Claire shook her head. “I didn’t remember her. But suddenly I understood something I never had before.”
“What?”
“SO MY WHOLE LIFE WAS A LIE?!”
“The girl across the street. Why she always looked so familiar. Why I couldn’t stop looking at her whenever I visited my parents.”
I glanced at Emma’s photograph again. Same blonde hair. Same face. Jesus. She looked like Claire at seventeen.
“You thought she was…”
“I didn’t know what to think. I just knew I had to come here.” Claire looked at her parents. “And when I did, they finally told me everything.”
Then more footsteps on the stairs. Slower.
“Give her time.”
The girl from the photograph stopped halfway down. Blonde hair. Mismatched eyes.
Emma’s hand rested on the railing. She looked at Claire, then at Lily against her chest.
She turned on Margaret and Robert. “SO MY WHOLE LIFE WAS A LIE?!”
“Emma, no,” Margaret pleaded. “You were loved. We thought we were protecting you.”
Then her face twisted. “That’s why you were always such great neighbors. You knew the whole time.” Her voice broke. “YOU’RE LIARS!”
The scream sounded exactly like Claire.
Claire didn’t push.
“Emma, please,” Claire cried, reaching for her.
Emma shoved her away.
“Don’t touch me!”
She ran out of the house. Claire tried to follow, but I caught her.
“Give her time.”
Claire collapsed against me, sobbing, and I held her as the door slammed shut.
Emma didn’t come home with us that day.
She went back across the street to the parents who had raised her. Claire gave her number and didn’t push.
“So you’re really our sister?”
***
Twelve days later, Emma texted: Could I meet my brothers?
That Sunday, she came over for dinner.
“So you’re really our sister?” one of the boys asked.
“Yeah,” Emma said. “I guess I am.”
Later, Emma held Lily, studying the same mismatched eyes that had started all of this.
Under the table, Claire found my hand. I squeezed it and watched Emma laugh with the boys.
Nothing was fixed, but Claire wasn’t facing the past alone anymore.
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