“No, I’m not.”
“Puddin’ pop.” Anna crouched to her son’s level. “Why don’t you go help Allie check on Cujo?”
Logan stood there, glowering at Amelia distrustfully, his cheeks puffed out, his eyes narrowed.
“Take the cymbals with you,” Anna instructed.
Logan picked the cymbals up off the floor, then finally, he nodded and darted past Amelia to follow after his sister, banging the cymbals together as he went—clang, clang, clanggg.
As the noise grew distant, Anna straightened, and Amelia spied a soft moistness in her eyes. Then Anna made a swift, sudden move, arms held wide, as if she wanted a hug.
Amelia panicked, held up both arms to keep her sister at bay. She could smell the dog on her skin. Or maybe it was the scent of her own fear. Either way, she needed space and time to collect herself before jumping headlong into this overwhelming relationship. Time for a little social distancing.
“Might you point me in the direction of the washroom? I’m afraid the dog salivated on me.” She sounded too stiff and she knew it. Drooled. She should have said “drooled” like a normal person.
“Sure.” Anna didn’t seem the least bit deflated by Amelia sidestepping her hug. She didn’t take things too personally. A quality Amelia admired.
“This way.” Anna crooked a finger for Amelia to follow and led her to a small half bath off the hallway. Then she waved in the direction of her husband. “We’ll just be waiting out here.”
The two of them stared at her and it felt bizarre. “Um, thank you.”
Amelia stepped into the bathroom, closed and locked the door, and switched on the light. Glancing around, she blinked in disbelief.
The bathroom was decorated almost identically to the half bath in her penthouse apartment, albeit with cheaper versions of the same items. Anna’s white subway tiles were ceramic while Amelia had marble. The cabinetry was gray, Shaker style, but these were prefabricated whereas Amelia’s were artisan crafted. Same light fixtures. Same oval mirror. Same fluffy gray bath rug. Same Revere Pewter wall color.
Her mouth dropped open and the hairs on her arms raised.
Uncanny.
How was this possible? Some kind of unsettling twin telepathy? Some inexplicably spooky DNA connection? She’d read similar stories about separated twins who’d been reunited.
Don’t be fanciful. It’s not that odd. It’s a generic modern bathroom design. Blame Pinterest.
Amelia searched for something that wasn’t like her decor at home. The bath towels were a slightly dustier shade of sage green than the ones she’d bought from Ralph Lauren and her hand soap dispenser was not a kitschy penguin, and the bathroom layout wasn’t the same, but other than that, the rooms were eerily identical.
Goose bumps accentuated the raised hairs on her arms and as she met her startled gaze in the mirror, alarm bells chimed in her head. Or maybe it was just the kids slamming those cymbals.
But it didn’t matter. Amelia had a jarring feeling this was only the first in a long line of surprises.
Softly singing “Happy Birthday” twice, she washed her hands in the bathroom sink. Amelia heard tension in the muted conversation outside the door.
Anna and her husband were arguing, even though she couldn’t make out everything they were saying.
Closing her eyes, she whispered, “This is so much more complicated than I imagined.”
She opened her eyes, dried her hands on the sage-green towel, blew out her breath, gathered her courage, opened the door, and stepped into the hallway.
Anna and Kevin paused midargument, something about sticking to a budget, turned, and gave her hawkeyed stares.
Amelia forced a smile. She knew it didn’t look genuine, and she quickly dropped it in favor of her much more comfortable, blank-slate expression. A fellow musician had once called it her go-away-ain’t-nobody-home-shuttered-window look. A bad date had dubbed it a cold-fish stare. Amelia called it loneliness.
“Sister,” Anna said.
“Um . . . yes?”
Without warning, Anna sailed across the few steps of travertine tiles between them and folded Amelia into her embrace.
Stunned, Amelia squirmed, but Anna tightened the hug and held on. Hugging a stranger. One of Amelia’s least favorite things.
Anna pressed her mouth to Amelia’s ear and whispered this chant, “My identical twin sister, my identical twin sister, my identical twin sister.”
Not knowing what else to do, Amelia stood completely still, her arms ironed stiff at her side.
While they might be identical twin sisters, they were strangers. In the best of times—and this was certainly not that—Amelia had trouble with intimacy. They’d been apart for thirty-five years. Spending nine months in a shared womb couldn’t make up for that.
And still, Anna kept hugging her with a fierceness that had Amelia longing to run and she would have, but staying meant living.
Clang, clang, clang. Outside, Logan was still hammering those cymbals.
“What do you do for a living?” Anna asked, finally letting go and brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I was a cellist,” Amelia murmured. “For the Chicago Symphony.”
“Was?”
“I retired two years ago.”
“Retired? But you’re so young.”
“I have a trust fund.”
Anna looked envious but tried for perky with a bouncy tone and overly broad smile. “So, you’re a music lover. Me too!”
What was she supposed to do here? Encourage the small talk? Not Amelia’s forte.
“I play the guitar,” Anna prattled. “Ten years of lessons. I’m okay. No virtuoso, but I’m passable for party sing-alongs. All I really care about is having fun playing with my friends.”
Amelia smiled. “It pleases me to think of you running scales on the guitar while I was practicing the cello.”
Anna pulled a sad face. “Imagine if we’d been able to practice together. Hey.” She snapped her fingers. “Did you bring your cello with you?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
They fell silent and things felt weird again. They were still standing in the hallway outside the bathroom, and that just seemed wrong. Anna’s husband hovered in the background. Amelia wished he’d go away but didn’t expect it. He looked as if he was put on earth for the express purpose of protecting Anna.
That, she liked about him.
“I always knew something was missing,” Anna murmured and hugged her again. “And now I know that something was you.”
This was too much, way too soon. Amelia broke free from Anna’s hug. The hurt look on her twin’s face punched her in the gut, but things were moving far too fast for her comfort. “I’m sorry. I need to g-go.”
Anna blinked rapidly. “Wh-what?”
Amelia’s heart pounded so loudly she couldn’t think. “You need . . . I need . . . we need time to process this—alone.”
“But you can’t just come to my door and not explain what’s going on. Please, let’s sit down and talk this out.” Anna waved in the direction of the living room they’d passed earlier. “Kevin was just heading out on a business trip.”
Shaking her head, Amelia searched for the right words. Anna wasn’t wrong. She couldn’t just show up, drop this bomb, and leave, but she desperately wanted to get out of there. In fact, a deep-seated dread took hold of her and burrowed in.