Chapter Five
‘Mum?’ Skyla questions.
I don’t think I’ve ever sworn in front of her before, been very careful not to.
It was one of those things I really had to train myself to do in the beginning, mind my mouth.
Not that I was overly vulgar or anything, but I’d never had tiny ears around me before Skyla and Robin came along and all I wanted was to be good enough for them from the moment they arrived.
The girl beside her scoffs, eyeing me curiously.
‘Sorry. I—’ I stammer, unable to tear my eyes from the girl sitting at my kitchen table. ‘The ants are back. I’ll just go out to the shed and get the ant killer.’ With that, I stumble through the French doors and out into the garden.
The air is sweet with the honeysuckle climbing up the Cotswold-stone walls. I try to breathe it in, to calm myself. Think rationally. I’ve mistaken many young girls for Robin over the years. This is no different.
The girls’ voices carry, and with it a gentle tittering too. Nothing like the unfiltered chortles that once rang throughout our apartment in Bristol, but stifled giggles, more self-aware. Yet still, my ears fill with this sound, and it sends a shiver down my spine.
Pulling my phone from my back pocket, I find James in my call log history. I’m about to press on his name when I stop myself. How many times have I done this? How many times has he had to talk me down? But this is different.
I round the corner, running along the outside of the north wing, through the parterre with the fountain and down along the apple orchard until I reach the front door again.
Alfie is at my heels, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth excitedly.
He thinks this is a game, but I don’t have the time to play.
Hurling myself inside, I take the steps two at a time and crash into the bedroom.
I fling open the doors to our walk-in wardrobe and step inside.
Even after sitting on the velvet ottoman for a few minutes, the thundering in my chest doesn’t stop.
When I can, I rise and make my way to a cupboard I haven’t opened in many years.
As soon as the doors part, I breathe in the smouldering pain kept inside.
Dangling on children’s coat hangers are an array of twin clothing sets.
I remember each one vividly. In the early years after Robin disappeared, all I did was stare at photographs of her and Skyla.
Together. As they should be. Always dressed the same, despite my husband’s protests that they should have their own individual personalities.
My fingers run along them now, awakening the hangers that stilled long ago.
The clang of the metal wires against the railing sends my heart galloping faster.
Hesitantly, somewhat reluctantly, I raise up onto my tiptoes and reach for the fabric box containing every memory I have of Robin. Every good memory, and every painful one too.
I pick up a photograph of Robin from the day the girls were placed into our care.
I’d wanted to document each girl separately, and I did, for almost two years.
But in this specific photo, Robin was just a few days old, her skin still blushed pink, the dummy too big for her face.
There was a ridiculous tuft of blonde curls atop her head, and her eyes were deep blue pools, unfocused and lips permanently set in a frown.
From the moment she was put into my arms, I was in love.
I did worry with the twins not being mine by blood, would we connect?
Would they get used to my smell and learn to trust me?
I shouldn’t have been concerned. Robin had scrunched up her little fists and fallen fast asleep on my chest on the day she came to me.
Her breath was a whisper, as delicate and soft as her skin.
I remember each girl differently. Skyla was always the easier one.
Took her milk, settled easily. Robin was just as lovely, but harder.
She didn’t sleep unless wedged between James and I, and even then she’d wake multiple times a night.
She had horrendous tummy issues, fussy eating habits.
But she was ours, they both were, and we weren’t going to complain.
We couldn’t believe our luck after all my struggles with PCOS preventing me from getting pregnant, damn those polycystic ovaries of mine.
I truly thought the process of becoming foster parents let alone formal adoption legalities would be our next big battle.
I was sure I’d be closer to forty before finally becoming a parent.
So I got the shock of my life when I was told not one, but two tiny humans were coming to stay with us.
I continue to leaf through photos of Robin, watching as the bones in her face shift, remoulding her features.
Her hair became longer, her eyes darker, and a small beauty spot appeared just above her lip on the left-hand side.
Studying her face in the last photograph I ever took of her, I wonder, not for the first time, if it’s really possible to match this image to a person fourteen years later.
But that beauty spot is distinctive, and I know I need to force myself back down to the kitchen to search Skyla’s friend’s face.
Before I do, I page through the various articles from her disappearance. Clippings I haven’t looked at in many years. Who would? Remembering the day the little girl we were supposed to be keeping safe disappeared is too much for me. Just the titles alone bring tears to my eyes.
TODDLER STOLEN FROM COT.
UNEXPLAINABLE DISAPPEARANCE OF ROBIN RUSHMORE.
ARE ROBIN RUSHMORE’S ADOPTIVE PARENTS GUILTY?
It’s too hard to read the actual articles. Not again. The flippant words journalists wrote about us have haunted me ever since. I swallow, dab at my eyes. Revisiting that time in my life is hard, and so I slam the lid of the box back down, sealing away the pain once more.
The photograph of Robin I kept aside dances to the floor. I bend to pick it up after sliding the box right back into the depths of the cupboard, into the dust and cobwebs where it belongs.
Staring again at Robin’s face in the image, I search for more unique qualities, but it’s hard. She was so young when this was taken. So much could have changed. I pocket the photo anyway and prepare myself to head back into the kitchen.
* * *
‘Sorry about that, girls,’ I say, perhaps a little too loudly as I stride back in, somehow managing a smile.
I don’t look at Skyla’s friend right away, don’t want to seem too interested in her. Instead I head for the pan on the stove. I grip it in my hands, if anything to stop myself from shaking, and run it under water. The charred garlic swirls down the drain.
‘Mum,’ Skyla says. ‘You forgot the ant killer.’
‘Oh! Yes.’ I choke out a laugh. ‘Clean forgot.’ I turn slowly, positive the girls can hear the frantic thump of my heart.
My breathing is ragged, and my eyes fight to look at anything but Skyla’s friend as I face them.
I can’t help myself, though. The urge to check her face, to search for Robin’s beauty spot, it’s dizzying.
Eventually, I can’t keep my eyes away, and at the sight of her, I almost gasp.
The twins weren’t identical. They didn’t come from one fertilised egg that split into two embryos.
We learned all about the biology of twins when we adopted the girls.
Still, in the early days even I found it near impossible to tell the difference between them.
We had to put different coloured crochet bracelets on their wrists to help us in the beginning, though as they grew we still couldn’t really tell them apart easily.
And right now, if it weren’t for Skyla’s sun-bleached curls, and the clothing I know I bought for her, I don’t think I’d be able to tell them apart from a quick glance.
I swallow, taking a tentative step forward.
Skyla’s friend is leaning against the kitchen counter, close to the knife rack.
I come within inches of her, reach forward and drag a knife out.
Our eyes lock as I bring the knife towards me, but not for long, because mine fall down to just above her top lip on the left-hand side, where a deep silvery scar is glinting under the bulb above our heads.