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Somehow,they convinced Pen to sit down. To have some ice cream. Oakley looked a lot like Zoey. Like…a lotlike Zoey. Far more than Pen did. Even more than Keller did. Orion looked a little bit like Caine and Rafe, but more like Zoey, too. They were beautiful. And happy.
Orion talked to his Jilly Silly doll a lot. Like a lot. Oakley said that doll was his best friend. He almost constantly chattered to that doll.
Pen looked at Zoey, who was helping him with his ice cream. “Has he met Jillian yet?”
“I don’t think so.” Zoey gave a rueful grin. “I think she’ll cause a bit of a sensation when he does.”
“Probably.” So…were they just supposed to go on like nothing hadhappened?
When Zoey had been in the hospital before, they had had…time. Well, Pen supposed they had just gone on like nothing had ever happened then, too.
Was this the way being an adult was? You just kept going on like nothinghappened?
Anxiety churned up her gut. She didn’t know if she could do that.
Zoey was watching her. “We’ll get through this, Pen. I promise. I’m going to book usallcounseling appointments, as soon as we are ready. And we have each other. It’s going to take a while, but we’ll be ok. I promise. I love you. I’m going to make sure we are all ok.”
But Zoey was going to be busy now. With two little kids who needed a mom and a dad. Zoey’s life was going to be completely different now.
Pen wanted her sister to focus on her new family now.
Pen would be ok. She just had to make sure she was ok. So Zoey would concentrate on living her own life now. That was what she wanted for her sister, more than anything in the world.
Murdoch was there, but he was off to one side. Talking to Marc and Elliot Marshall. He looked like he should be at home, sleeping or something. But…he kept looking at Zoey.
He wasn’t about to go anywhere without her sister.
They were off to the side, at this little private table. Away from those…women.
Pen had a hard time trying not to look at them. Aunts, cousins…there were supposed to be sisters around somewhere, too. And maybe…a little brother? She wasn’t really sure who they were, at all.
Rafe and Caine had told her. About thatothergirl. Just quietly told her that her mother had left Pen at the hospital without her twin sister. Her twin sister had been left on her mother’s sister’s living room rug. That was it. Just…left.
Her identical twin sister. Their mother had just ripped them apart, like she had Caine and Rafe years before. Pen had just nodded and turned away.
She wasn’t ready for this.
Pen…didn’t even know how she felt abouthereither.
None of this made sense.
154
Crispinprobably really should have thought this through a bit better. What was she going to do? Just barge up to some blue-haired girl and say, “hi, I’m your long-lost twin?”
They’d been separated for almost nineteen years. That had been way long enough. Even if she ended up not being able to stand her twin—she at least wanted to look at her. To talk to her.
Make sure she was real. And ok.
Samia opened the cafeteria doors. “Joy and Heather and the rest, except for Marcia and Norm, are in here. Are you hungry, Cris? Mom? We can eat first.”
Crispin hadn’t felt like eating really. She’d eaten a biscuit off her breakfast tray, that was it. “I’m…ok. I don’t really want food right now.”
“I just want to get the rest of my girls,” her mom said from the wheelchair. “Then we’ll go home.”
Her mom had a black eye. And her lip had been stitched. There was a cast on her left wrist, too. Cashlyn had wrapped her mom’s ribs. Her knees were bruised too. And her kidneys and stuff. Where she’d been kicked. But there was an odd…dignity around her mom right now. A poise and acceptance that Crispin just didn’t understand.
“I just want…to know everyone is going to be ok.” She just needed toseethem for herself. That’s when she would believe it fully.
