Chapter Four Mary
Chapter Four
Mary
Five years ago
“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Sam said as she buckled herself into the passenger side of my car. “Maybe you should go see them alone first. Or just call them.”
“Oh, no, I want to see the look on my parents’ faces when the two of us show up at the door! Trust me, they’re going to be thrilled. Stunned, for sure, but thrilled too.”
It was obvious that she wasn’t convinced, but she didn’t push the topic. “Nice car,” she noted instead, twisting around to get a look in the back of my Camry.
“Oh, thanks. It’s used. I’ve never had a new new car,” I explained, navigating us out of the parking lot and along the surface streets near campus. “My parents are big on teaching me to be ‘fiscally responsible.’ What about you? What do you drive?”
She shook her head. “I don’t.”
“Don’t what, have a car?”
“I don’t drive.”
My head swiveled toward her. “You’re kidding, really?”
“Really. No one taught me. I can’t swim either.”
“What? How can you live in Florida and not swim?”
Sam shrugged. “Again, no one taught me. And it’s not like any of my foster placements had a swimming pool or anything. Well, that’s not entirely true. A couple of the trailer parks where I stayed had a community pool. But I wasn’t at any of them long enough.”
“How many different places did you live?”
She scoffed, letting out a little puff of air.
“Ugh, God, let’s see . . .” She started counting on her fingers as she took a mental tally.
“I’m gonna say five. No—no, six. Six different foster homes when I was young.
But then it was group homes and institutions when I was in my teens.
I did spend a year living in the woods as part of a wilderness program for at-risk youth—I really liked that.
I mean, it was a pain in the ass with all the rules and no privacy, but at least I didn’t have anyone grabbing my ass or hitting me. ”
I jerked the wheel so sharply that I almost drove off the side of the road into a guardrail. “Are you saying that you were . . . you know . . . like abused? Physically? And . . . sexually?”
When I glanced in her direction, I was momentarily startled to find my own incredulity staring back at me.
The resemblance was absolutely uncanny. And it was freaking me out.
I felt like maybe I should be able to read her mind or some creepy twin thing like that.
But reading her expression was about as close as I could get.
“What do you think?” she shot back at me, making it sound as if I were the dimmest person she’d ever met.
My cheeks grew warm along with my irritation.
“I think,” I replied coolly, “that I’ve known you for, like, five minutes, and I don’t want to assume anything.”
I nearly jumped out of my seat when she snorted with laughter unexpectedly, pointing at my face. “You get salty too, huh? I can’t hide that shit either. Sometimes I get so pissed that I turn this deep red—like scarlet.”
My anger faded as quickly as it had come upon me. “Really? ’Cause I’ve never been able to control my temper. My mom even made me do this anger-management therapy group once.”
“Did it help?” she asked, sounding genuinely curious.
“No,” I told her with a disgusted huff. “Everyone in the group rubbed me the wrong way, and I left feeling grumpier than when I started.”
Even as I said it, I realized how ridiculous it sounded. And I wasn’t the only one—Sam began to chuckle too. In under a minute, I was laughing so hard, I was crying.
“You know, you’re pretty funny,” she said once we’d both calmed down.
A broad grin filled her face. Our face.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked.
“I was just thinking . . . it might be nice, this having-a-sister thing.”
The words—and the way she said them—sent a wave of pleasure through me.
A real, honest-to-God blood relative.
A sister.
“I’ll teach you,” I blurted out impulsively.
My newfound twin looked perplexed. “You’ll teach me what?”
“To drive. And to swim. I’ll teach you how to do both.”
“Yeah, right,” she said, as if I were pulling her leg.
I wondered how many times she’d been lied to in her life, how many people had made promises they didn’t keep.
Just the thought of it made my heart squeeze with sympathy.
I’d had so much. I’d probably had more stability, more options, more love in a single year than Sam Kinski had experienced in her entire life.
That was the moment I made my decision.
I might not be able to turn back the clock and give her a better past, but I could absolutely make sure she had a better future. One that included a family.
Watching my father’s face when he opened the front door to our Coral Gables home was like watching one of those old silent movies—an over-the-top montage of expressions playing out over the course of a few seconds.
First there was his surprise at finding me on the steps, followed in short order by delight.
I hadn’t told them I was coming. From there he registered curiosity that I’d brought someone home with me.
At that point it became a blur of disbelief, shock, confusion, and one or two other emotions that I couldn’t put a name to.
“Surprise!” I yelled as I threw my arms up in the air. “It’s a girl!”
“Uh . . . Terry?” he called out over his shoulder, too softly at first. Then he shouted, “Terry!”
My mother’s response came from the kitchen at the back of the house. “What is it, Doug? I’m going over the numbers for tomorrow’s meeting.”
Still dazed, still holding the door partially closed, my father tried again. “Can you please just . . . ? Can you come out here? Now? It’s . . . it’s Mary.”
I could hear her bare feet pounding the hardwood floor of the hallway.
“Oh, dear God, did something happen to Mary?” she was asking even as she ran. By the time she reached the front door and pulled it the rest of the way open, her panic was palpable. “What is it? What’s happened to Mary?”
The question was out of her mouth an instant before her eyes could process what they were seeing.
I launched myself into her arms. “Mom, I’m fine! I’m okay! I didn’t mean to scare you guys. I just . . . The most unbelievably incredible thing happened today at college. Look!”
I spun around, draping an arm across each of their shoulders so the three of us faced Sam, who peered back at us from the other side of the threshold.
“I don’t understand,” Mom said, her head swinging back and forth between the two of us like she was watching a rapid-fire round of the US Open.
Her confusion seemed genuine, which was, in a way, a relief. If they’d looked guilty or sheepish or if they’d had no reaction at all, then I’d have wondered if they’d already known of her existence. But they seemed to be just as stunned as I was.
“M-Mary?” Dad stammered, glancing over and down at me. “What is this? What’s going on?”
“Let’s go inside, and I’ll tell you all about it!” I suggested excitedly.
Suddenly it was as if my father remembered his manners. “Oh, yes—of course,” he murmured, stepping back and gesturing for my newfound twin to join us. “I’m sorry, what’s your name?”
“Uh . . . Samantha,” she provided, walking forward a little tentatively, as if afraid to actually enter the house. “Samantha—Sam. Sam Kinski.”
When she was standing in the vestibule with us, I took her elbow, pulling her next to me so my parents could get the full effect of seeing us side by side.
“We think we’re twins,” I blurted. “Same birthday, both put up for adoption as babies. And look at us! We’re identical! It’s unbelievable, isn’t it? I mean, can you believe this? How could we not have known? All this time, all these years we could have been together!”
I was practically bouncing off the terracotta-tiled floor in my excitement. My parents, however, looked like one of those cartoons where the guy’s been hit on the head with a giant mallet and he’s just standing there in a stupor, little bluebirds circling his head.
I snapped my fingers in front of them. “Hello! Anyone in there? Mom! Dad! Are you listening to me?” I asked with an amused chuckle.
“Twins?” Mom echoed incredulously.
“Twins,” I confirmed. “Boy, you should see the look on your faces! Come on, let’s go sit inside.”
I gestured for Sam to follow me and then led the way toward the back of the house and the open-plan den adjacent to the kitchen.
I sat on one of the overstuffed couches, patting the seat next to me so she’d join me.
Mom and Dad perched on the edge of the love seat across from us.
He took his glasses off with one hand and rubbed the bridge of his nose with the other.
“Okay, why don’t you just start at the beginning,” he said after replacing the frames. “How did this happen? I mean—where did you two meet?”
I explained my surreal interaction with the guy at the ID counter and my visit to Kappa 219, where I came face-to-face with my doppelganger.
“So this just happened?” Mom asked, pointing to the floor. “Today?”
“Like”—I paused to glance down at my watch—“six hours ago. I convinced Sam that we should just hop in the car and drive down here so I could tell you in person. There was no way you were going to believe it if you didn’t see us. Both of us. Together.”
They were staring at us, eyes moving between our faces.
I could tell they were comparing every curve, every arch, every crease.
But I already knew what they’d find. Give us the same hairstyle and clothing, and we could be the same person.
The idea of it sent a little thrill of excitement through me, and I couldn’t hold back my smile.
I grabbed Sam’s hand in mine and gave it an excited squeeze. She smiled back a little uncomfortably.
“So, Sam,” my mother began, carefully polite, “why don’t you tell us about yourself? Where are you from?”
The question, while perfectly reasonable, struck me as faintly surreal. She was from where I was from in the most literal sense imaginable. But I doubted “the same uterus as your daughter” was going to be well received, so I kept quiet and let Sam answer.