Page 13 of Mirror Image

“Oh my God. She’s right. You’re not happy . . .” I murmured.

It was more than my eighteen-year-old brain could process. How could they not be as thrilled by all this as I was?

“Samantha, we’re going to step outside onto the patio to have a word with Mary. Would you please excuse us for just a moment?” Mom asked, forcing a polite smile.

By then my own expression had faded into a deep, confused frown. I shook my head.

“No, no. Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of her.”

“No, it’s okay,” Sam assured me, patting my leg.

My parents got to their feet and looked at me expectantly. Finally Mom nodded in the direction of the backyard. “Mary?”

Seething, I got up and followed them until we were outside, French doors shut firmly behind us.

“Well, that was a little rude, don’t you think?” I demanded.

“Rude was springing this on us,” Mom spit back. “Mary Louise Langston, what were you thinking?”

I threw up my hands. “I was thinking, ‘Oh my God! I have a twin sister I didn’t even know existed! My parents are going to be as thrilled as I am!’ That’s what I thought. I guess I was wrong about that.”

“Mary.” Dad stepped closer to put a hand on my shoulder. “Honey, you have to understand we’re as shocked as you are. But we’re just a little . . . I don’t know . . . suspicious?” He looked to my mom, who nodded in agreement with the feeling he chose.

“Suspicious of what? Of Sam?”

“You don’t know she’s your sister. Not for sure. Not without a DNA test,” Mom said by way of justification.

I burst out laughing. “Are you blind? We don’t just resemble each other—we’re identical. No way someone didn’t know they were separating twins . . .” My words petered out as a thought occurred to me. A disturbing thought. “Hey, you wouldn’t—I mean, you didn’t just, you know, pick me, right? You didn’t just leave her there at the orphanage or whatever, did you?”

“No,” my mother replied firmly for both of them. “We only ever saw you, Mary. And it wasn’t an orphanage. You know this story—you came from a small private adoption agency. And believe me, after so many miscarriages, we would have been thrilled to have two babies. If that had been an option.”

I breathed a silent sigh of relief. At least they hadn’t been the ones to separate us.

“Okay, well, better late than never, right?” I coaxed, deciding righteous indignation was getting me nowhere.

They looked at me like I’d just sprouted another head.

“What do you mean?” Dad asked slowly.

“I mean now we know she exists. So we can all be a family, right? It’s never too late to be a family, right? Isn’t that what you used to say when you told me the story? About how Dad and Grandpa Lloyd didn’t speak for years, until I was born? And then you all made amends? You said those exact words, Dad. ‘It’s never too late to be a family.’”

Their eyes met then, something unspoken passing between them.

“We have only one child,” Mom said in a voice that was softer in volume but harder in tone. Quiet, steely.

I felt my mouth hinge open. “What does that mean?”

“I’m saying that Samantha Kinski is not our daughter, Mary. You are. And while we certainly understand your . . . your curiosity, we are not interested in another child. Not at this point.”

My father, who’d been raking a hand through his hair, stopped short. “Not even a child,” he added. “She’s a grown woman. We can hardly adopt her retroactively.”

“You can adopt an adult,” I informed him, having done a quick search on my phone before we left campus. “That’s a thing.” When neither replied, I felt my blood pressure rise. “Don’t you even care that she had a horrific childhood? Because I do! While I was taking piano lessons and going horseback riding on the beach, she was thirty miles away, fending off sexual predators and looking for her next meal!”

My mother scoffed, rolling her eyes as she waved a hand dismissively. “Okay, now you’re just being dramatic. I don’t know what she told you, but our foster care system is hardly something out of Dickens. Next thing you’ll be telling us she had to wear rags and scrub floors on her hands and knees.”

The rage that had been simmering in me came to a boil. My father must have seen it in my reddening face because he jumped in, holding his palms up.

“Right. Let’s just stop for a second,” he said. “Marebear, of course we care about what happened to Samantha! Your mom is just trying to say that she’s a stranger. Maybe, with time, we can get to know her a little better. You could even bring her home for Thanksgiving . . .”