Split up in ’60s, women discover sisterly bond
By DENISE FLAIM
McCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
MELVILLE, N.Y. - The waitress at Le Gamin, a grungily hip bistro in rapidly gentrifying Prospect Heights, N.Y., lights a single candle stuck in a chestnut-creme-filled crepe.
The two women who on a recent day celebrated the first day of their 39th year lean past the bottles of mineral water and empty cups of cafe au lait, sing ‘‘Happy birthday to us’’ a bit self-consciously, then blow out the solitary taper.
A birthday crepe is not exactly a conventional idea, but when it comes to each other, Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein can never reasonably expect the commonplace. Separated soon after birth by a Manhattan adoption agency that was helping researchers study the influence of nature and nurture, the identical twin girls, born to a patient at a mental hospital, went to New York City area families - Schein’s in Suffolk County, Bernstein’s in Westchester. Though they were dropped from the study because there was a lag between their adoptions, the families were never informed that their babies had an identical sibling.
The two women who on a recent day celebrated the first day of their 39th year lean past the bottles of mineral water and empty cups of cafe au lait, sing ‘‘Happy birthday to us’’ a bit self-consciously, then blow out the solitary taper.
A birthday crepe is not exactly a conventional idea, but when it comes to each other, Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein can never reasonably expect the commonplace. Separated soon after birth by a Manhattan adoption agency that was helping researchers study the influence of nature and nurture, the identical twin girls, born to a patient at a mental hospital, went to New York City area families - Schein’s in Suffolk County, Bernstein’s in Westchester. Though they were dropped from the study because there was a lag between their adoptions, the families were never informed that their babies had an identical sibling.
McCLATCHY-TRIBUNE PHOTO/BRUCE GILBERT
It is impossible to mourn that which you don’t know you have lost. So, unaware of their mirror selves, Schein and Bernstein grew into young women who had their challenges - both struggled with depression, something they now know was a biological legacy - as well as their passions - both love film and were drawn to careers in and around that industry.
For Schein, though, something was missing. Her family left Long Island for Oklahoma after her adoptive mother’s death from spinal cancer when she was 6, but she returned to attend Stony Brook University. In her early adult years after film school in California, whenever she felt adrift, ‘‘I used to say, ‘I feel like I am missing my twin,’ ’’ recalls the writer and filmmaker. ‘‘I thought it was a common metaphor.’’
In 2004, Schein, who was living in Paris (which explains her fondness for any eatery that serves creme franche), wrote to Louise Wise Services, the adoption agency that had placed her and was just about to close. Eventually, the correspondence led her back to New York, where she learned from an agency staffer, with all the casualness that one orders a Happy Meal, that she had an identical twin.
A hard jolt
‘‘There was no question we were twins, but I was not sure we were sisters,’’ says Bernstein, who compares getting the news with a slab of cement falling on her chest. At first glance, her red hair and round glasses mute her obvious similarity to Schein, sitting across from her with dark hair and square frames. ‘‘There was an immediate intimacy that was misleading,’’ she continues. ‘‘But we still had to figure out the boundaries of our relationship.’’
The vehicle for that is their new book, ‘‘Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited’’ (Random House, $25.95). Underscoring their individual voices within their shared identity, the book is first-person squared: The sisters take turns describing how their story unfolded. Along the way are uncomfortable questions, mourning for the shared childhood they were denied, bitterness over having their lives - and reality - uprooted.
Schein says she struggled over fundamental questions of self, and how she might have turned out in a ‘‘hypothetical life’’: ‘‘Would I be who I am if I was Paula Bernstein?’’ she wonders aloud, imagining that she was the twin who headed to the northern suburbs instead of east to Mount Sinai. She thinks back to those moments in her life when friends said, ‘‘You look just like my friend’’ - were those just coincidences, or did she fail to see she had brushed up against her sister’s life, missing the chance for a reunion decades earlier?
As the ‘‘found’’ twin, Bernstein bridled at the intrusion on her neatly ordered life as a wife, mother and freelance writer. ‘‘We both led lives we loved and didn’t want to leave that. I felt very possessive of the life I’ve led.’’
Writing the book, she says with a laugh, ‘‘saved us a fortune in therapy.’’ They began writing it six months after they met and completed it in two years. When they sent the outline to the publisher, the last chapters were simply question marks. Bernstein’s central question was whether she truly wanted her instant sibling to be an integrated part of her life.
‘‘There were definitely moments where I feared hurting Elyse,’’ she admits.
‘‘And I knew from the beginning she was ambivalent,’’ Schein interjects. ‘‘But from the beginning I was confident the book would bring us together.’’
‘‘I didn’t know until the end,’’ Bernstein continues. ‘‘I didn’t know if I wanted to do this.’’
Schein’s belief in process paid off. Together, the two sisters hunted down the researcher whose project caused them so much belated pain; when he finally granted an interview, they found an unapologetic nonagenarian bereft of remorse and tight-lipped about the details of his findings. Piecing together the fragments of the study, which never was published, they developed a strong hunch that the study was also examining the hereditary effects of mental illness such as schizophrenia, with which their mother had been diagnosed.
Finally, they discovered the fate of their birth mother (suffice it to say it was not a happy ending, and their father’s identity is unknown), and remnants of her family, however unenthusiastic the reception. But most important, they found each other, and ways to incorporate a not-so-perfect stranger into their hearts.
Today, Schein and Bernstein live in nearby Brooklyn neighborhoods, meeting every couple of weeks for a tuna melt or a cup of tea. Voracious readers, they swap books and compare notes on favorite films. Sharing the same petite frame and wasp-waist, they have started shopping together, and though they gravitate toward the same kinds of clothes - wrap-around dresses are a favorite - in the end they make subtly different selections.
While it seems from the book’s research that nature has the upper hand in determining who we are - from our mannerisms to our preferences in soda and footwear - nurture can hardly be discounted. Though Schein and Bernstein started out with identical DNA, they have evolved individual strengths and outlooks. ‘‘I’m more the dancer,’’ Schein volunteers. ‘‘And I’m better at math.’’
Since meeting her twin, Bernstein has had a second daughter, and Schein, who is single, delights in watching the two.
‘‘I think of them as a part of me, because I have the same genetics as their mother,’’ she says. ‘‘But I don’t have to pay for summer camp,’’ she ad-libs.
Beneath the jokes remains a daunting task: how to continue to bridge a gulf of time and experience that neither wanted, but both now have to deal with, at an age when they planned to be settling into their final adult identity, not rethinking it.
‘‘There’s no handbook on how to be a twin,’’ Schein muses - much less an identical one miraculously reunited after 3 decades. To that end, ‘‘Identical Strangers’’ is as close as they come.
For Schein, though, something was missing. Her family left Long Island for Oklahoma after her adoptive mother’s death from spinal cancer when she was 6, but she returned to attend Stony Brook University. In her early adult years after film school in California, whenever she felt adrift, ‘‘I used to say, ‘I feel like I am missing my twin,’ ’’ recalls the writer and filmmaker. ‘‘I thought it was a common metaphor.’’
In 2004, Schein, who was living in Paris (which explains her fondness for any eatery that serves creme franche), wrote to Louise Wise Services, the adoption agency that had placed her and was just about to close. Eventually, the correspondence led her back to New York, where she learned from an agency staffer, with all the casualness that one orders a Happy Meal, that she had an identical twin.
A hard jolt
‘‘There was no question we were twins, but I was not sure we were sisters,’’ says Bernstein, who compares getting the news with a slab of cement falling on her chest. At first glance, her red hair and round glasses mute her obvious similarity to Schein, sitting across from her with dark hair and square frames. ‘‘There was an immediate intimacy that was misleading,’’ she continues. ‘‘But we still had to figure out the boundaries of our relationship.’’
The vehicle for that is their new book, ‘‘Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited’’ (Random House, $25.95). Underscoring their individual voices within their shared identity, the book is first-person squared: The sisters take turns describing how their story unfolded. Along the way are uncomfortable questions, mourning for the shared childhood they were denied, bitterness over having their lives - and reality - uprooted.
Schein says she struggled over fundamental questions of self, and how she might have turned out in a ‘‘hypothetical life’’: ‘‘Would I be who I am if I was Paula Bernstein?’’ she wonders aloud, imagining that she was the twin who headed to the northern suburbs instead of east to Mount Sinai. She thinks back to those moments in her life when friends said, ‘‘You look just like my friend’’ - were those just coincidences, or did she fail to see she had brushed up against her sister’s life, missing the chance for a reunion decades earlier?
As the ‘‘found’’ twin, Bernstein bridled at the intrusion on her neatly ordered life as a wife, mother and freelance writer. ‘‘We both led lives we loved and didn’t want to leave that. I felt very possessive of the life I’ve led.’’
Writing the book, she says with a laugh, ‘‘saved us a fortune in therapy.’’ They began writing it six months after they met and completed it in two years. When they sent the outline to the publisher, the last chapters were simply question marks. Bernstein’s central question was whether she truly wanted her instant sibling to be an integrated part of her life.
‘‘There were definitely moments where I feared hurting Elyse,’’ she admits.
‘‘And I knew from the beginning she was ambivalent,’’ Schein interjects. ‘‘But from the beginning I was confident the book would bring us together.’’
‘‘I didn’t know until the end,’’ Bernstein continues. ‘‘I didn’t know if I wanted to do this.’’
Schein’s belief in process paid off. Together, the two sisters hunted down the researcher whose project caused them so much belated pain; when he finally granted an interview, they found an unapologetic nonagenarian bereft of remorse and tight-lipped about the details of his findings. Piecing together the fragments of the study, which never was published, they developed a strong hunch that the study was also examining the hereditary effects of mental illness such as schizophrenia, with which their mother had been diagnosed.
Finally, they discovered the fate of their birth mother (suffice it to say it was not a happy ending, and their father’s identity is unknown), and remnants of her family, however unenthusiastic the reception. But most important, they found each other, and ways to incorporate a not-so-perfect stranger into their hearts.
Today, Schein and Bernstein live in nearby Brooklyn neighborhoods, meeting every couple of weeks for a tuna melt or a cup of tea. Voracious readers, they swap books and compare notes on favorite films. Sharing the same petite frame and wasp-waist, they have started shopping together, and though they gravitate toward the same kinds of clothes - wrap-around dresses are a favorite - in the end they make subtly different selections.
While it seems from the book’s research that nature has the upper hand in determining who we are - from our mannerisms to our preferences in soda and footwear - nurture can hardly be discounted. Though Schein and Bernstein started out with identical DNA, they have evolved individual strengths and outlooks. ‘‘I’m more the dancer,’’ Schein volunteers. ‘‘And I’m better at math.’’
Since meeting her twin, Bernstein has had a second daughter, and Schein, who is single, delights in watching the two.
‘‘I think of them as a part of me, because I have the same genetics as their mother,’’ she says. ‘‘But I don’t have to pay for summer camp,’’ she ad-libs.
Beneath the jokes remains a daunting task: how to continue to bridge a gulf of time and experience that neither wanted, but both now have to deal with, at an age when they planned to be settling into their final adult identity, not rethinking it.
‘‘There’s no handbook on how to be a twin,’’ Schein muses - much less an identical one miraculously reunited after 3 decades. To that end, ‘‘Identical Strangers’’ is as close as they come.
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