home. Do nothing for a change. Sit around. Keep me company.”
If her parents ever sat around, Genevieve would know they were fatally ill, severely depressed or too penniless to fill the gas tank.
Usually she sent both of them the same text, letting them know that she’d had a good day and was now home studying. I could forward the video instead, she thought. Even on the smallest screen, those girls are me.
It was tempting. Allegra would see the video during her important meeting. Ned would get his during his not particularly important meeting. Would it slap them in the face? Would they crumble? Or did they know already that there were two more of her in the world?
I’m probably overreacting, she thought. It was probably an ordinary mild resemblance.
But both Ray Feingold and Jimmy Fleming had seen Genevieve Candler when they saw Missy and Claire.
The sun went down. The living space was shadowy and silent. Without music or TV, she was alone in the world of her house.
What if she was
not
alone? What if she had Missy and Claire?
They don’t know that I’ve found them, she thought. They don’t know I exist. They think they’re twins.
Genevieve never did her homework in her bedroom. It was isolated up there. She worked at the kitchen counter, books spread over the expanse of glittering granite, and she ate dinner in nibbles, a little of this, a bite of that, all evening long. Now she prepared her tools: pencils, Post-its, fork and spoon.
Where the kitchen counter turned a corner, a built-in desk held the family computer. Genevieve circled the kitchen islandwhere her books were strewn, sat down at the little desk and brought up the video. Claire’s last name had not been given, but Genevieve tried various spellings of Vianello on MySpace and Facebook. And there she was: Missy Vianello, her page closed except to friends.
Genevieve researched. She herself had been born in Connecticut, and the high school where Missy had introduced her twin was also in Connecticut. Genevieve located the Connecticut statute dealing with the birth certificates of adopted children. It was difficult to work through the legal prose. It looked as if a newborn’s birth certificate gave the biological parents’ names, but once a court decreed the adoption, a new birth certificate was issued. This one had the adoptive parents’ names. So the adoptive parents had a legal birth certificate for their baby, but not precisely a true one.
Was that the kind of birth certificate she had found in her parents’ room?
It did not look as if any birth certificate would have a line at the bottom saying, “Multiple birth—check for siblings.”
Because no matter how many multiples are born, she thought, the babies are separate people. They get their own identities. If I were adopted, though, there would be a court decree. I didn’t find that. On the other hand, to keep the adoption secret, you would not store proof in a drawer where the child would find it.
Genevieve imagined her real mother as a young girl in high school, terrified, her future at risk. She imagined the girl sobbing as the social worker whisked away her babies.
I could be older than my real mother was when I was born! That real mother could have been fourteen. What fourteen-year-old could do a good job with one baby, let alone three?
Genevieve found herself weeping for her fourteen-year-old mother. She imagined the mother of this teenager—Genevieve’s biological grandmother—saying, “I might help you with one baby, but three? Give them up.”
Genevieve didn’t like the grandmother.
Maybe the biological mother was much older, in the middle of a spectacular career, already had two teenagers and could not disrupt her life for another kid, let alone three.
Genevieve didn’t like them, either. They ought to have celebrated! Rearranged the house! Rejoiced in three new babies!
What about the father? Was he just a kid himself? Or a stranger passing in the night, and the
If her parents ever sat around, Genevieve would know they were fatally ill, severely depressed or too penniless to fill the gas tank.
Usually she sent both of them the same text, letting them know that she’d had a good day and was now home studying. I could forward the video instead, she thought. Even on the smallest screen, those girls are me.
It was tempting. Allegra would see the video during her important meeting. Ned would get his during his not particularly important meeting. Would it slap them in the face? Would they crumble? Or did they know already that there were two more of her in the world?
I’m probably overreacting, she thought. It was probably an ordinary mild resemblance.
But both Ray Feingold and Jimmy Fleming had seen Genevieve Candler when they saw Missy and Claire.
The sun went down. The living space was shadowy and silent. Without music or TV, she was alone in the world of her house.
What if she was
not
alone? What if she had Missy and Claire?
They don’t know that I’ve found them, she thought. They don’t know I exist. They think they’re twins.
Genevieve never did her homework in her bedroom. It was isolated up there. She worked at the kitchen counter, books spread over the expanse of glittering granite, and she ate dinner in nibbles, a little of this, a bite of that, all evening long. Now she prepared her tools: pencils, Post-its, fork and spoon.
Where the kitchen counter turned a corner, a built-in desk held the family computer. Genevieve circled the kitchen islandwhere her books were strewn, sat down at the little desk and brought up the video. Claire’s last name had not been given, but Genevieve tried various spellings of Vianello on MySpace and Facebook. And there she was: Missy Vianello, her page closed except to friends.
Genevieve researched. She herself had been born in Connecticut, and the high school where Missy had introduced her twin was also in Connecticut. Genevieve located the Connecticut statute dealing with the birth certificates of adopted children. It was difficult to work through the legal prose. It looked as if a newborn’s birth certificate gave the biological parents’ names, but once a court decreed the adoption, a new birth certificate was issued. This one had the adoptive parents’ names. So the adoptive parents had a legal birth certificate for their baby, but not precisely a true one.
Was that the kind of birth certificate she had found in her parents’ room?
It did not look as if any birth certificate would have a line at the bottom saying, “Multiple birth—check for siblings.”
Because no matter how many multiples are born, she thought, the babies are separate people. They get their own identities. If I were adopted, though, there would be a court decree. I didn’t find that. On the other hand, to keep the adoption secret, you would not store proof in a drawer where the child would find it.
Genevieve imagined her real mother as a young girl in high school, terrified, her future at risk. She imagined the girl sobbing as the social worker whisked away her babies.
I could be older than my real mother was when I was born! That real mother could have been fourteen. What fourteen-year-old could do a good job with one baby, let alone three?
Genevieve found herself weeping for her fourteen-year-old mother. She imagined the mother of this teenager—Genevieve’s biological grandmother—saying, “I might help you with one baby, but three? Give them up.”
Genevieve didn’t like the grandmother.
Maybe the biological mother was much older, in the middle of a spectacular career, already had two teenagers and could not disrupt her life for another kid, let alone three.
Genevieve didn’t like them, either. They ought to have celebrated! Rearranged the house! Rejoiced in three new babies!
What about the father? Was he just a kid himself? Or a stranger passing in the night, and the
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