Lily swallowed.
“Today.”
I felt my heartbeat in my throat.
“Where?”
“At the coffee shop near campus.”
Dad grabbed the table.
“Did she speak to you?”
Lily nodded.
“She walked straight up to me.”
“What did she say?”
Lily looked frightened now.
“She asked if my name was Lily Carter.”
My legs weakened.
“And?”
“I said yes.”
“What happened next?”
“She started crying.”
Dad and I exchanged a look.
“Did she tell you her name?”
“Yes.”
“Emma?”
Lily shook her head.
“No.”
The air left my lungs.
“She said her name was Emily.”
Silence.
Then Lily reached into the pocket of her sweatshirt.
“She gave me this.”
It was a folded note.
My hands trembled as I opened it.
There was only one sentence.
Ask your mother what she remembers about the blue blanket.
I nearly dropped it.
The blue blanket.
When the twins were babies, Emily had a pale blue knitted blanket made by my grandmother.
It had a tiny mistake in one corner where two stitches crossed.
Emily refused to sleep without it.
She dragged it everywhere until she was five.
And the night the ambulance took her to the hospital, she had been wrapped in that blanket.
No newspaper had ever mentioned it.
No medical record would have explained its significance.
Only family knew.
“Mom?” Lily whispered.
I sat down.
“It was hers.”
Dad stared at me.
“What?”
“The blue blanket belonged to Emily.”
Lily covered her mouth.
“She knew.”
Then the doorbell rang.
All three of us froze.
It was nearly midnight.
Nobody moved.
The bell rang again.
Dad stepped toward the hallway.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
I followed him.
So did Lily.
We reached the front door.
Through the frosted glass, I could see the outline of a person standing on the porch.
Small.
Female.
Dad looked at me.
My hands shook as I unlocked the door.
I opened it.
A young woman stood beneath the porch light.
Eighteen years old.
Light brown hair.
Pale blue eyes.
And beneath her chin was a tiny crescent-shaped scar.
For thirteen years, I had imagined what I would say if heaven somehow gave me one more minute with my daughter.
Now I couldn’t say anything.
The young woman stared at me.
Her lips trembled.
Then she whispered, “Mom?”
My knees buckled.
Lily caught me.
The girl stepped forward, crying.
“Please. I know how this looks.”
“Emily?”
She nodded.
I reached toward her face but stopped inches away, terrified that touching her would make her disappear.
She closed the distance herself.
The moment my palm touched her cheek, something inside me shattered.
I pulled her into my arms.
She smelled like rain and vanilla shampoo.
Not like the five-year-old I remembered.
Of course not.
She was grown.
But when she cried against my shoulder, she made the same tiny hiccupping sound Emily had made as a child.
I knew.
I simply knew.
Lily joined us.
For the first time in thirteen years, I held both girls.
Then Emily suddenly stiffened.
She pulled away.
“We can’t stay here.”
Dad’s expression changed.
“Why?”
Emily looked toward the dark street.
“Because someone followed me.”
The warmth vanished from my body.
Dad immediately locked the door.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Emily reached into her coat.
“I found something three months ago. That’s how I learned my real name.”
She pulled out a thick envelope.
“My parents—the people who raised me—never knew what happened. My mom died last year. When we cleaned out her things, I found a safe-deposit key.”
“What was inside?” I asked.
Deel 2: Mijn man verliet me nadat we een van onze tweelingdochters verloren t1
