Binx comes to the door, rubbing against my legs and purring immediately. I scoop him up, rubbing my nose back and forth in his thick black-and-white fur. He hates the over-loving but he’ll tolerate a minute of it. When I place him back on his paws he gives me his version of indignant.
Derek and I don’t have plans beyond the cat and the city. We don’t talk about marriage or kids, ever. I like not needing anything but him and Binx. If anything beyond a stubborn and independent cat needed me, it wouldn’t live. I know that.
I don’t have anything to give except awkwardness and a confused stare. But not to Derek or Binx. No, to them I am enough, awkward or not.
The phone rings as I put my stuff down and slip my shoes off.
“Hello.” Derek’s voice makes me smile again. Everything about him puts me at ease. He creates a comfortable place inside me. His was the first face I saw and the only one I remember.
He sounds winded when he speaks. “I’m not coming in tonight. I came in last night. I’m not on call, it’s my forty-eight off. Where’s Don? Fine, but you have to give me three days off. Fine. Be there in an hour.” He hangs up his phone, sighing.
I walk into the kitchen and wrap my arms around him. He’s so big, it’s hard to wrap around him completely. I don’t melt into him the way he forces me to when we lay together in the dark, but I give it my best shot. “Hi.”
“Hey, I thought I saw Binx running.” He brings his arms back and hugs me. “I guess you just heard that, huh?”
“Yup.”
He spins, tilting my chin up. “I won’t be long, I swear.”
I shrug. “It’s okay. It’s not like you’re a shopgirl. You’re out there saving lives and shit.”
“Don’t mock shopgirls, I happen to be crazy about one.” He lowers his lips to mine, gently placing the softest graze before taking a deep inhale of my cheek. “See you in a couple of hours.” He kisses again, and I nod into it. He turns, blowing me a smooch as he hurries out the door.
And again I eat dinner alone. I wish he were here so I could tell him about my messed-up day. I wish he could tell me that none of it is anything and truly I am just one of the lucky few who found the person in the world who looks like them.
At least he made pot roast and roasted potatoes with a huge salad. It’s delicious with the wine he chose. It always is.
It’s almost better that he left; I doubt I would have been very good company. My mind is replaying a thousand different things. I want to Google things like love in all the wrong places and Irish guys who knew Samantha Barnes. I want to Google a bunch of things that won’t lead to any answers and will only make me click links until I’m reading about the Irish revolution. I’ve been down this road before. Google is a tricky bitch.
I go to bed, convincing myself that it doesn’t matter. I am Jane, and Samantha and her crazy life are over. Yes, we were identical. Yes, we both had a terrible car accident. Yes, we named our cats the very same strange name.
But my life is on the other side of the country, and I lived through my tragedy.
3. MISTAKEN ME
The next day, work feels worse than it did the day before. My feeble attempt at not caring ended before breakfast, and my brain is racked with strange thoughts, making it feel like my worries have tripled. It’s odd considering two men who have mistaken me for a girl named Sam are nothing more than two cases of mistaken identity.
I know I am not Samantha Barnes.
But it doesn’t feel like nothing.
In the bathroom I sit on the toilet and Google on my iPhone for answers to questions that aren’t clear.
There’s one article I find about people who look alarmingly alike, but the pairs of supposed twins are just similar, as in you might assume they’re related, not identical.
I Google her again, becoming obsessed with her name and face. I widen the photo on the phone, almost dropping it when I see the fine scar along her chin. It’s my scar. It’s identical.
My whole body starts to tremble as if the temperature has dropped twenty degrees in the concrete room.
I zoom in, narrowing my gaze and then holding the phone closer and farther away. No matter what I do, I can’t stop seeing myself in the picture or seeing the scar that before I never even noticed.
Two girls, on opposite sides of the country, who are identical, including scars, both have a terrible car accident. One dies and one lives but remembers nothing. They name their cats the same thing?
It doesn’t add up.
It’s a bad science-fiction movie.
Jesus, I am a clone.
I remember nothing because three years ago I was cloned from Samantha or she was cloned from me or I am the clone of Samantha. Wait, I said that already. I’m losing my mind.