Thompson Sisters 3 - The Last Hour.pdf

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Dedication
To Andrea. For your courage and honesty and friendship.
To Lelyana and the memory of David. You touched my heart.
White (Carrie)
“W
ill you leave me alone?”
Jessica shouted at her twin in the back seat. The beginning of the end
started with those five simple words.
A screech of tires to our left, the truck coming at the driver’s side. Ray shouted a curse, Sarah
screamed, and then the force of the impact was louder than any sound.
In the movies, pivotal moments sometimes happen in slow motion; so you can appreciate every
detail, wonder at the tragedy or awesomeness of the moment. Real life doesn’t happen like that at all:
it happens all at once, your senses laid open bare, every single detail happening at once while your
mind takes it all in as if your skin and clothes had been ripped off.
The radio played that infuriating Carly Rae Jepsen song, which Ray loved. Ray wore blue jeans
and a gray T-shirt sporting the logo of a skull wearing a beret in front of crossed rifles, with the
words “US Army Infantry” emblazoned above it. His left wrist bore the watch I bought him, and he’d
gotten a haircut three days before, short on the sides, what he called a “high and tight.” Now his left
hand mimicked a phone on the side of his face as he belted out, off key, the lyrics to
Call Me Maybe.
The dashboard clock read 11:15.
Behind him, Sarah sat, decked out in a black t-shirt, black pants and black eyeliner to match her
black hair. She was turned away from her more conventional twin Jessica, her jaw set, angry.
It was a cloudless August day, one hundred and two degrees outside, but in our car the air felt
chilled and comfortable. We were driving down Connecticut Avenue, at the intersection with Tilden,
on our way to the National Zoo.
I saw it at the last second: a green Jeep SUV with Virginia plates, the grill chromed, gleaming,
as it ran through the light and sped straight toward us. The Jeep had vanity license plates reading,
“GR8 DAD.”
Terror flooded through me, my gut twisting, my throat tightening up, dread at the back of my
throat wiping out all thought. I didn’t have time to say anything, to scream, to respond, before it
slammed into the side of our car.
Ray’s head slammed against the glass, against the front of the Jeep, which seemed to be coming
right through the driver’s side windows, and glass flew across the car, pelting me. The force jerked
me to the right, hard, and everything went white as we slammed into another car.
White.
Formless images and thoughts, memories, drifted across a blank canvas.
Ray in his deep blue dress uniform, medals gleaming. He smiled our secret across to me, as
Dylan and Alexandra kissed in the university chapel.
The twins, Jessica and Sarah, in matching dresses, playing hide and seek in the upstairs of our
house in San Francisco, giggling little girls, not yet locked in constant battle with each other.
Ray again, his right arm in the air, beads of sweat on his forehead and dark circles under his

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