“Donna” (instrumental)
Listen to “Trying to Understand”
“Donna, how—you—my sister—why—why?!” was all I could say as the tears streamed down my face. Tom and Donna had planned so much. She had built her entire life and future around him. Now that was all over. Her whole world had collapsed. I couldn’t believe it. In silence, we walked out to the bus.
At last I could speak again. “Wh-what are you going to do?” I whispered painfully.
She shrugged. “Have an illegitimate baby, what else? It doesn’t really matter anymore.” She turned toward me with a tired smile. “Kathy, take up where I left off—and don’t make my mistakes. We’ve been so close for so many years. But I’m leaving you now. It’s got to be this way. Do you understand that, Kathy?”
I swallowed hard. “Donna—my sister—why?!” I sobbed. In that single moment, I seemed to remember all we had shared through the past 18 years—even Tom. I nodded reluctantly.
She kissed my cheek just before she bounded up the stairs into the bus. Then turning sharply, she spoke the last words I ever heard her say. “By the way, if you ever see Diana and Steve again, give them my best regards!”
The sting in the sarcasm was too much. I fled to the car and lay there sobbing violently for a long while.
That fateful day when Donna left was nearly a year ago. So much has happened since then. Sure, they asked about Donna back at school. “She’s back east this year,” I told them. They didn’t ask many questions—it’s a big college, lots of people. I told her friends—our friends—enough to satisfy them. I guess no one else really knew how things had been between her and Tom—no one except Diana and Steve—and they hadn’t been around for a long time.
I tried my best to forget the hurt. I had a wonderful roommate, Linda—lively, full of fun, soon to be married. I knew Donna would have liked her, too. Yet, far into the year, memories of Donna and all she could have become haunted me day and night.
Yes, Tom was there on campus. Not once did he even ask about Donna, even though he made it a point to speak to me every time he saw me. He must have known how much it hurt me just to see him and be reminded of what he had done to Donna.
Early in the spring, just about when I thought the baby was almost due, I sent a small parcel of baby things. Within a week, I received a thank you note—the only time Donna has ever written—along with a picture of little Todd. It pained me deeply to see how much the infant resembled Tom’s baby pictures. Yet, the child looked much like Donna, too—and like her twin sister. I marveled in sadness at how close we had been—and how easily it could have been me in Donna’s place! And I breathed a silent prayer for us both.
I tried so hard to not hate Tom. He sent her money once. But he never saw his own baby—never even wanted to. At home, I found all the things—letters, dried-up flowers, empty candy box and perfume bottles—that Tom had ever given Donna. I wanted to burn everything. But I was Donna’s faithful twin sister. Someday—somehow—wouldn’t Donna come back? So I buried it all deep in the back of our closet.
I did determine to not make the same mistakes Donna had. I determined to take up where she had left off. She was going to have a brilliant career—traveling, meeting people, eventually marrying and having a home. Yet, Donna had fallen in love. How can I ever love a man the way Donna did?
Today I went to a wedding—Diana and Steve’s. When she saw me, she mentioned in passing that she was so sorry to hear about little Todd, and wouldn’t Donna and Tom get married, anyway? But she and Steve were so lost in their own inexpressible happiness. As I watched them leave the church arm in arm, I imagined for a fleeting moment that it could have been Donna and Tom.
Things are so perfect for Diana and Steve. They have spent five years being in love. This, their wedding day, is the fulfillment of all their hopes. They have built their future around each other. They have shared their dreams from the beginning and now will always share them—forever and ever, amen. They had had a lot in common with Donna and Tom. They loved in the same way. They did the same sort of things. And somehow love had made it right for them.
The silent bitterness crept up when I thought again of my own sister—so alone now, so forgotten by Tom, the father of her baby. Suddenly she seemed so far away, so divorce from my life. I don’t know how long I must have stood there in the reception hall, watching the guests, gazing through all the joy and excitement, yet not really seeing anything at all.
Then I found my arms around Diana. She was such a beautiful bride and so radiantly happy. I even squeezed Steve’s hand. “Best regards!” I whispered—and I meant it sincerely.
“Kathy.” Diana spoke my name the way she used to speak Donna’s—she really had thought so much of her. “Do come and see us sometime,” she invited. “And bring George.”
George! Yes, George. I met him at school last year. We have had a beautiful friendship. It was the music we mutually love that drew us together. It seems no one can really understand my deepest feelings like George can. But Donna felt that way about Tom, too. And Diana feels this way about Steve.
As far as I can tell, George is an ordinary guy. He could be the pastor’s son, or a mechanic’s boy, or even a well-disciplined orphan—any one of a number of the kind of guys who attend our school. How can I believe he’s different?
From the very first, I have doubted. George is a wonderful person—but so were Tom and Steve. And, like Tom and Steve, he is a man with all the capacity for living and loving—and hurting. What if I, a woman like Donna and Diana, respond to life itself? What if I, too—against all my pure and prudish intentions—fall in love with George?
How can I, Donna’s twin sister and Diana’s friend, know what love makes right?
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