I turn to the sink and run my wrists under cold water until my head feels clearer, and then I return to the dining room with the photo, and pass it to Kiara.
“That’s our mother, with one of us, presumably—me or Danny. With her new baby, anyway. Apparently, she was convinced before she died that someone was trying to steal her baby.” I give a short laugh. “And yet they ended up with two of us.”
Kiara scrutinizes the picture. “You look like her,” she tells me. “You look like your mother.” I feel tears well up suddenly.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Danny shifts on his chair. “So what did your dad tell you about your mum?” he asks Kiara. “When were you born?”
She passes the photo back to me carefully. “Twenty-first of July 1992,” she says.
The three of us stare at her.
She stiffens. “What?”
“That’s...” Danny shakes his head.
Edwin pushes his chair back a little, putting his hands on the table as if about to get up, but then he stays in that position, his face turned away.
I manage to start breathing again. “That’s our birthday,” I say eventually. “Danny and I were born that day too.”
Kiara looks around the room, up at the ceiling, back down again. “Oh.” There’s a long silence.
“Okay,” Danny says eventually. “So we were all born on the same day. What do you know about your mum?”
Kiara closes her eyes for a moment. “She died soon after I was born,” she says, her tone flat, as if she’s reciting. “In India. My dad brought me to England when I was very young, used my Indian birth certificate to get me a British birth certificate, since he’s British. I’ve looked at both the certificates, many times, but my mother’s name on the Indian document is smudged, illegible, and the British document says ‘unverified.’ He says he loved her, but it hurts too much to talk about her.”
Edwin turns to stare at her, his eyes wide.
“Was she Indian?” Danny asks. “Your mother?”
“No, British too.”
“So why were you born there?” Danny asks.
Kiara shrugs. “I wonder sometimes whether I really was. It seems a convenient story.”
Edwin says, “I used to call your father Uncle Alex. I’m sure he used to visit us here the year you were born. I remember him being here with Laura. He never brought a girlfriend or a wife here that I remember.”
“He was friends with Laura,” I say. “They took you to the doctor once, Edwin, when you cut yourself, do you remember? Pamela Larch told me.”
Edwin looks at me blankly, but Kiara sits forward.
“Is that why you wanted to talk to him? Because he was a friend of Laura’s?” she asks.
I nod. “I thought Laura might have told him something about us after she left here, or they might still be in touch and maybe he could persuade her to talk to me. I thought he might knowsomething. I didn’t know he had his own daughter, and his own secrets.”
“So, let’s get this straight,” Kiara says, and we sit up a little in our chairs in response to her tone. “Your mother had a baby on the twenty-first of July 1992. So did my mother. Your mother believed someone wanted to steal her baby. You were brought up as your mother’s twins, but you don’t think you can be.”
We’re all watching her. I’m holding my breath.
She pauses. “Okay. All three of us were born on the same day. Your parents had one baby, but acquired a second one. Or, possibly, your mother had one baby that was stolen, then acquired two more. Both of our mothers died around the same time. Unless your motherwasmy mother?”
She looks from me to Danny.
“But I look nothing like the lady in the photo, and that would leave both of you with no known parents, and yet you do both look like your parents...”
Her shoulders slump. She shakes her head in defeat.
