by Melanie Rose
“Karen!” I cried, taking her arm and drawing her into the sitting room. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
She stared at me incredulously. “But I didn’t tell anyone I was coming.”
“Come in and sit down,” I said, taking her shaggy jacket as she stood watching my every move. “How was the journey?”
She ignored my question and spluttered, “How did you know I was coming? I haven’t even told Lauren; I left her asleep upstairs. You are Jessica, aren’t you?”
“You told me when you got back,” I explained, restraining Frankie, who was trying to claim our attention by jumping up against Karen’s trousers. “Please don’t look so worried, Karen. It’s me, Jessica… Lauren… your new sister.”
Karen sank heavily onto the couch, and Frankie rested her head against Karen’s ample calves, gazing up at her with adoring eyes.
“Frankie likes you,” I commented, trying to put her at ease.
“This is so weird,” she said. “I wanted to see you for myself, but I wasn’t sure if it would be safe… Have I done the right thing?”
“It’s quite safe, Karen. Lauren experiences each day first, that’s all. You left me a note propped in the fridge telling me you were coming here. When you get home this afternoon you tell Lauren… me… a bit about your visit, that you’ve been here today, so I… Jessica… knew you were coming by here today.”
Karen rubbed a hand over her eyes as if trying to dispel a nightmare.
“Bloody hell.”
I grinned at her. “Fancy a cup of tea?” She nodded, still looking shell-shocked.
It didn’t take long to make two mugs of tea in my small kitchen, and I walked back into the sitting room and handed one to Karen, who, it seemed, couldn’t take her eyes off me.
“You’re as pretty as Lauren, but in a different way,” she said at last. “I can see why you don’t want to be blond; your hair is a lovely color.”
“Thanks. By the time you get home, Lauren will have been to the hairdresser and had lowlights put in.”
Sipping at my tea, I couldn’t help smiling at her bemused expression. She must have felt she was sitting drinking tea with a complete stranger, whereas I felt completely at home with this woman who’d believed until only a few days ago that I was her sister.
“Would you like to see around the flat?” I asked, more to break the tension than from any desire to show her my possessions.
“Yes, I’d like that. I want to know the real person who’s masquerading as my sister.”
“I’m sorry, Karen, I know this must be difficult for you, but you must believe that I never asked for any of this.”
“How do you do it?” she asked as she followed me into the bedroom and then peeked into my tiny bathroom.” How do you cope with being dropped into the life of a mother of four, in that huge house that’s so different to everything you have here?”
I shrugged. “No choice. It’s where I wake up in the mornings. I just do the best I can.”
I watched as her shoulders relaxed slightly, and then she smiled.
“I’m sorry if you think I’m giving you a hard time. This is all so strange. Once I suspected you weren’t my sister, I had to accept your explanation of what happened to her, but seeing you in the body of a complete stranger is really freaky. I don’t know what I was expecting to find by coming here, but I don’t think I expected to find you. On the way over here in the car I thought about all the things I was going to ask you, but when you opened the door I was struck dumb. I can’t get my head around it at all.”
“Don’t try,” I said, smiling back. “We’ll both go mad if we think about it too much. How about having some lunch? I went out and bought some oven fries this morning. I know how much you like them!”
She laughed then and followed me into the kitchen, where I put the oven on and sprinkled some fries onto a baking tray.
“I thought you’d appreciate this, since it’s the meal that gave my identity away,” I chuckled. “Sophie obviously realized that as I’d lost my memory she could pull a fast one and tell me that I gave them all oven fries, ketchup, and ice cream every day!”
“I definitely thought that something very odd was going on,” Karen admitted. “Lauren never let them have fries as a main meal; I expect they were only in the freezer as a standby. I just didn’t know at that point how strange things were going to become!”
Karen stayed for over an hour, then glanced at her wrist-watch.
I ought to be getting back. Lauren might be worrying about me.”
“I was worrying about you,” I said. “But you got home before me and started the dinner.”
“I’m thinking of doing spaghetti Bolognese,” she said. “Do I change my mind on the way home?”
“No,” I laughed. “You make a delicious Bolognese sauce. But I won’t tell you any more about what happens later. It isn’t a good idea to tell someone what’s going to happen in the future.”
“I’ll obey the same rule when I get home then,” she said. “I won’t tell you too much about what happened today, because as Lauren you won’t have had Jessica’s version of today.”
“Right then,” I said, shaking my head with a confused smile. “I’ll see you later.”
I waved from the door as she walked back up the courtyard steps and disappeared around the corner, then I pulled on a coat and took Frankie for another walk. I had only been back in the flat ten minutes and was pulling off my shoes when the doorbell rang. I answered it to find Dan standing there.
“Would you care to join Dad and me for some tea?” he asked.
I glanced at my watch; clock-watching had become a necessity of late.
“It’s a bit early for tea, but I’d love to come over. How is your father?”
“He’s great, but he gets lonely when I’m at work all day, even when I leave Bessie there to keep him company. I thought we might cook another meal together at my place and share it with the old man. Do you like cooking?”
“I don’t dislike it,” I said, thinking guiltily of the oven fries I’d served my guest at lunchtime. “What did you have in mind?”
“I stopped off and bought some minced beef on the way over here. Do you like spaghetti Bolognese?”
I nearly laughed, but stopped myself in time. “That would be lovely,” I said, struggling to keep my expression neutral. “Do you need me to bring anything or have you got it all?”
“I forgot to buy any black pepper, if you’ve got some.”
I nodded and headed for the kitchen, remembering only at the last minute that I hadn’t cleared away the lunch things. Dan followed me in and stood staring at the used mugs and plates I’d carelessly heaped onto the drying rack before taking Frankie for her walk.
“You’ve had company then?”
“Er… yes, an old friend dropped by for lunch.”
“Oh.”
He looked horribly suspicious and doubtful, and I realized that he might think it had been Stephen.
“It was a female friend named Karen.”
“Oh, well, it’s none of my business anyway.”
I could feel his eyes boring into the back of my head as I rummaged in the kitchen cupboard for the pepper mill, and I felt myself flush guiltily. I hoped he wouldn’t probe too deeply about Karen, because as Jessica I had no way of knowing her, and I didn’t want to start lying to him again if I could help it. I couldn’t very well tell him she was my sister when he knew I didn’t have one.
“Do you mind if I change quickly? I’ve been out walking Frankie and I could do with a brush-up.”
“Go ahead,” he said, taking the pepper mill from me and settling himself onto the sofa. “There’s no rush.”
When I’d changed into a clean pair of jeans and T-shirt and reapplied my makeup, I returned to find him leaning back on the sofa, eyes closed.
“Hard day?” I asked him, perching next to him and resting my hand on his knee.
He opened his eyes and smiled.
“I can’t get anything done. Since I met you all I think about is you. I can hardly wait to come over and see you, and work has suddenly become a chore.”
“If it’s any consolation, I feel the same way,” I said, returning the smile. “I was hoping to see you today, but I didn’t want you to feel suffocated.”
He shook his head. “Not possible. I told you, I’m besotted with you, Jessica. I was worried you might be the one feeling stifled.”
He fidgeted with the zipper on one of the cushions, breaking eye contact with me, then said suddenly, “I don’t know what’s got into me. You have no idea how incredibly jealous I felt when I saw you’d had someone here for lunch. I’ve never been that way before! My previous girlfriends complained I wasn’t demonstrative enough, that I didn’t show them I cared about them.”
“And did you?”
“Not really, nothing like this, though I suppose I thought I cared at the time.”
I leaned toward him until our faces were nearly touching, and breathed in the scent of him.
“We’re so lucky,” I whispered. “Most people never experience anything like this in their whole lives. It’s a mixture of liking and accepting each other, faults and all… and,” I giggled, “the sex isn’t bad, either.”
He leaned a little closer still, so that our noses were only a hair’s breadth apart. I could feel his breath caressing my skin.
“I love you, Jessica Taylor,” he murmured. “I understand we haven’t known each other long, but I know without a doubt that I want to be with you, have lots of children with you, and grow old and wrinkly together.”
I gazed at him, slightly taken aback. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you? And you want children?”
“Lots,” he repeated with a grin. “To make up for all the brothers and sisters out there that I never got to know.”
I pulled back even further and watched his expression carefully. “And after what happened to your mother, what would you do if there was something wrong with one of our children? Would you run a mile, or stay the course?”
“Any child of ours would be perfect,” he said firmly.
“But if it wasn’t? What then?”
He frowned as he considered his answer. “If we love each other enough we could cope with anything, Jessica. With you at my side I would stay forever, no matter what problems we had to face.”
I almost told him then, but something still held me back. My problem sounded so far-fetched, even to my own ears, that I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. Instead I leaned toward him again and traced the outline of his lips with the tip of my tongue. He put his arms around me, pulling me close, and we clung together, lost in each other’s embrace.
On Wednesday morning the weather broke, and I awoke to the sound of rain lashing at Lauren’s bedroom windows. After dressing hurriedly I helped Karen prepare the children for school. I was late, and since Karen had been expecting me to be up in time this morning, everyone was behind and consequently in bad moods.
“I haven’t got long; Dan thinks I’m having a nap after dinner,” I whispered to Karen as I hurried the boys to get their shoes on.
“Mum, I want to see Blackie before we go to school,” Sophie wailed as I tried to brush her long hair into a ponytail.
“It’s too wet. I’ll feed the animals when I get home,” I promised. “And you can see her this evening.”
“But you said I could take Ginny to school to show to my class,” Nicole whined, catching her sister’s mood. “Everyone is waiting to see her.”
“You can take her tomorrow,” I said, handing her one of the raincoats Karen had found in the under-stairs cupboard. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”
“Not going,” Teddy said, as I helped him tie his laces. “Don’t want go!”
“Teddy is a baby, Teddy is a baby!” Toby chanted.
“Stop it, Toby. You’re not helping your brother, are you?” I said crossly.
“He doesn’t like the rain, so he is a baby, isn’t he?” Toby said, trying to stare me down.
“You should be kind to your brother, Toby. Tell him he doesn’t have to worry about a bit of rain.”
“You’re all going to be late to school at this rate,” Karen said unnecessarily. “The traffic’s always worse when it’s raining.”
I took Teddy’s hand and started walking toward the garage, but he resisted, pulling against me.
“Won’t go, won’t go!” he shouted. I turned, trying to get a better grip on his hand, when his foot shot out and caught me directly on the shin.
“Ouch! Teddy, that hurt!”
He stared at me, his lower lip trembling, then he flung his arms around my waist and buried his head in my coat.
“Don’t catch fire, Mummy,” he sobbed. “Don’t go ’way.”
“Oh, Teddy,” I said, crouching down and putting my arms around his shaking shoulders. “I’m not going to get hurt again. There’s no lightning, it’s just rain.”
I held him against me until his sobs had subsided, then wiped his smeary face with a tissue. “I promise nothing will happen to me. Come and look out of the window. See? Just big raindrops, no thunder, no lightning. It’s quite safe.”
He stared at me, sticking out his bottom lip in a doubtful pout. We both looked up as Sophie stuck her head in from the garage and called that we were going to be late if we didn’t hurry up.
“We’re coming, Sophie,” I called back. I got to my feet and ruffled Teddy’s hair. “Will you be all right now?”
He nodded dubiously, and clung tightly to my hand as we walked to the car.
“See, Teddy? We don’t even have to go outside.”
After making sure all the children had their seat belts fastened, I drove out into the gray morning with a sigh. As Karen had predicted, our late start and the weather meant that the traffic was twice as heavy as usual. I wouldn’t be back by nine now, and Dan would be worried that I was sleeping for so long. I hoped to goodness that he had the good sense to leave me be.
chapter seventeen
Dan was sitting on a chair watching me when I woke up at half past nine that evening in his bed, where I’d gone more than two hours earlier on the pretext of needing a nap. Predictably, Teddy had cried even more desperately when I’d left him at nursery school. It was only when I had promised him he could leave at the end of the term, and that Daddy and I had found a lovely school for him nearby, that he’d eventually relinquished his grip on my clothing.
The traffic had been slow on the way back; the only good thing was that the rain seemed to have kept Jason at home, since there was no sign of him or his bike. As soon as I got in, I had to race down the garden in the torrential rain to feed the animals, before hurrying upstairs to lie down.
For an awful moment, as I lay there panting, my heart pounding from the rushing about, my hair damp from the rain, I thought I wasn’t going to be able to sleep. But the ability to swap from one body to another was still with me, and it wasn’t long before I felt myself begin to drift.
“Jessica?” Dan said as I began to stir. “You’ve been asleep for a long time. I was beginning to think you were going to be here for the night.”
“I’m sorry, Dan,” I said, sitting up. “I must have been more tired than I thought.”
I got up and crossed to the hand mirror he kept on the windowsill and straightened my tousled hair. When I looked up he was still watching me.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s something wrong with you, isn’t there? The fainting at the office the other day, the collapse while I was with you at the flat. This ability of yours to sleep so soundly. What is it, Jessica?”
I felt myself grow hot under his scrutiny.
“It’s nothing, just a residual tiredness from the lightning strike.”
He came and stood behind me and pulled my arm around so I was facing him.
“That’s not the whole truth, is it?�
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I tried to avoid his gaze, but he cupped my face in his hands and stared directly into my eyes.
“Tell me the truth, Jessica… please.”
“I’m so sorry, Dan,” I stammered. “I love you, and I don’t want to lose you.”
“Tell me!”
“I… I can’t.”
He dropped his hands to his sides and walked to the other side of the room. I could see the frustration in his every move, but I didn’t know what to tell him. He stared at me, then came back toward me and tried again.
“Tell me, Jessica. Nothing can be worse than what I’m imagining.”
“It was the lightning strike,” I said in a hoarse whisper. “It… did something to me.”
“What?” he cried. “You’ve said that once before. Is it those turns you were having? Is it something that… can’t be fixed?”
I turned and stared out of the window at the dark night. I could feel him standing behind me, but he didn’t touch me.
“I asked you once if you believed in life after death,” I said quietly. “I asked if you thought you would know a soul even if it wasn’t in a body you recognized.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
He sounded desperate, and I wanted more than anything in the world to hold him and tell him that everything was all right. The trouble was, I admitted to myself at last, it wasn’t all right. It never could be all right. I had been living in the ridiculous hope that I could juggle being two people at once. I had lied to him, and to Lauren’s family. I was, although unwittingly, a fraud, and I wasn’t good enough for someone as wonderful as Dan.
“I’m not who you think I am,” I said at last. “Since the lightning strike I have been living the lives of two people. I’m Jessica some of the time, but when I sleep my life force transfers to a woman called Lauren. She’s the mother of four children, Dan. And the friend I had over for lunch today was her sister… my sister.”
Dan was standing with his mouth open. I knew I was hurting him terribly. After what had happened to his mother he would have no choice but to think I was crazy, and the knowledge was as painful to me as having a stake driven through my heart.