“And Laura’s...” I say.
He waves his hand, cutting me off. “And Alex is your dad.”
He finally looks at me. We stare at each other. Something shifts in his eyes then, and he drops his gaze.
“Well, you got what you wanted, I guess,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“Summerbourne.”
My mouth falls open, but no words form.
“She’ll give it to you now, won’t she?” he continues. “Once she finds out you’re her grandchild and I’m not. You’ll get the house you always wanted, from your murderer grandmother. Congratulations.”
I shake my head. “Danny, that’s not fair. It’s not like that.”
“It’s why you started all this, isn’t it?”
“No!” I sit forward, reach a hand toward him. “That’s not why! I wanted—I just wanted—” I’m short of breath, and I can’t gather the words together. “If she gives Summerbourne to me, I’ll give it to you, okay? I just—I knew something wasn’t right. I just wanted to know where I came from. Who I was. Who I am.”
He tilts his head back against the sofa and closes his eyes, and we sit for a while in silence, waiting for Edwin to get back. My twin brother is not my brother. He has a new twin sister. And she’s—a tear slides down my cheek—perfect for him.
The silence lengthens. The heat of the day is fading, and I rub my arms, too drained of energy to get up and find a cardigan.
Eventually, Danny sighs loudly. “I guess I should have known.”
“What?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” He rolls his head back down and shoots me a sideways look. “I always wondered why I got all the good genes, and you didn’t. Now it finally makes sense.”
I blow out a puff of air. “Danny...”
“All those hours I wasted trying to teach you stuff. Trying to show you how to play cricket when you just wanted to reada boring old book on the cliffs. I should have realized then we weren’t related.”
I shake my head, watching him through narrowed eyes.
He leans back again, and gives an even more exaggerated sigh. The corner of his mouth twitches. “Thank God.”
He’s still the same person. Even though my vision is blurred with tears, I manage to land a blow on his arm with my cushion. He lets out a huff of a laugh.
“Be very careful,” I say, my voice scratchy. “I’m still older than you.”
He makes a dismissive noise in his throat, and settles his head back more comfortably, but his expression retains the trace of a smile. I retrieve my cushion and hug it to my chest.
Edwin returns, and the three of us drink beer and talk as the setting sun turns the Summerbourne sitting room orange and pink. I wonder what Alex and Kiara are saying to each other on their drive home. I wonder whether Laura will contact us again, or whether any of us will contact her. I wonder whether Vera will get any sleep tonight in her cell. I wonder whether Joel is thinking about me as much as I’m thinking about him.
“Did you notice the engraving on Laura’s locket?” Edwin asks.
Danny and I shake our heads.
“It has three hearts with zigzag lines across. Like—broken hearts, I guess. But why three?”
“Who cares?” Danny says, and springs up from the sofa, waving away any further talk about Laura. He retrieves the old family photo album from the bookshelf, and as he passes it to Edwin, it falls open at the empty double page. Edwin quickly flips to the next page, and all three of us lean in to study it in silence.
Danny and I were always told this was the first picture takenof us after all those months lost to grief when we were born. It’s a bright winter scene, the ground blanketed in snow, and five-year-old Edwin wears a navy blue duffle coat and bright blue mittens and no hat. The bare branches of the Summerbourne orchard are visible behind him, and he holds a carrot and stands next to a noseless snowman. Instead of looking at the camera, his eyes are fixed on two babies propped up in an old-fashioned baby carriage.
I have a sudden memory of Dad telling me this was the brief stage when Danny and I were the same size; when he’d just caught up with me, before he surged ahead and left me forever the smaller one. We wear red pom-pom hats, almost certainly knitted by Vera, and we’re zipped into quilted snowsuits, wedged in next to each other, and we stare out at the world—at the snow, the sky, our big brother—with matching startled expressions.
