Experimenting with specialized DNA technology . . . trying to produce multiple exact genetic duplicates of endangered species of animals . . .
And suddenly I hear Mom’s voice saying, “It’s important that you blend in with the other students like an ordinary girl.”
A trembling sensation starts deep in my core as my uncertainties about Iris’s intentions join all the other fears in my ever-growing collection. All my life, Iris has told me that she can’t leave because she’s waiting for someone, and I’m sure now that the person is Jake. She said she had to watch over me, and I think I might have figured out why. I’ll find out soon enough if I’m right. We’re getting closer to the truth—and Jake—with each passing mile.
Iris . . . ? I wait, but she remains silent. In a way, I’m relieved. I’m too afraid to ask her what’s on my mind.
“Hey,” Ty says. “Are you okay?”
I shake my head. “When I was a little girl I thought Iris was my shadow,” I say in just above a whisper. “I could hear her, so I should be able to see her, too, right? Sometimes when I’d see my shadow, I was afraid she might break away and run in the opposite direction.” I smile at my younger self, but I still understand that fear. “And then when I got older,” I continue, “I never thought of her as a ghost or a spirit in limbo or anything like that. She’s always seemed more like an extension of me.” I take a breath and face him. “But maybe I’m an extension of her.”
Ty sends me an uneasy glance. “Quit torturing yourself, okay?”
I want to stop, but I can’t. I wish he’d pull over and wrap his arms around me and make this all go away. But that’s not possible. “What if after we find Jake and learn the truth, Iris doesn’t need to stay here anymore?” I say, asking him what I can’t bring myself to ask her.
Ty blinks at me. “I don’t understand what you’re so afraid of.”
“What if that’s what’s kept her here all along? Her need to see Jake one last time, and her need to remember the truth, so I could know it and protect myself.”
“You think after she does those things she’ll disappear and you won’t sense her again?”
I press my lips together and look away. “Maybe she’ll think I don’t need her anymore.”
“That’s not going to happen. Everything’s going to be okay.” Ty’s voice is warm and caring, but less than convincing.
“How do you know?” I ask.
“I just do.”
Suddenly, I think of Kyle and shame slams into me. “God, Ty, I’m sorry,” I say, facing him. “Here I am worrying about losing Iris when your brother—”
“No, it’s fine. I’m okay. But are you sure you’re ready to meet Jake? If you can’t handle it, I’ll call him and tell him it’s off for now. We can talk this out first, just you and me, then see him tomorrow. Or we can go straight to Baltimore and forget all of it.”
I draw a deep breath. Either I want the truth or I don’t. It takes only seconds to decide. “Keep going,” I say.
20
The sun is pushing up from the earth like a bloodred bulb when Ty shakes me awake. My head is resting against the door, and the chest strap on the seat belt rubs against my cheek.
Yawning, I sit up. “You want me to drive for a while?”
“No, we’re here.”
“In Oklahoma City?”
“Yeah.”
I look outside. The traffic is almost bumper to bumper, and industrial-type businesses line both sides of the interstate highway. I’ve never seen so many eighteen-wheelers in one place.
“You’re getting a call,” says Ty, pointing to my quietly buzzing phone on the console.
I pick up without looking at the display.
“Hi, Lily. I’m pulling into Oklahoma City,” Jake says. “I broke a few speed limits and made good time.”
“We’re here, too,” I tell him.
“There’s a Denny’s ahead of me at exit eighty-five. Should I wait for you there?”
“Denny’s at exit eighty-five.” I glance at Ty, and he nods. “That’s fine.”
“I’ll go on in and get us a booth,” says Jake.
“How will I recognize you?”
“If you’re Iris’s sister, I’ll recognize you.”
His statement sends a shiver through me.
I tell Jake good-bye and end the call, so nervous I’m queasy. Without a word to Ty, I reach for my bag on the floor and dig through it until I find a brush. I pull the sun visor down and look at myself in the mirror, working the brush through the tangles in my hair.
Thank you. Iris’s whisper sweeps through me like a puff of warm wind.
My hand stills. We made this happen together, I tell her. I’m so happy you’re finally going to see Jake again and we’re going to get to the truth.
I wait for her to reassure me that I’ll be able to handle whatever it is. But there’s only a frail, soft hiss in my head—the constant white noise that’s Iris—tremulous now. Excited, but also fretful.
I break away from my reflection in the mirror, unable to meet my own terrified gaze as my fingers fumble to weave my hair into a braid. What will Jake think of me? Who will he see? What will he tell me?
“This is it,” Ty says quietly.
I look out at the road, see the exit, and beyond it, the Denny’s sign.
“It’ll be okay,” he says, noting my expression. “I’ll be with you every second.”
Only three cars are parked outside the restaurant. A dilapidated gray van. A shiny red Toyota Prius. A white Chevy Tahoe. The Prius has a Tennessee license plate. As Ty pulls into the parking space next to it, I secure my braid with a band, then reach into the backseat for Iris’s violin case, thinking Jake might want more proof that I’m who I say I am.
Ty cuts the engine and faces me. “Ready?”
I nod, my heart pounding so hard I can’t speak. We climb out.
I have a memory of my mother on her knees beside the tub, shampooing my hair when I was around four years old. I remember a yellow rubber duck and frothy white bubbles on the water’s surface. I can still smell the lavender scent of the room and hear Mom singing.
I tilted my head back and squeezed my eyes shut while she poured clean water through my hair. When she finished, I looked up at her and said, “Mommy, when are we going to see that boy?”
“What boy?”
Scooping a mound of bubbles into my palm, I blew them toward the faucet. “That big boy with the pretty blue eyes. I miss him.”
Mom slipped her hands beneath my armpits and lifted me to my feet beside the tub. “Do you mean Sean? The man who helped Daddy in his shop last summer?”
“Nuh-uh.” I shivered as she wrapped a fluffy white towel around me. “You know who. He gave me a music box. And flowers sometimes. White ones with yellow in the middle. They made me sneeze.”
Mom fell silent. She rubbed the towel against me so hard and fast it stung, saying firmly, “We don’t know any boy like that, Lily. You must’ve dreamed him.”
I didn’t ask again about the boy with blue eyes.
I grew older and forgot about that night in the tub, my questions about the boy, and the white flowers with yellow centers. But as Ty opens the door to the restaurant, the memory rushes back in such vivid detail that I feel the sting of the towel on my back.
I’m clutching the handle of the violin case as we walk into the warm, bright diner. I skim my attention over an elderly couple at the first table, a young man in his twenties wearing a baseball cap at the counter, and a man with short dark hair and glasses studying a menu at a table in back.
“Good morning! Be with you in a sec,” a waitress calls out to us as I search almost frantically for someone else—someone familiar.
And then I jolt and I’m drawn again to the man at the back table. He looks up at us. At me. I hear his gasp from across the room. He stands so abruptly that he knocks against the table, sending a fork and spoon sailing to the floor with a clatter. The man reaches for something in the cha
ir beside him. A bouquet of daisies.
“Is that him?” Ty whispers.
I can’t answer him. Iris has risen up inside of me, and her heart beats in time with mine. She leads me to Jake . . . one step . . . two . . . until we’re standing so close I could touch him. He’s wearing glasses, but his eyes are that piercing shade of blue I could never forget.
“Oh my god,” he whispers, and Iris gasps, Jake! Oh . . . look at you.
I have the strongest urge to kiss him—to lift up onto my toes and press my mouth to his. Something tells me it would feel like coming home. But I understand that the desire belongs to Iris, not me, and I don’t want to scare Jake away. Not when she’s finally found him again.
I set the violin at my feet, and lift my hand toward the daisies. “You remembered,” I say, but I’m speaking for Iris, not myself. Because she can’t.
“Iris loved daisies.” His voice is deep and wavering, so soft I barely hear him. “I thought you might, too.”
I take the bouquet and we stare at each other, speechless.
Ty walks up beside me and clears his throat. “Hello, Mr. Milano. I’m Ty Collier.”
Jake shakes Ty’s hand, saying, “Call me Jake.”
Motioning toward the table, Ty says, “I need coffee.”
“Oh—sure.” Jake waves the waitress over, then pulls out a chair for me. I sit, placing Iris’s violin in my lap and the flowers on the table, off to the side.
Ty takes the chair next to me. Jake sits across from us. The waitress brings coffee and menus, then leaves again. I have a thousand questions, but I don’t know where to start. Jake also seems tongue-tied. He watches me with his mouth slightly open.
I understand his shock. It’s difficult for me not to gape at him, too. I don’t know what I expected—that he’d still look like the face in my dreams? I knew he must be in his midthirties, but it didn’t occur to me how much he would change in eighteen years.
“I’m sorry,” Jake finally says, shaking his head and smiling. “I know I’m staring. It’s just—it’s uncanny how identical you are.”
I smile, too. “I’ve seen a video of Iris. We do look alike.”
“Exactly alike.” He examines my face.
The waitress comes back. I order toast and juice. Jake says he’s fine with coffee. Ty gets the works; clearly his stomach isn’t tied in knots like mine.
When the waitress leaves, I say to Jake, “I thought you might want to see something of Iris’s. For proof that I really am her sister.” Sliding the violin case from my lap, I extend it across the table, using both hands.
Jake’s eyes never leave my face. “I don’t need to see her violin. I know who you are.”
I place the case on the floor beside my chair. I don’t know what to say. Where to start.
Ty saves me from having to decide. “Lily and I have a lot of questions,” he says.
Jake blinks and clears his throat. “How much do you know?”
“I know that my parents lived in Winterhaven before I was born,” I say, “and that their last name was Marshall. I know Mom taught art at the high school and Dad was a research biologist. Mom told me that Iris died of leukemia when she was seventeen. Is that true?”
“Yes.” He closes his eyes. “My god, they did it. They got her back.”
My body turns to ice, and I start shaking; but I tell myself that I’m prepared to hear the truth, that I already know it.
Ty looks at me for one long moment. I nod, pressing my lips together. Beneath the table, I grab his hand and hold on tight.
He faces Jake, and in a quiet voice says, “We know about Adam’s work with animal cloning. Are you saying that Iris was Lily’s . . .” He swallows. “Is she her original?”
“Yes,” Jake whispers.
My stomach lurches, and my chair legs scrape the floor with a shriek as I push to my feet. I thought I was ready to hear the truth, but maybe I was wrong. It didn’t seem real, or even possible, until I heard it spoken. “I’m her clone? Dad did that to me?”
“Lily,” Ty says, reaching for me.
I jerk my arm from his grasp and push past the table, then bolt toward the ladies’ restroom at the back of the restaurant, praying it’s empty. Just in time, I push through the door and drop to my knees in front of the toilet, retching.
I’m at the sink washing my face when I hear the door squeak open behind me. “Are you okay?” Ty asks in a worried voice.
I turn off the water, keeping my back to him and my head lowered. I can’t bear to see his face and read what he thinks of me. “No, I’m not okay. I’m a freak!”
“Don’t say that.” His hand grips my shoulder, and for several long moments, my erratic breathing is the only sound I hear. “I want you to know that when I came to Silver Lake, I knew about your dad’s work,” Ty finally says. “But I didn’t know about this.”
I face him. “But you suspected, didn’t you? You saw me in that photograph on Gail Withers’s desk . . .”
“Lily . . . you’ve suspected it, too. You know you have.”
“Suspecting is one thing. Hearing it confirmed is another.” I lean back against the sink, not trusting my legs to support me. “I’m just a carbon copy of my sister. An experiment.” My voice breaks.
Ty is silent for a long time. Then he nods toward the door. “Let’s go get some air, and then we’ll talk to Jake. That’s why we came here, isn’t it? To get answers?”
I don’t know why I’m striking out at Ty. None of this is his fault. Avoiding his scrutiny, I pull a paper towel from the dispenser on the wall, wipe it across my face, and toss it into the trash bin. Then I follow him outside to the parking lot. He’s right. I’m tired of trying to piece together the fragments of Iris’s life, and mine. I wanted the truth, and now that I have it I can’t pretend it isn’t so.
I’m my sister’s clone. That’s the reason we have a psychic connection, and why I glimpse her memories. She’s not a ghost, she’s a part of me—no, I’m a part of her. I never would’ve existed without Iris.
“You want to talk or just walk?” Ty asks as we step outside, a breeze ruffling his hair.
“Walk,” I croak.
As we start around the perimeter of the parking lot, I breathe in the warm, humid air. It bathes over me, washing away my denial. The roar of city traffic on the highway sounds as peculiar to me as my life has become. But no matter how strange or frightening it is, I can’t hide from it.
It takes three laps before I’m finally cried out. “I’m ready,” I tell Ty. “Let’s go back in before he decides to leave.”
Ty ducks his head to capture my attention. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” I push his hair back, let my fingertips linger. I’m so glad I have him to lean on. “Thank you,” I say.
“Anytime.” He smiles and takes my hand.
We go back inside the restaurant and I slump into the chair across the table from Jake, shaking from head to toe. He looks ragged as he scrubs a hand across his face and drags it back through his hair.
“How could Dad do that to me? To her?” I ask him, my voice breaking again. “He used his own daughter! He made me a freak.”
Ty’s arms wrap around me. He holds on tight, but not tight enough to still Iris. I sense her energy inside me more strongly than I ever have before. She’s the fluttering in my breastbone, the sinking sensation in my stomach, the press of dread surrounding my heart.
Crying again—for her, for myself—I sink into Ty, but it’s Iris I cling to. She’s the only one who really understands how I feel. The song from the music box flows through my veins as she hums it, trying to comfort me.
Our food arrived while Ty and I were gone. Jake pushes his coffee aside, his face flushing red. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t know what to say.”
I sit up and sniff, staring down at my plate of toast. “Have you always known about me?”
“No,” Jake says. “I knew they tried, but I didn’t think it worked.” Looking from me to Ty, he adds, �
�You said you suspected . . . how?”
Ty explains the events that led him to me as I sit numb and speechless beside him.
“Adam and Melanie must have been afraid that Ian Beckett wouldn’t keep their secret about the cloning,” Jake says. “He was in on the whole thing. It was his idea to begin with. But he was an egomaniac with an agenda. If he knew the cloning was a success, he would’ve leaked it to the media. I’m sure the Marshalls didn’t want you to become some kind of sideshow phenomenon.” I flinch, and Jake sits forward, wincing. “Lily, I’m sorry. That was insensitive.”
“But that’s what I am, isn’t it? And what’s worse, the experiment wasn’t a success, it was a disappointment. I was a disappointment.”
“That’s not true,” Ty says gently.
“I think I was to Mom. She’d get so unhappy. And the way she looked at me sometimes.” I grab a paper napkin from the dispenser, wipe my eyes, then clutch it in my hand. “She probably wanted a perfect duplicate of Iris, but instead she got a poor imitation.”
“Why would you think such a thing?” Jake asks.
“I’ve seen Iris play the violin. I found a video online. She was amazing.”
“But so are you,” says Ty.
I shake my head. “I couldn’t do it in front of an audience like she did. She was so calm. So perfect. The way she looked . . . everything.”
Jake sits straighter, his eyes going wide. “You can play?”
Ty nods. “Yeah, and she’s incredible, whether she’ll admit it or not.”
Pride blooms inside of me, sweet and soft and unexpected. Maybe there is something good in all of this. My sister’s talent somehow became mine, and it’s a wonderful gift. “Thank you,” I say. “Not that I had anything to do with it.”
Jake smiles. “I’d love to hear you play sometime. Iris’s music meant everything to her. Whenever she’d hear from a fan about how much joy it brought them, she’d be so happy. There was something special about it. Something soothing and powerful.”
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