Double-Barrelled Shotgun

I come from a large family, I guess. There's me, I'm Jaimie...Jaimes...strange spelling, I know. I'm the second youngest: Jaimes Philo Weldon-Whitlock. All the stupid names went to my little brother, Dorcas. Unfortunately, my large family is falling apart at the seams. Let me explain.

Adam Drusus Weldon-Whitlock, eldest son of Marian and Emrys. He is the toughest, the meanest, and the grumpiest person I have ever met. He's sour because he's sick. He's sick because infections get caught in his throat. He always has a lung infection or a chest infection or a throat infection. Infections get caught there because there's too much mucus, and there's too much mucus because Adam has cystic fibrosis. He sits in an armchair at home, running the house, coughing and trying to ease the symptoms. Adam is head of the house. Dad long since left, and our step-dad Arnold was murdered...the investigation is ongoing...and mother? Mother has Cancer. She's been on her deathbed for a long time. She wants to die now, and I don't want to see her in this state.

Adam lives in the house with his wife, Esther, who is pregnant. The thing about Adam is the one thing he's always wanted was a family of his own, which doctors said because of the CF he could never have. He had been told the most likely case was that he would be infertile. Conception was still possible, though.

Nicholas Argider Weldon-Whitlock, second born. Nicky, who will effectively murder you if you call him Nick, is quiet but has a good sense of humour. His freckles are faded on his sun-kissed features, his grey eyes sparkle like lake water on a hot summer's day. He carefully styles his hair, wanting it to be absolutely perfect at all times. He is full of himself and obsessed with his looks, because he feels if he is ugly, he won't get anywhere in life. Nicky is sick as well, and only still lives with us because he was begged to return when the rest of the family were in crisis. He lives with his wife, Verity, and he spends a lot of time in hospital, because he is sick.

George Yuuki Weldon-Whitlock, middle son. Georgie is shy. He's scared. Georgie has problems with the world because at a young age he was sexually assaulted, and no, he's never had any help overcoming it. The boy who assaulted him was never prosecuted, and had in actual fact been forced to do it, so he wasn't in such a good state either. Georgie likes to stay on the sidelines, very quiet, very enclosed, and often needs to seek help from his dear brothers. He's been like this for a long time, and stupidly, we let him get worse. He has a girlfriend, Lodema. Lodema is very supportive.

Jaimes Philo Weldon-Whitlock...me. I'm the normal one. I'm cool, confident, I don't have any illness. I like girls, and myself, and girls. I guess I'm a bit of a school slut, but who cares? I have commitment issues, I can't help it, I think it's something I picked up off of Georgie. Plus I'm a virgin, so I'm not really a slut, more a womanizer. I like myself, and I don't mind my life, because although mum is sick, I have the support of my friends and family.

Dorcas Penrose Weldon-Whitlock. My twin. I'm the dominant one, FYI. Dory's younger, smarter, but we adore each other. We're identical, apart from the freckles and the fact Dorcas has to wear glasses. He had a girlfriend, Eveleen, who had a heart problem. Eve was a brave girl, if stupid. One day, she fell pregnant with Dorcas' baby and worried her heart medication would harm the baby. She could have gotten rid of it and kept her life, but instead she kept it for the forfeit of her own life. Dorcas loves his new son nonetheless, which is good because no-one else will. It's covered in drool, and smells, and makes noises. Dorcas used to be fun, and we used to play games and jokes, and be reckless, but now he's boring and weird, because of the baby.

And as time goes on, he gets weirder. He stops eating and he's always crying and he locks himself in his room for hours at a time. He's getting sicker and sicker and now? Now I am scared. When I hear crying, I can't tell who it is. It is either Dorcas, Georgie, Nicky or Bliss. Bliss is Dory's son. In the middle of the night, I hear someone howling in anguish and all I can do is cover my ears.

Nicky is in and out of hospital with many new injuries and attempts on his life. He can't take life any more, he says. He drank bleach once, tried to hang himself, choke himself, cut himself open! Whenever Nicky is home I watch him, scared of what he might do next. I'm watching him sit in Adam's arm chair with scars criss-crossed across his body, as Adam waits upstairs with mother, making sure she's comfortable. All of a sudden, we hear something we never thought we would hear. Adam, crying. He's begging mum to come back, and we all know at once. Mother is dead. The cancer has beaten her. Nicholas gets up and goes into the kitchen and I stay on the floor, feeling cold all over.

The next week strangers are in and out of the house. Whenever they step near Georgie's room, there is a smash and Georgie screams to be left alone. He doesn't want people to come near him, and he's stopped eating as well. There's no food in his room, and I look and think that my brothers must be starving. Adam is looking after Bliss. Nicky is having a fresh breakdown, because his baby girl has died of unknown causes in her crib in the middle of the night. He babbles about wanting to be with Piper, the deceased infant. Babbles about wanting to see her, wanting to hold his baby girl in his arms, and he does not leave his room. It is just me and Adam, and all the strangers here to arrange funerals for mother and Piper. Adam is coughing, each cough loud and wet and disgusting, and they seem to have no end. He's had his physiotherapy, I think...I hope...

He hands Bliss to me and sits on the top step, hardly able to breathe, and in a panic, I drop down beside him. "Adam, please!" I yell, not wanting to lose my last brother, shaking him. "Adam, what's wrong? Adam, breathe! Adam, don't die, please don't die!"
Esther and Verity hear me, and then they are there, and Bliss is crying. Verity is phoning an ambulance while Esther tries to help her husband breathe. I am crying, because my big brother has to be okay.

Georgie does not attend mother's funeral, but Dorcas does. He doesn't talk to anyone, and by the looks of him has starved himself to size zero now. He doesn't touch any food or water, he just sits, crying, dressed for sorrow, not even looking at another soul, just at mother. I try and talk to him, because we have always been so very close, but he gives no indication he even notices I am there. He is my twin brother, my identical twin brother, but at the same time he is someone completely different...and I want my brother back. I would do anything to have my brother back. Anything to have my twin go back to being my twin! I don't care what I have to sacrifice, suddenly I look at him and all I want is to have him back. People stare at his skinny frame. People stare at Nicky as well, as the marks around his neck, fresh and mottled, make it clear he has tried to take his life again. Dad tries to talk to us, but Nicky ushers us away. He has serious issues with father, possibly because once father struck him with a belt. Nicky has had a scar on his forehead ever since, and he worries it makes him look ugly.

When we get home, Georgie is not in his room and an ambulance is outside. He has had a heart attack during one of his panic attacks. His heart cannot cope. Lodema has left, as she could not cope either. I am surprised Verity can cope with Nicky, but she seems to love him. It is nice.

Nicky has gone back into hospital again. I'm at home with Verity and Bliss. Dorcas is upstairs. I'm talking to Ella, one of my girls, on the phone. I have taken to going to my room to cry. My twin and I share a room, but we have always shared a lot of other things, and I don't mind him seeing me cry. He is usually crying himself when I get there, and he does not acknowledge me. Not for a long time. After the third day in which I come home from the school Dorcas is too ill to attend and throw myself onto the bed ready to bawl, he sits beside me to hold me while I cry. He tries to soothe me and I hug him back, thinking just for one moment his old self might be returning. I feel the bones beneath his shirt and I can't hold back a shudder. His breathing is shallow and I am scared, and I hold him tighter like I will never ever let go, and then...then we both fall asleep, hugging. We used to sleep huddled together when we were little, and if one of us had a nightmare, the other would always be there to make things better. It is just like that. When I wake up, Dorcas is gone and Bliss is in my arms instead. He swears at me and pulls my hair, and I feel the tears well up again.

At the end of the week, the week after mother died, Adam goes into cardiac arrest. He had been talking to his unborn 'miracle baby', and then suddenly he was still and all the alarms were going off. Esther returns from the hospital as though nothing has happened, and we all look up, me and Verity and Dorcas, who is swimming in the swimming pool with us because I begged him too. We are eager for the news about our big brother, and when Esther sees our eager faces, she bursts into tears. Verity leaves the pool with Bliss and goes after her without changing, and I give a worried look to Dorcas. My twin is not wearing his glasses, and he is legally blind when he does have them, and he is not 100% sure what is happening, but he gets it before I do.
"Adam's dead." He says flatly, and I realise I am crying.

Verity has to tell Nicky, and Nicky had felt just as close to Adam as I had to Dorcas. Nicky's response is to trash the recreation room in the hospital he is in and cry. He punches glass and ends up in a physical injury hospital. There is no news of Georgie, and I am scared to go visit him. I feel trapped.

My name is Jaimie. I come from a shrinking family. One by one, we bite the dust. I carry the weight of my family's problems on my shoulders, and I have to be strong, because maybe, just maybe, if I can keep it together, I can sew the remains of the family and our sanity back together.