathy for his suffering.

And, suffering it was. Even in that short time, I could see that he had lost weight and he was listless. When he came over, he said little, content to mope about, or wander the room as if he were lost, picking up one of my china birds and putting it back down without any sense that he had even seen it, more to have something in his hands. I found that I could easily enough work on some papers at my desk, and need only reply to his occasional remarks with a monosyllable or a grunt. Once, I ask if he was sleeping properly.

"Sleeping?" He looked astonished by the question. "I'm all alone," he said, as if that explained everything. And perhaps it did.

It was nearly two months after he had gone that Robert practically burst into my kitchen one day, his face glowing with excitement, to announce, “He says he'll be home for Christmas.”

I had hardly noticed that Christmas was coming. As a bachelor, I celebrated it not at all, and in the past I had seen no signs that they did either, but this year was different.

“I want to decorate,” Robert said. “Help me, please, won't you? I want everything festive when he comes. I want it to be a Christmas to remember.”

So we spent the next week or so in a frenzy of buying and decorating. He was not satisfied with just the tree that he overloaded with expensive ornaments. The winter-shorn maple in the front yard and the shrubs around the front door must be festooned as well, until the nighttime glow of lights illuminated the entire neighborhood. He could not seem to find enough decorations. Artificial snow covered the lawn, and elves and Santas suddenly appeared atop it, quickly followed by what looked to be an entire herd of reindeer. Another Santa, with a sleigh and yet more reindeer, landed on the roof. I saw Robert rush in and out daily, his arms filled with packages wrapped in crimson paper.

Christmas was still more than a week away and I was wondering a bit anxiously what else might appear next door, when I got a call at my office from Adam. He wanted, he said, to go over a couple of legal details with me, but as we talked, it soon occurred to me that the matters we were discussing were of no great importance and certainly of no urgency.

We talked for some minutes to little purpose. Finally, after a pause, he said, "I'll need to change my will."

"Really?" I was surprised. I had done their original wills. There was nothing particularly remarkable about them: each left everything to the other, with some charitable provisions. I couldn't imagine what he needed changed.

"I've gotten married," he said.

I was struck dumb. For what seemed an eternity, I could only stare at the papers on my desk. I could think of no appropriate response. Finally, I blurted out the one thing that came into my mind. "Have you told Robert?"

"Not yet," he said, obviously embarrassed by the question. "I plan to…well, please, don't say anything to him, not just yet. I'll call him."

We left it at that. I waited throughout the evening, with an incredible sense of foreboding, for a visit from Robert, and I stayed up later than was usual, to no avail. The Christmas decorations were lit, and the lights were on in his house as well—every light in the house, it appeared, the windows ablaze—but I could not bring myself to intrude upon whatever private emotional upheaval he must be going through.

It was morning, in fact, before I saw him. I was having coffee and reading the paper when he suddenly pounded at my kitchen door. The smell of liquor came in before him and I surmised at a glance that he had not been to bed at all. His clothes were rumpled, his hair disheveled, his eyes rusted with tears and lack of sleep.

"He's bringing her here, today," he said, seemingly taking it for granted that I knew of what he spoke. "To our home. Our home"

"Robert," I said, my heart aching for his evident distress, "I have the spare bedroom. Perhaps you should think about staying here, with me, just for a few days."

The look he gave me was beyond distraught. "Why should I do that?" he demanded. "It's my home too. Mine more than hers, certainly. Why should she expect to take everything from me? What right has she got?"

"She's his wife," I said, perhaps not as tactfully as I might have done. I could not but think that, even allowing for the life they had known together, his distress was excessive.

He all but spat at me. "Don't be an ass. What do you know about anything?” and he added, irrelevantly, I thought, “Besides, it's Christmas, if you've forgotten." He dashed out the door before I could stop him. He did not come back, and I was too much a coward to follow him.

As it happened, I met the bride before her new brother-in-law did. I was in my front yard late that afternoon, setting the garbage cans out for morning's collection, when their taxi pulled in next door and they got out, putting what seemed an inordinate number of bags on the sidewalk before the taxi took its leave. I saw Adam pause and stare in some astonishment at the Christmas trimmings everywhere.

They saw me, of course, and since it would hardly have been polite to ignore me—and I suspect, in part to put off the reunion that awaited him—Adam escorted her the short distance to my yard and introduced us.

"I'm so happy to meet you," the new Mrs. Wallace, said, favoring me with a timid smile and limply offering me an expensively gloved hand.

I was intrigued. I don't know what I had expected, exactly—perhaps some voluptuous siren who had lured this (I would have said) confirmed bachelor into matrimony, but in fact, she was retiring to the point of being mousy, pretty, in a pallid way. In retrospect, however, it did not altogether surprise me that she reminded me rather greatly of the twins' departed mother.

"Adam has told me so much about you," she said.

I thanked her and paid her some trivial compliment, I can hardly remember now what it was. My mind was on more serious matters.

As was his. He glanced in the direction of the house. "Is Robert…?" he started to say, but the front door flew open and Robert appeared. It was clear he had not gone to bed since I had seen him earlier, but had continued his drinking. He swayed in the doorway and had to keep a hand on the jamb to hold himself upright.

"Excuse us," Adam said, growing pale, and taking his alarmed bride by the arm, he piloted her quickly past Santa and his reindeer, to the door of her new home.

I don't know everything that happened once they went in. I heard voices, loud ones, but I was able to make out only one word, repeated in a hoarse scream that I barely recognized as Robert's voice: "Bastard. Bastard.” And again, after the slightest pause, “Bastard."

I had planned on going into my office, but I thought after all it might be wiser to stay at home, though what it was I thought I might be called upon to do, I had no idea. It seemed hard to imagine either of the Wallace men coming to me for any assistance.

As it turned out, it was neither of them, but the new bride who rang my doorbell. It was evening by now. I opened the door before I turned on the porch light, and when I did, she blinked frantically and I could see that she had been crying. Her face was as white as the artificial snow next door and her hands fluttered like frightened birds.

"Please," she said, "Help me. I don't know what's going to happen. It's so terrible."

"What's going on?" I asked.

"The most awful scene. And the things they've said…it's horrible. I never dreamed…Oh, please, you must come, I'm afraid of what they might do."

I had no desire to interfere in this domestic storm, but I simply hadn't the heart to turn this distraught young woman away from my door. I went with her, my heart in my throat. Even as we went up the walk, Christmas lights blinking merrily, I could hear their angry voices from inside, and I hesitated on the threshold, wondering if we shouldn't call the police.

We were standing just outside the open door when the shot rang out. In retrospect, I suppose I should have taken her back to my house on the instant and called the police from there, but instead, hardly thinking, I said, "Wait here," and dashed inside. She followed me.

Their front room was a shambles. A headless teddy bear greeted us from just inside the door. The Christmas tree had fallen or been pushed over and lay in a tangle of crushed ornaments and wiring and, bizarrely, multi colored lights that still blinked on and off. Scarlet wrapped packages had been ripped open, their paper and their contents strewn about like so much debris.

Adam lay among it. There could be no question that he was dead. Half of his face was missing. The blood spilled all about him matched the red of the Christmas wrappings.

Robert sat in a grand old Chippendale chair, his head bowed. I'd heard the expression, "smoking gun" before, and had never imagined that it was literal, but I saw now that it was. He still held it in his hand, but limply, as if he had forgotten that it was there. His shoulders shook with the force of his sobs.

I went quickly to him and took the gun from his hand. He offered no resistance, did not even look up. He might have been entirely unaware of my presence. Probably, he was. I don't believe he was aware of anything but the dead man on the floor at his feet.

I put the gun on the mantle, behind the big Adams clock there. It did not seem to me that Robert was any threat to either of us, but I thought that he might be to himself and I did not want the weapon too ready at hand. Then I called the police. In all this time, Robert did not move nor speak a word.

"They'll be here in minutes," I told the hapless bride. She had remained standing where she was, just inside the room, the beheaded teddy bear at her feet. Grief and shock—and something else much darker—had turned her barely pretty face ugly.

"I think it best," I said, stammering slightly, hesitant to say what was on my mind. What I was about to suggest wasn't altogether illegal, but it was on the border of impropriety. "I am his lawyer, at least for the moment. I'll plead insanity, of course. Perhaps you should say as little as possible to the police when they question you. Just that they were quarreling. You came to my house to get me. I don't think the rest of it…"

"I understand," she said, and then, in a bitter voice that had more force than I should have thought her capable of, she added, "I could never tell anyone anyway…it was so disgusting, the things they said…I can hardly believe it myself."

She looked from brother to brother and then at me, as if she were accusing me of some complicity in events. Already, faintly in the distance, we could hear a siren, growing steadily louder.

"I'll wait outside," she said in a cool voice, and turned and walked from the room. She was standing on the lawn, so still she might have been one of the Christmas decorations, when the police arrived.

In the end, I was able to have Robert confined to a very expensive, very private hospital. He still has not spoken a word. Catatonic, the doctors say.

Even without the changing of the will, Adam's widow inherited half the estate. She left instructions with me to dispose of everything. She had married Adam as a woman of some modest means in her own right, but she went back to California a very rich one. So far as I know, she has never remarried.

I think she was proof of the old adage: money does not buy happiness.