I Know This Much Is True

“‘You know what I wish sometimes?’ [Joy] said. ‘I wish that you’d take care of me the way you take care of him. Because that would be a real nice surprise sometime, Dominick: being taken of a little by my own boyfriend. But that’s never going to happen, is it? Because I’m not crazy.’”

One of Dominick’s flaws is the way in which he prioritizes Thomas’s needs and safety above everything else in his life—including himself and other people. Joy complains, here, that her relationship with Dominick suffers because he does not give the energy to it that he gives to his brother’s care.

“Thomas emerges to the sound of hoots and applause. He’s so pale, his skin looks blue. At first, he smiles. Then his face crumples up. He begins to cry.

I feel bad for him. And mad. And humiliated. Kids are looking at me, too, not just at Thomas. The Birdsey brothers: identical twin retards.”

Dominick recounts the incident when Thomas accidentally locked himself in the bus bathroom on a school trip. Thomas was humiliated by the jeering of his peers but also frightened by the experience. Dominick experienced conflicting feelings: As Thomas’s brother and protector, he desired to defend Thomas and keep him safe from the jeers of other kids. At the same time, he wished for the approval of his peers and did not want to be associated with his maligned brother.

“Growing up, I had wished my stepfather dead so often, it was practically a hobby. I’d kill him over and over in my mind—driven him off cliffs, electrocuted him in the bathtub, shot him dead in hunting accidents. He’d said and done things that still weren’t scabbed over. Had made this place a house of fear. Still, seeing him like this—white-haired and vulnerable, a snoring corpse—I was filled with an unexpected sympathy for the guy.



Which I didn’t want to feel. Which I shook off.”

Dominick’s hatred for his stepfather, Ray, stems from the physical abuse that Ray meted out to him when Dominick was a child. In this moment, he recognizes that Ray is vulnerable and no longer a threat. Even so, Dominick wishes to hold on to the hatred that has become part of his identity. To forgive Ray is to accept his own vulnerability.

“‘Be patient with him, Dominick,’ Dessa used to advise me on the drive home from those visits. ‘If he needs to babble, then just let him babble. Who’s he hurting?’ My answer to that question—Me! He’s hurting me!—went unspoken. If you’re the sane identical twin of a schizophrenic sibling—if natural selection has somehow allowed you to beat the odds, scoot under the fence—then the fence is the last thing you want to lean against.”

Dominick visits Thomas because he feels obligated to uphold The Duty of Care: To abandon his brother would make him feel guilty. However, Dominick does not enjoy these visits, largely because witnessing Thomas’s illness is a reminder that he himself has been spared the same fate. To witness Thomas’s struggle makes Dominick feel both uncomfortable and guilt ridden.

“Because he is struggling to cure himself, Dominick. To rid himself of what might be his greatest fear: chaos. If he can somehow order the world, save the world, then he can save himself. That was his motivation when he removed his hand in the library, was it not? To sacrifice himself? To stop the destruction that war inevitably brings? Your brother is a very sick man, Dominick, but also a very good one and, I would venture to say, in some ways, even a noble one.”

Dr. Patel provides Dominick with insight into Thomas that is more sympathetic than the view Dominick tends to take. Thomas’s schizophrenia means that he cannot trust his perceptions, and as a result, the world looks even more chaotic to him than it really is. Here, Patel tries to help Dominick shift his view of his brother. At his core, she argues, Thomas is altruistic, seeking to protect other people from the world’s chaos.

“‘What solitary child hasn’t wished for a twin, Mr. Birdsey?’ she said. ‘Hasn’t imagined that a double exists somewhere in the world? It’s a hungering for human connection—another way of sheltering oneself against the storm. So who is to say that ‘twinness’ might not provide a key to your brother’s recovery?’”

Patel points to the way that Dominick and Thomas are in a unique position, being genetic copies of one another except for the illness that targeted one of them but not the other. Her speaking of twinness echoes (without her being aware of it) Dominick’s fear that, as Thomas’s twin, he will eventually develop schizophrenia, too. Their twinned condition is a constant double-edged sword for Dominick throughout his life.

“‘You want to know what it’s like for me? Do you? It’s like…it’s like…my brother has been an anchor on me my whole life. Pulling me down. Even before he got sick. Even before he goes and loses it in front of…An anchor!…And you know what I get? I get just enough rope to break the surface. To breathe. But I am never, ever going to…You know what I used to think? I used to think that eventually—you know, sooner or later—I was going to get away from him. Cut the cord, you know? […] And the thing is, I think I finally get it, you know? I finally get it.’

‘Get what, Dominick?’

‘That he’s my curse. My anchor. That I’m just going to tread water for the rest of my whole life. That he is my whole life! […] I’m never going to get away from him! Never!’”

Here, Dominick expresses his frustration at being Thomas’s lifelong caretaker. The metaphor he uses comparing Thomas to an anchor conveys the burden that Dominick experiences. His reference to “cutting the cord” echoes the metaphors surrounding the umbilical cord that separates the newly born infant from its mother—as twins, however, Dominick is permanently linked to Thomas and feels like he will never be free of this bond.

“During the first couple of weeks on the job, it was Drinkwater who’d ridden shotgun in the cab with Dell, but now Thomas sat up front. That saddens me now, but it didn’t back then. I was glad for the reprieve—grateful to be a free agent for a change. I remember Thomas, sitting up front, craning his neck back at Leo and Ralph and me—the three of us laughing and hooting at girls on the street or sipping another joint on the way back to the city barn.

‘That brother of yours is fucked up,’ Leo said one time when he caught Thomas looking back at us.”

As a teenager, Dominick longs to be free of his brother because it makes it easier for him to be accepted by his peers. Dominick is desperate for others to know that, though they are twins, he does not share his brother’s oddness. Throughout his life, Dominick will constantly battle conflicting emotions, desiring to distance himself from his brother and feeling fiercely loyal in his defense of Thomas.

“[Ralph] just sat there, his legs dangling over the sides. He was staring down into the falling water, smirking that smirk. What struck me most was the loneliness of his position: the black Indian, the nonseasonal worker. The untwinned twin. There was something about Ralph that filled me up with sadness. Some pain that was readable just in the way he sat up there on that tree limb. But not completely readable. Something unreadable too.”

Ralph Drinkwater, as Dominick points out, does not fit in with the social world of Three Rivers, Connecticut, in many ways—his biracial identity leads others to view him as an outsider no matter which community he finds himself in. Dominick further considers Ralph to be missing a piece of himself through the death of his twin sister. Because Dominick is also a twin, he identifies with Ralph to a degree. Ralph has lost a twin, which is something that Dominick ironically longs for at various times in his life. Here, Dominick senses the way this loss has left Ralph feeling incomplete.

“‘Okay,’ [Thomas] said. ‘Fine. Excuse me for worrying about my own brother.’

I rolled over and hung my head back down again. ‘Look, no one but me has to worry about me,’ I told him. ‘You got that? I’ve been taking care of myself my whole life. You’re the one everyone around here has to worry about. Not me. Remember? You’re the one who’s messed up.’”

Thomas expresses concern about Dominick’s use of marijuana just before Thomas’s illness completely takes hold. This is, therefore, one of the last conversations that Dominick will ever have with what he considers the “real” version of Thomas. Thomas’s desire to protect his brother is ironic, as this is what Dominick will be forced to do when Thomas’s illness sets in. Even at this point, Dominick is so accustomed to seeing himself as Thomas’s protector that he chafes at Thomas trying to protect him.

“His illness did what I’d been trying all my life to do: separate the two of us. Untwin us. But I’ll be honest with you. There have been times when I’ve ached to have him back again. When I’ve needed him bad. […]

You know what the funny thing is, though? I look back…I look back at that summer the four of us were cutting lawns and playing graveball. Playing tag. And I think…I think how it could have tagged any one of us…Ralph, Leo. Me especially. Why did it tag him and not me? His identical twin. His other half. That’s what I’ve never been able to figure out. Why Thomas was ‘it,’ not me.”

In this conversation with Patel, Dominick feels severely conflicted about his relationship with Thomas: As a child and teen, he was desperate not to be associated with him because Thomas was clearly regarded as odd and strange. Yet Dominick loves his brother and, as an adult, longs to have that odd and strange version of Thomas back, as, in Dominick’s eyes, that was the “real” Thomas. Further, he wrestles with constant guilt that it is Thomas, not he, who became schizophrenic. Here, he speaks of the illness metaphorically as a conscious agent that chooses “victims” intentionally, like a child playing tag.

“You know what I did? I shucked off all my clothes, waded into the water, and swam. Swam until my limbs were numb, leaden. Until they couldn’t kick or push aside any more water I guess…I guess I was trying to wash myself clean of everything: the stink of sweat and marijuana, the stink of what we’d done to Ralph—of what I’d done to Dessa out in that parking lot. What kind of a person was I? If my brother was cracking, maybe I’d helped cause it. Ray wasn’t the only bully at our house…Survival of the fittest, I thought: whack whoever’s vulnerable, show ’em who’s in charge.

It didn’t work, that swim. You can’t swim away your sins. I learned that much. I came out of the pond feeling just as dirty as when I’d gone in. I remember standing there on the shore, naked still, panting like a bastard. Just looking at my reflection in the water.

Not looking away. Not lying to myself for once in my life.

Facing what I really was.”

Dominick’s guilt over his poor treatment of both Dessa and Thomas catches up to him. Though he is not aware in this moment, his words echo those of his grandfather, whose memoir describes confessing similar sins and feelings of guilt to a priest. The parallels between Dominick and his namesake are numerous, and both are slow to admit their own flaws. Here, Dominick attempts to “swim away [his] sins,” a gesture that echoes the religious ritual of baptism.

“By the time the lottery was over that night, both the guys who were celebrating and the ones who were drowning their sorrows had used the occasion to get shit-faced drunk. Leo was home free at number 266. Born at 12:03 a.m. on January 1, I was in even better shape: number 305. But my brother, born six minutes before me, at 11: 57 p.m. on December 31, had drawn number 100. He and his academic probation were bobbing around in the pool most likely to be called to active duty—safe only as long as his 2-S student deferment remained intact. I fell drunk into bed that night, feeling both relieved and guilty, both saved and doomed.

Things always went my way, Thomas told me the next day in Leo’s and my dorm room. They had gone my way since the day we were born.”

The distinctions between the twin brothers increase when Dominick is assigned a high draft number, meaning that he will likely avoid combat. This lottery parallels the random way in which Thomas is “chosen” by his illness, while Dominick is spared. As Dominick says later, the disease operates (like the draft lottery, to a degree) at random—Dominick is no less likely to contract the disease than Thomas is, and the same holds true for those citizens unwillingly sent to war.

“Dr. DiMarco had drugged him and planted tiny radio receivers in his fillings, Thomas said. It was part of an elaborate plan by the Soviets to brainwash him. They sent messages to him twenty-four hours a day. They were trying to enlist his help in blowing up the submarine base in Groton. Thomas was key to their success, he said—the ‘linchpin’ of their entire plan—but so far he’d been able to resist. ‘The body of Christ,’ he said, placing a shred of his hamburger bun on his tongue. ‘Amen.’”

This conversation between Dominick and Thomas in the summer of 1969 solidifies Dominick’s suspicion that something is amiss with Thomas. Dominick has been suspicious that there is something troubling Thomas’s mental health, but until now, he has been able to dismiss his fears as unwarranted, convince himself that Thomas is merely odd. Thomas’s paranoia is clear in this quote, and he continues to suffer similar delusions for the rest of his life.

“For the rest of her life, Concettina wore on her right hand the reminder of her foolish attempt to rescue that worthless toy—a pink, shiny scar like a glove. As a child, I would stare at the scarred hand as I heard, over and over, the story of how little Concettina had saved her life but lost her popi di pezza. That damaged hand, with its more normal twin, held and fed and slapped me as a I grew.”

Domenico’s reference to his mother’s damaged hand is significant in retrospect, as Thomas severs his own hand while Dominick reads his grandfather’s story. There are meaningful parallels and echoes between the generations, many of them pertaining to the trauma caused by Domenico and inherited by his grandsons. Further, the use of the word “twin” to describe the hand further cements the comparison between Concettina and the Birdsey twins.

“‘So, you are not so much interested in exploring your feelings about Joy’s betrayal. Or the failure of your relationship. You are merely giving me a tour of the museum.’

‘The museum?…I don’t follow you.’

‘Your museum of pain. Your sanctuary of justifiable indignation. […] We all superintend such a place, I suppose,’ [Dr. Patel] said, ‘although some of us are more painstaking curators than others. That is the category in which I would certainly put you, Dominick. You are a meticulous steward of the pain and injustices people have visited upon you.’”

One of Dominick’s key flaws is the way he sometimes pities himself and blames others for the hardships he has endured. Here, Patel points out that he is approaching therapy in the wrong spirit: He is not trying to heal from his past but wallowing in its damage and collecting sympathy from others. As their conversations continue, Dominick’s approach to his past and his trauma gradually shifts.

“‘My grandfather’s story,’ I said. ‘Should I just stop reading it?…If all it’s doing is getting me worked up?’

The question put a frown on her face. She was a bit puzzled by that impulse, she said; she thought my past was precisely what I was searching for. She reminded me that I had been frustrated by my mother’s unwillingness to divulge our family history and now, here I was, in possession of a unique opportunity: the gift of my grandfather’s posthumous voice.”

Dominick frequently wrestles with whether to read his grandfather’s story, as it is painful to discover that Domenico is not the honorable man Dominick’s mother professed him to be. Patel’s opinion, however, is that Dominick’s legacy is something that should be honored, despite its problematic aspects. She suggests, too, that some unseen benefits may indeed come from the reading of the manuscript. In her dealings with Dominick, she frequently aims to help him realize that confronting the past—no matter how painful—is necessary for growth and healing.

“He’s here, I remember thinking. He’s with me, Ma. I got him out of there.

And now what?

Turning to me, Thomas said something I couldn’t hear over the roar of the water. I cupped my hand against my ear and leaned closer. ‘What?’

‘I said, this is a holy place.’”

Upon his release from Hatch, Thomas wishes to visit the river near the cemetery—a place that has been meaningful to him throughout his life. Dominick acknowledges his own conflicted feelings, which is important because even though he has consistently had mixed feelings where Thomas is concerned, he is finally able to address them. Dominick, through therapy, is learning to experience these feelings rather than bury them. Likewise, that he squelches his usual, sarcastic reaction indicates the change that Dominick has undergone. Thomas’s assertion that the river is holy lends support for the theory that he dies by suicide, completing the self-sacrifice that he began by severing his hand.

“‘I know I rode him too hard when he was a kid,’ Ray said. ‘I know I did.’ His eyes were panicky, pleading. ‘But she namby-pambied him all the time; I was just trying to toughen him for the world.’ He threw open the door and got out again. Circled around and around the car. ‘Jesus,’ he kept mumbling. ‘Jesus.’”

When Thomas dies, Ray admits that he treated him harshly when Thomas was a child. He defends his actions, however, by insisting that they were in Thomas’s best interest. Though this indicates that Ray is still not fully aware of the trauma he has caused Thomas (and Dominick) by his abuse, he is gradually becoming aware of and admitting to his wrongs.

“What were you supposed to do with pictures like that, anyway? Throw ’em out? Stuff ’em in a drawer someplace? Little Miss Monkey Face there had nothing at all to do with me, despite the fact that her mother had tried to trick me into thinking I was her father.”

Dominick describing Joy’s baby as having a “monkey face” echoes the cruel nickname that Domenico assigned to Prosperine. It is subtle evidence that Dominick cannot escape his heritage nor his history. His tone, too, matches that of his grandfather, who haughtily chastised those who attempted to trick or get the better of him. Ultimately, Dominick’s sentiments toward the baby will become ironic, as he will later adopt her.

“[Losing a twin] is like losing part of who you are. I don’t know. In a lot of ways, we were pretty different. Which was fine with me. Just the way I wanted it. But all my life, I’ve been…I’ve been half of something, you know? Something special—something kind of unique—even with all the complications. Wow, look. Twins…And now, that specialness—that wholeness—it just doesn’t exist anymore. So it’s weird. Takes some getting used to…Not that it was ever easy: being his brother. Even before he got sick. Dr. Patel says I’m grieving for him—for Thomas—and for that, too. That wholeness. […] She says I’ve got to get used to my new status. Survivor. Solitary twin.”

The loss of his twin brother has an enormous impact on Dominick’s identity. While he has often wished to escape The Duty of Care that comes with his relationship to Thomas, the permanent loss of him is unfathomable. Not only will Dominick’s daily life change dramatically without the responsibility of caring for Thomas, but he must also forge a new identity. This harkens back to his childhood fascination with the death of Penny Ann Drinkwater and its impact on her surviving twin, Ralph.

“Like any living thing. You starve something long enough, it dies. Dr. Azzi was more right than he realized…

Thomas’s drowning out at the Falls had only been the official cause of death; he’d died down at Hatch, cut off from hope, from family.”

Though the surgeon speaks these words in reference to the damage caused to Ray’s leg via diabetes and then gangrene, Dominick applies them metaphorically to his brother. The comparison is a logical one, as both have lost limbs. Dominick is able to understand why Thomas chose death and the circumstances that led him to it.

“She had been brave after all. Brave enough to go on—to raise us as best she could. And earlier: the sober girl in those photographs, standing next to her father in a starched pinafore, her fist to her face to cover her disfigured mouth […] [She] had struggled. Had saved herself.”

Through the secrets revealed in his grandfather’s manuscript, Dominick is able to view his mother in a new light. Though he lived his life frustrated that she was meek and unwilling to defend herself against abuse, he recognizes that her circumstances can be viewed in an entirely different way. By fighting against her own mother’s attempts to drown her, Concettina literally saved her own life. By enduring a difficult life under the control of her father, she also displayed strength.