I bend down to unbuckle my sandal, and she touches my hair. “We have hair just the same.”
I grin at her. “We do. Do you like it?”
“No,” she says sadly. “A girl at school makes fun of me.”
“She’s just jealous of your amazing brain.”
“Papa says just the same thing!”
“Papa is Simon’s father,” Mari says, holding the door for us. “Do you want some socks?”
“No, thanks.”
She touches my bare arm again, as if I am her child. It disarms me. “I’m so glad you’re here, Kit. You have no idea how much I missed you.”
“I think I do,” I say, and slide away from her touch.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mari
Over dinner, I finally find a way to let go of my held breath. Kit is so tender with Sarah, and she laughs at the jokes Leo makes trying to impress her. She’s dazzling, a fact I hadn’t expected and should have. She has my mother’s slim shoulders and robust cleavage, my father’s laughter and wide smile. Together with the confidence she lacked in her younger days, it’s quite a package. Both my husband and my son vie for her attention, while Sarah simply worships, rapt, at her side.
As does Javier. He looks at her as if she’s the sun, as if she might command flowers to bloom and birds to sing. It’s clear that he’s trying to hide it, to be cool, but he’s smitten with her.
It’s less easy to read Kit. Over the years, she’s created an urbane but kind shell that lets little of her true self leak through. I catch sight of the real Kit every now and again, when she listens to Sarah and she leans close. When Javier touches her arm or shoulder or pours her a little more water from the pitcher.
Mainly I see her when she engages with Simon. As if she wants to know and like him, which gives me hope.
But it’s also Simon who is making me fret. Every so often, he looks perplexed or surprised. In his smooth, lovely way, he nourishes the conversation, asking Javier about his music, Kit about her passion for medicine. But every now and then, he gives me a glance, a little frown. Is he looking at her tattoo?
Leo notices. “Hey, you and my mom have the same tattoo!”
Kit holds up her arm. “One difference, though. Can you spot it?”
He peers at it, frowning. “Oh! Hers says big sister.” He frowns. “But you’re bigger.”
She glances at me. “I wasn’t always. She grew tall first, and then I did.”
Javier says, and I get the feeling he does it to distract from the tattoos, “I expect you’re going to be quite tall one day. Do you play sports?”
“Yes.” He sits back down and dives into his pasta. “Lots of them. Lacrosse is my favorite, but my dad likes us to swim because he has the clubs.”
“Hey, now. You’ll give me a bad name,” Simon protests, but he laughs. “You’re free to give it up anytime, son.” He takes a slice of garlic bread from a plate. “But that will guarantee that Trevor will take the lead this season.”
Leo scowls. “I’ll never beat him. You know I won’t.”
“You can do what you believe,” Kit says calmly.
“You don’t know how this kid swims. Everybody says he’ll be going to the Olympics one day.”
“He might,” Simon said. “You may as well give up.”
Leo shoots him an evil glance, and Simon chuckles. “That’s what I thought.”
It all goes remarkably well. Leo and Sarah clear the table while I make coffee. The other adults settle in the more comfortable lounge, and Simon cues some music from his phone, some midcentury jazz and pop that set a mellow stage. These are our habits, the dance we have created. When he comes into the kitchen, all feels completely normal until he asks quietly, “Why does this feel so stilted tonight?”
“Does it?” I look up at him guilelessly. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“You’re as jumpy as a cat. She must know a lot of secrets about you. Where all the bodies are buried.”
“Don’t be silly.” I wave him away. “Get back in there and entertain them.”
His fingers brush the top of my back, and then he’s gone. Laughter spills out in the other room. Leo asks if he can play Minecraft, and I dismiss him. Sarah isn’t finished circling the sun of her new idol, and she helps me by carrying a plate of petits fours into the other room.
“Don’t tell me you made these as well,” Kit says.
“No way. Simon picked them up at a bakery on the way home.” I pour and pass cups of coffee. “It’s decaf,” I say.
Sarah sits next to Kit, who says with some humor, “Your mother was the worst cook ever when we were young.”
“Really?”
Kit gives me a look and settles her cup on the table. “Really. Like, couldn’t even cook bacon.”
“Why didn’t you just put it in the microwave?”
“We didn’t have one,” Kit says, then recognizes her slip. “None of us did.”
“You didn’t?” Sarah echoes, wrinkling her nose.
And in that instant, with the faces of my sister and my daughter mirroring each other, both with the same nutmeg curls, the same tilt of eyes, the same freckles on the same nose, I recognize there is no way this secret can be kept. Sarah is Kit’s mini me, down to inclinations and eye color.
At that moment, Sarah says, “Hey, we both have the same toes!”
Kit looks at Sarah’s foot, held beside hers. One short leg, one long, the same second and third toes, such a specific genetic order, webbed in exactly the same way. Kit looks up at me, touches her niece’s hair. “So we do. That’s crazy.”
My heart speeds up, and under my hair, the sweat breaks out. I look at Simon, who gives me a perplexed shake of the head. He spreads his hands. What is this?
He speaks to Sarah, however. “Sweetheart, it’s time to go upstairs.”
She lets go of a huff, and I think she’s going to protest, but she only turns to Kit and says, “It’s adult time. I have to go. Will you come back?”
“I’ll do my best.”
Sarah hugs her, hard, and I see how it shatters my sister, the way she squeezes her eyes tight and her fierce arms circle my child. “It was so nice to get to meet you.”
“Bye,” Sarah says in a small voice, and heads upstairs.
A vast silence fills the space beneath the music as she departs. Kit glances at Javier, and he takes her hand in a protective way, moves closer.
At last Simon says, “She couldn’t look more like you.”
Kit bows her head, looks at me.
And here it is, the moment I must have known was coming. I’ve been feeling it bearing down on me for weeks, this collision of my old life and the new one. I take a breath, meet Simon’s eyes. “We’re sisters.”
He’s bewildered. “Why wouldn’t you just say that?”
I take a breath, unable to halt the tears that fill my eyes. “You said I could tell you anything, but—” I look up. “This is a really long story.”
Kit stands up, her hands fluttering over her skirt. “We should go. This is between you two.”
Simon waves her down. “Please don’t go yet. I’d like to know the story.”
She hesitates, looking first at me, then toward the stair, then gives Simon a short nod. She tucks her skirt beneath her legs and perches at the edge of the couch, ready to flee at any moment.
A shivery fear makes my skin cold. “It would be better if we talked first, Simon. Seriously.”
He shakes his head.
I’ve already lost him. I can see it in the set of his shoulders and the loose, apparently relaxed way he holds his hands. He hates lying. He won’t tolerate it in employees or friends, and I’ve known that for almost as long as I’ve known him.
But not before I fell in love with him.
Sooner or later, you have to face things, face your life. Here is my reckoning. “Okay. Short version is: My real name is Josie Bianci. I grew up outside of Santa Cruz. My parents ran a restaurant. Kit is my younger sister. Dylan was our—” I look at Kit.
“Third,” she says. “Not a brother, exactly. Not a relative. But our”—she looks at Javier—“soul mate. Alma gemela.”
“I don’t understand.” Simon blinks, as if he’s trying to see through fog. “Why lie about something so ordinary?”
“Because,” I say wearily, “until a few days ago, Kit and my mother thought I was dead.” I swallow, meet his eyes. “Everyone did. I walked away from a terrorist attack in Paris and let everyone think I died.”
He pales, the skin around his eyes going white. “Jesus! Is that how you got the scar?”
“That was the earthquake.”
“That’s real, then.” He runs a finger over his own eyebrow, a gesture that means he’s striving for control. My heart squeezes—ordinarily I would be the one to offer comfort. “Jesus.”
Kit stands. “I really have to go.”
Javier stands too, his hand on the small of her back.
Kit says, “Simon, I enjoyed meeting you.” She turns to me, and I see that there are tears in her eyes. “You know how to find me.”
All the grief and hope and terror I’ve been stuffing back down into my body now rush upward, and I stand and fling myself into her arms. And for the first time, I feel her wholeheartedly grip me, loving me back. If I let even one tear fall, I will be lost, so instead I am only trembling from head to toe. She holds me fiercely for a long time; then she pulls back and puts her hands on my face. “Call me tomorrow, okay?”