I know she’s dead before the phone rings.  I’m unloading the dishwasher when I feel something lodged inside my ribcage, nestled just in front of my liver—a lump about the size and shape of an olive. Or maybe a grape tomato. It pulsates inside me when I answer the call from the hospital, a second heartbeat in-synch with my own.

Overdose. She’s been in and out of rehab since we were seventeen. I hadn’t heard from her in weeks. I’d left her another voicemail that morning even though I knew she wouldn’t respond.

The funeral is a small affair. Our parents died years back, and our older brother claims he can’t spare the time off work. I know he thinks she’s been dead for years, dead since she stuck the first needle in her arm. He’s said as much before. Nothing more we could have done.

The lump flutters as I stand over the casket. My sister’s body looks skeletal, draped like a doll in a dress she never would have worn. I wonder who picked it out. We were fraternal twins, not identical, but when we were little no one seemed to be able to tell us apart. It feels a bit like looking at my own corpse. She doesn’t look like she’s sleeping, like they always say on TV. She looks cold and still and dead.

I only realize months have passed when our brother calls to invite me to his wedding. He says he got engaged shortly after she died, but he didn’t want to tell me right away. Didn’t know how I would handle it. I’ve developed a craving for sour candy, the kind that she used to eat so much when we were children that she needed twelve cavities filled. After she went to rehab the first time, she started buying them again—said she needed a bad habit that wasn’t getting high. The lump has gotten bigger, I think. It seems to swell every time a neighbor tilts their head and tells me they’re sorry for my loss. Every time I drive past the hospital where she died alone. It’s large enough to ooze between our ribs and squeeze against our lungs when we inhale. In the shower, we run our hand over something hard, protruding harshly from the skin beneath our breast. We contort ourself in the mirror to get a better look. It’s small and yellow-white. A fingernail—no, a tooth.