GENUINE IMITATION
GENUINE IMITATION
A re you okay?” she asks.
I can’t answer. My brain feels like it is made of wool and I think the situation has overwhelmed me. I feel like I might cry, which is something I haven’t done since the night she disappeared. How can she not know who I am? Concern clouds her face and distorts her features. I stare at her, this woman wearing a red coat who looks and sounds just like my missing wife. But then her face blurs and twists into something different, someone I do not know or recognize. She’s staring at me, waiting for an answer, but I can’t speak. It feels like waking up from a nightmare only to discover it wasn’t a dream.
A year is a long time but it is her. There is no other explanation. Unless she had a secret twin? I study her again and survey the changes in the face I once knew so well. If it isn’t her—and I’m almost certain it is—it’s like looking at a genuine imitation. Her skin is more tanned—Abby was always so careful to wear sunscreen—her dark hair is longer, and it looks wavy and natural instead of heavily styled. She’s thinner too; her cheekbones are more prominent than they used to be. She looks well, apart from the cut on her head. She’s wearing clothes Abby wouldn’t have been seen dead—or alive—in. Casual was never her style, and I definitely never saw her wearing dungarees. I remember the newspaper articles again. Someone on the island wanted me to know that Abby was here. If it really is her. It’s her eyes that make her look unfamiliar. They should be blue, not brown. I can’t help staring at them, but doing so clearly makes her uncomfortable.
“Thank you for the lift,” she says, reaching for the door of the Land Rover.
“Wait, I didn’t catch your name.”
“My name is Aubrey.”
No it isn’t.
But Aubrey does sound a lot like Abby.
Maybe she doesn’t know she’s lying.
It doesn’t make sense. How could she possibly have forgotten her old life, her job, the house we renovated? We thought it would be our forever home but I guess nothing lasts forever. How could she forget our dog, our marriage, us, me?
She opens the door and starts to climb out. “ Are you okay?” she asks again. “I’m the one who was just run off the road but you’re looking a bit pale and clammy. If you’re in shock I don’t want you driving into someone else. Do you want to come in for a glass of water?”
I am in shock and I do want to go inside because I don’t believe a word she is saying.
“There are a lot of breakable things in the pottery. Maybe leave Columbo here for now so his tail doesn’t knock them all over.”
“Of course. Thank you.”
Columbo jumps into the driver’s seat—always his favorite spot—as soon as I walk away.
“I’m surprised they let you drive Whitty’s old Land Rover,” Abby says as we head toward the pottery.
“They?”
“The Amberly Island Trust has a lot of rules. Including that visitors aren’t allowed cars on the island. Plus an old car like that isn’t remotely environmentally friendly. The island is tiny. I don’t know why everyone can’t get around on a bike like me.”
“You don’t drive?”
She shakes her head. “Why would I? Amberly is only six miles long and five miles wide, I never even bothered to learn.”
Abby loved to drive and she loved her car.
There is a large, prominent logo on the wall depicting a Highland cow. I remember seeing the same thing on the side of the black van on the ferry the day I arrived. Maybe it was Abby that I saw then. Maybe she’s been here the whole time, right under my nose. When she reaches inside her pocket and takes out a set of keys, I see something on her wrist. A tattoo. My wife didn’t have any tattoos; she hated them.
“What does that mean?” I ask, staring at the unfamiliar swirls staining her skin.
She holds up her hand, the way someone would if they were looking at a watch, and instead reads the ink-stained words.
“La’kesh,” she says, as though I should know what that is. “It means my other self. I’m sorry, now that we’re standing face-to-face you do look familiar. Have we met before?”