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"I still think of you as Mom," I murmured.
Laura's lips trembled and she blinked away tears. "I still think of you girls as my daughters. I always will."
"Why didn't you want us?" Dani asked, turning to Rachel. "Why did you give us to your sister to raise?"
Rachel drew in a quick breath as Dani went on the offensive. "I had problems with depression and anxiety, issues that got worse during my teen years. But I also think there was post-partum depression, too. I didn't really know what it was, I just knew I felt bad, and I couldn't be a good mother. You deserved better. There was no one better than my sister, no one I would trust with my kids."
"How did you feel about that?" I asked Laura.
"I was furious when Rachel left. I thought she'd come back, but she didn't, and she made it clear that I was to be your mother." She gave me an emotional smile. "I loved you both from the first minute you were born. It was an honor and a blessing to be your mother. You and Dani gave me so much love, joy, and purpose. I felt like it was a new start. And I hoped that Rachel would find happiness, too."
"Did you love our father?" Dani asked. "I'm not talking about Max Davino; I'm talking about Ross Landry."
"I did love him," my mom said. "Ross was so good to me and to you girls. He was solid and kind and caring. He'd lost his family, and he was happy to take on a woman with two little babies. He wanted you to be his daughters. That's why we never told you that you were adopted. When I had to leave you, I knew you would be all right with your dad. I wasn't leaving you in a bad situation. I was giving you a chance to have a normal, happy, and safe life."
Her words hung in the air for a long moment. I didn’t want to say our dad hadn't been the hands-on father she remembered. In fact, I didn't want to talk about him at all right now.
"What happened in New Orleans?" I asked. "Did you leave knowing you were going to fake your death? Or did something happen there?"
"Something happened," my mom said.
"Because of me," Rachel added. "I'd been living in New Orleans, working at a café, trying to stay out of trouble when I made friends with a woman in my yoga class. I thought she was a travel agent, but it turned out that she and her boyfriend were helping to set up a smuggling pipeline of drugs and guns from the Gulf Coast up to New York."
"And that tied into Max's family?" I asked.
"Yes. My friend never said exactly what she was doing, but her boyfriend drank too much one night, and he had a whole lot to say about his friends in New York, which gave me an idea."
I could see by the gleam in Rachel's eyes that it wasn't a good idea.
"I thought," Rachel continued. "That if I dug up dirt on this smuggling operation, I could send Max to jail and get him off my trail and make him pay for killing that guard, even if he didn't go to prison for that crime. I started asking questions and spending more time with my friends, and I got too close to the group. Someone recognized me and told Max. I was shocked when he showed up in the city. I called your mom and told her Max was in New Orleans, and I needed to get out, but I was afraid to leave my apartment. She said she'd be on the next plane."
"I couldn't let her face him alone," my mother said.
"I told her to bring the stones that I'd left with her in case I needed to barter them," Rachel continued. "When your mom got into town, we were supposed to meet someone to get me a new identity. The meet was at an old cemetery, which seemed perfectly ironic for starting a new life, but Max caught up to us. He had his friend, Jonah, with him, and I ended up killing him in self-defense. I hit him over the head with a shovel. It gave us time to get away."
"For the next few days," Rachel continued, "there was nothing but chaos in the area. Rising waters were everywhere. The place where I'd been staying was flooded. We couldn't go back there even if we wanted to. I said something like someone will find my stuff and think I'm dead." Rachel looked at my mom. "And then we both realized that was the only way out. We had to die in the storm. There was no going back. Max had seen both of us."
"So you faked your deaths," Dani said heavily. "It seems like you had other choices."
"Maybe. But we had to decide fast," Rachel said.
"And protecting you girls was my priority," my mom said. "I couldn't risk going back to you, to your father, to the life I'd led. I would have put everyone in danger."
"Wait a second," I said, looking at Rachel. "Max didn't know you had a twin before New Orleans? How is that possible?"
"I met Max when I was pissed off at your mom. I told you that I was angry and envious of her life," Rachel said. "I didn't talk about her to anyone. I didn't tell Max I had a sister. I told him I had no family, and that's why I needed money."
"Okay," I said, trying to keep up with the story. "What happened after you left New Orleans?"
"We started over," Rachel said. "I told your mother I'd never ask her to come to me again. We had to stay apart, but we'd send each other postcards whenever we were thinking about each other. It would be our way of saying I love you."
"The postcards in the box," I said. "Now that makes sense."
"I made a new life in San Francisco," my mom continued.
"And I went to Phoenix for a while," Rachel said. "While I was there, I got in touch with a cop in New Orleans who I knew had been working on taking down the smuggling operation. I told him everything I knew about the organization and the Davino family. Eventually he, along with some cops in New York, busted Max and his family for at least some of their criminal operations. Max was sent to jail for ten years."
"That's why Max said you set him up," I said.
