I.D.

by Peter Lerangis

  Yes.

  I know them.

  I’ve seen them.

  “Come in,” Mrs. Wainwright said uncertainly.

  The couple sank into the sofa. Eve sat in an armchair.

  “I—I don’t mean to upset you,” Eve began. “I don’t even know for sure why I’m here. I live in Fayette—?

  “Fayette?” Mrs. Wainwright said. “You traveled all that way alone?”

  “How old are you, Eve?” asked Mr. Wainwright.

  No. I can’t let this distract us.

  “Almost seventeen,” Eve lied.

  The Wainwrights didn’t flinch.

  “I had to come,” Eve barreled on, “because I saw a photo of your daughter, and she looked so much like me.” She smiled weakly. “So I guess, what I want to know is…”

  The words were knotted in her throat.

  A tear fell softly down Mrs. Wainwright’s cheek.

  Mr. Wainwright was looking at her expectantly.

  Say it!

  “I was adopted,” Eve said. “I’m looking for my birth parents.”

  “Oh, my…” Mrs. Wainwright seemed to be receding into the sofa. Her husband shot her a look.

  That’s it.

  I was right.

  “So…I guess that means—? Eve closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re the ones, right?”

  “The ones?” Mr. Wainwright repeated.

  “I mean, it’s okay and all,” Eve added. “I don’t, like, hate you or anything. I don’t want you to take me in or give me money or whatever. I guess I just wanted to know who you were. To see you. And also to ask about Alexis. To find out how she—?

  “Eve,” Mr. Wainwright interjected. “We’re not your birth parents. Although I can understand how you might think so.”

  “You’re not?”

  Mrs. Wainwright shook her head. “Alexis was adopted, too.”

  No.

  “But the resemblance—between her and me—?

  “Uncanny,” Mr. Wainwright said. He glanced at his wife uncomfortably.

  “Eve,” Mrs. Wainwright said, “I’d be willing to bet your parents used the same agency we did—A Better Chance?”

  “Yes…” Eve replied.

  “So perhaps you and Alexis were…” Mr. Wainwright began.

  Of course.

  Sisters, yes. Just not Wainwright sisters. Not originally.

  “From the same birth mother,” Eve said. “Is that what happened? She gave us both away?”

  “That’d be my guess,” Mr. Wainwright said.

  Eve felt her eyes welling up.

  Now what?

  A dead sister. No parents. A train ride for nothing.

  Mrs. Wainwright stood up. She knelt next to Eve and put her arms around her. “Eve, it’s not a waste. Have dinner with us. Stay overnight. You’re tired. We’ll tell you everything you want to know about Alexis. We’ll even check the adoption records if you like, get A Better Chance’s phone number. Nowadays some of the agencies are freer with information.”

  “I’ll prepare the meal,” Mr. Wainwright volunteered. “You two can look around the house.”

  As he went to the kitchen, Eve followed his wife into the basement.

  A small corner room was set up as an office. From the back of a metal file cabinet Mrs. Wainwright drew out a folder full of yellowing papers. She began sifting through them. “When Alexis died, I threw out a lot of things. Reminders. But I still have—ah, here it is.”

  Eve could see the A Better Chance letterhead on the sheet. Mrs. Wainwright picked up her desk phone and tapped out the number. She pressed the SPEAKERPHONE button so Eve could hear.

  “Hello?” said a gruff voice.

  “Is this A Better Chance?” Mrs. Wainwright asked.

  “Who?”

  “A Better Chance? The adoption agency?”

  “Never heard of them.”

  Click.

  “Don’t worry.” Mrs. Wainwright was reaching for the Yellow Pages now. “There is some sort of central bureau, someplace with a list of all the accredited agencies…Voila!”

  She tapped out another number. Put on the speaker. Beeped through several minutes of voice mail.

  Finally, a human.

  Mrs. Wainwright asked her questions and was put on hold.

  Eve felt fluttery as they waited. She nearly jumped when the voice crackled back on the line.

  “Hello? The name was A Better Chance?”

  Mrs. Wainwright smiled. “Yes. You found them?”

  “Uh, not exactly. We have no record of that agency.”

  “Which means it moved?” Eve asked.

  “Which means,” the voice replied, “it never existed.”

  California. Ohio.

  Auckland. Bombay.

  Cases?

  Deaths.

  Over one hundred fifty.

  And she still doesn’t have a clue.

  8

  “SORRY, MA’AM,” SAID ANOTHER voice over the phone.

  By now Eve was used to it.

  “Thanks anyway.” Eve hung up and turned toward the Wainwrights. “The St. Louis Chamber of Commerce hasn’t heard of them, either.”

  Nor had the hospital there. Or the Better Business Bureau. Or a half dozen other places Eve had called.

  Mr. Wainwright was pacing. “Why would someone pull a stunt like this?”

  Stolen babies.

  Black market.

  Kidnappings.

  Fly-by-night agencies.

  Eve had heard stories. But she’d always put them out of her mind.

  Until now.

  “I’m sorry.” Eve’s words sounded so feeble.

  “Let’s not panic.” Mrs. Wainwright began riffling through her papers again. “Who was that doctor we were in contact with?”

  “I don’t remember,” her husband said. “It was a short name. He said he would keep in touch. And he did, for a while. But then he just stopped showing up.”

  “Look at this.” Mrs. Wainwright was slapping papers onto the desk. “I can read our signatures—but not his.”

  Eve looked at the scribbled, illegible name next to the Wainwrights’. Dr. Something.

  “His name isn’t printed anywhere,” Mr. Wainwright said. “How could we have been so careless? So stupid?”

  Mrs. Wainwright touched his arm. “We wanted a baby so badly. We just signed where he told us to.”

  The two looked so awkward and guilty. Eve stood up. “Maybe I’d better go home. I’m just causing trouble.”

  “Please don’t,” Mr. Wainwright said gently. “You came this far. The least we can do is feed and shelter you.”

  “You must be feeling grubby from the trip,” Mrs. Wainwright added. “There’s a shower and fresh towels in the upstairs bathroom.”

  It wasn’t a bad idea.

  Eve took her backpack upstairs. To get to the bathroom, she had to walk through a bedroom decorated with a thousand posters—sports teams, rock groups, movies—everything just a few years off.

  Alexis’s room, exactly the way she’d left it. Dusted. Kept up.

  The three windows, chin-high.

  The abstract-pattern wallpaper in shades of purple and black and blue.

  The stained-glass hanging light fixture.

  I know this place.

  Nahhh. Impossible.

  Eve quickly left the room and entered a darkened hallway. Her hand reached out and clicked on a light switch on the wall to her left.

  She stopped.

  How did I know the switch was there?

  She closed her eyes and pushed open the bathroom door. It’s an L-shape, with the shower hidden to the left.

  Opening her eyes, she spotted a long tiled room. At the end, to the left, the edge of the shower curtain stuck out from around a corner.

  This. Is. Creepy.

  She took a deep breath, tried to block out her thoughts, and prepared for her shower.

  But the strange feelings didn’t stop. Especially as she listened to th
e Wainwrights’ comments over dinner: “Alexis had an appetite like yours.”…“She hated broccoli, too.”…“She always sat in that seat.”

  “It’s weird,” Eve finally said. “I feel like I know some of this stuff about Alexis. As if we’re connected.”

  “Identical twins who are separated at birth often feel that same way,” Mr. Wainwright remarked.

  “But they’re a year apart,” Mrs. Wainwright reminded him. “Fortunately. You wouldn’t want to be identical to Alexis. Then you’d probably have…what she had.”

  “What happened to her?” Eve asked. “At the end, I mean?”

  Both Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright’s faces tightened.

  Ugh.

  Subtle as a locomotive.

  “The upset stomach,” Mrs. Wainwright said. “Constant. Followed by headaches, weakness…”

  “Soon we could only feed her farina, liquids—just like my grandmother, before she went,” Mr. Wainwright said with a rueful smile. “But she was ninety.”

  “Were there any warning signs?” Eve asked.

  Mrs. Wainwright put a hand on Eve’s. “You’re worried, aren’t you? Don’t be. The doctors assured us it was a fluke.”

  “Alexis had a birthmark. Totally normal. Benign,” Mr. Wainwright said. “But it began aching. And soon it started to spread, like a rash. From there on, her body just started to give in.”

  “It all happened so fast,” Mrs. Wainwright added.

  Eve’s appetite was gone. She suddenly felt icy cold.

  Slowly she turned and rolled down her turtleneck collar.

  The silence told her everything.

  She is my sister.

  And I’m dead.

  Eve tossed in the strange bed.

  Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright had tried to reassure her. They’d told her the birthmark was probably irrelevant. That it probably didn’t cause the disease.

  Probably.

  Then why does it hurt?

  Eve rubbed the birthmark.

  Because you’ve been touching it so much, that’s why. GO TO SLEEP.

  Impossible.

  Eve sat up. Across the floor, the street lamp cast slatted yellow light through the vertical blinds. Like a prison cell.

  Dead end.

  What now? What about tomorrow?

  Back to ski camp. To life. The same as it was, only different forever.

  A lifetime of fear. Of being scared by every twinge. Every tiny pain.

  Was this why her mom and dad had given her up for adoption?

  Damaged goods.

  How did they know? And why the phantom agency?

  It was so unfair.

  Eve stood up and paced.

  Her backpack peeked at her, striped by the incoming light.

  She reached for it and pulled out the papers Kate had helped her pack.

  Eve had seen most of them before. Computer printouts. Handwritten notes. Web pages. Lists.

  Her eyes caught Alexis’s name at the top of one list. The heading read DEAD SO FAR.

  Charming, Kate.

  She quickly skimmed the other names.

  Her eyes froze on one.

  Bryann Davis, of Racine Junction.

  Bryann.

  Sad, delicate Bryann.

  One of the names. One of the personalities. I used to become. Like Alexis.

  “Oh my god,” Eve murmured.

  Bryann’s date of death was three years ago. One year after Alexis. She was fourteen.

  Eve frantically looked for the other names. For Danielle and—

  Caroline Pomeranz.

  The cool one. The one who shut down when things got bad.

  Two years ago. Also fourteen.

  They were there. Three of them.

  Eve’s friends. Long-lost friends.

  All dead:

  Alexis, Bryann, Caroline.

  A chill seized Eve’s body.

  A. B. C.

  Four years ago. Three. Two.

  D.

  Danielle.

  What about Danielle?

  If she fit the pattern, she should have died a year ago.

  Eve read the list over and over.

  No Danielle.

  She’s alive.

  Or maybe not.

  She tried to conjure her up. The way she used to, when she was a child. She tried to see her as she’d be now, age fifteen.

  But nothing came to mind.

  Have I lost the power?

  Or is Danielle dead, too?

  Maybe she was, but Kate and Eve simply hadn’t found her.

  E.

  Eve tried to shut out the thought.

  E came next.

  E was this year.

  E for Eve.

  Five girls, each born a year apart. Five little deaths, all in a row.

  It was absurd. Preposterous.

  But the names.

  Alexis was real. You’ve been connected to her your whole life. What about the others?

  Tanya?

  She was T. She didn’t fit.

  Neither did many of the other names.

  Simple. Others have it, too. Not just you and—

  Stop it!

  Your sisters.

  NO!

  Your fourteen-year-old sisters.

  Fourteen…She tried to remember what day it was.

  She rummaged in her backpack for a calendar and pulled it out.

  As she opened it, the sun peeked through the window.

  Nine more days.

  If she’s lucky.

  9

  “CAN’T SAY AS I know the name,” said the cabdriver. “Racine Junction is a big place.”

  “Bryann was fourteen,” Eve said. “I think she probably looked like me.”

  “I can drop you off at the junior high school. They might be able to tell you something.”

  “They’re not on vacation?”

  “Starts next week.”

  What luck.

  Eve took off her down coat and sat back. Gray industrial buildings whizzed by outside the cab window. Rubble-strewn lots baking in the southern sun. Small attached houses, with young children riding trikes across postage-stamp lawns. So different from Cold Harbor.

  Saying good-bye to the Wainwrights that morning had been tough. She could see through their stoic, best-of-luck expressions. She could tell that they didn’t want her to leave.

  Eve had tried to refuse the money the Wainwrights had offered. But they had insisted. It was enough for plane fare and a week’s lodging. Find your roots, they’d said. Bryann’s family may not have been as stupid as we were. They may know more.

  Before she left, Eve had called every Davis in the Racine Junction area. No luck. But there were a few unlisted numbers. So she booked a room at the local Y and reserved a seat on the next flight south.

  The cab wound through the streets until it arrived at a long tan-brick school building next to a football field.

  “Looks like you made it just in time,” the driver said.

  Kids were beginning to stream from the doors, books slung over shoulders, faces happy. End of school day.

  Eve paid her fare and stepped out.

  As the cab drove away, she approached the building. Slowly. Trying to make eye contact. Steeling herself for the reactions. For the freaking out.

  But it didn’t happen.

  Nothing.

  No recognition.

  Now a guy and a girl veered in her direction. Arm in arm. Deep in conversation.

  “Um, excuse me?” Eve said. “Do you—did you—know Bryann Davis?”

  Shrug. Head shake. Nope.

  Eve walked onto the school yard. She stopped another couple.

  “Never heard of her.”

  A friendly, eager-looking girl.

  “Not in this school.”

  Eve slumped against the fence. She took off her backpack and pulled out her notes.

  Must be a mistake. A typo.

  Just great. I’m stuck in the middle of the U.S., looking for someone wh
o doesn’t exist.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” a voice said.

  A girl. Standing on the other side of the fence.

  “Why?” Eve asked.

  The girl stared at her, neither nodding nor shaking her head. “You should check the high school. It’s down Porterfield Avenue, then left on Brookside.”

  Duh.

  Of course. If Bryann were alive, she’d be seventeen.

  “Thanks.” Eve took off at a run.

  She reached the back of the building first. Through the windows she saw empty classrooms. She picked up the pace, running along the side of the school, puffing hard under the weight of the pack and her coat. She zoomed around the corner.

  Thud.

  Contact.

  She stumbled backward.

  “Watch it!” The guy was stringy-haired, tough-looking, sneering.

  “Sorry,” Eve exclaimed. “Are you okay?”

  The guy’s face slackened. “What the—?”

  Yes.

  “I’m not who you think I am!” Eve blurted out. “But we might be—someone told me—did you know her?”

  The guy began backing away. “Stay there,” he said softly. “Just…stay there.”

  She heard his sneakered footsteps slap against the pavement.

  Moments later someone else was running back.

  Short reddish-brown hair. Freckled. Taller.

  Jerry.

  Timmy.

  Something like that.

  He was emerging from the back of her mind. Running toward her, just like this.

  Only he was younger, much younger.

  And she was—

  Bryann.

  “Oh…my…god,” she said.

  WHERE IS THIS COMING FROM?

  He fixed Eve with a hard stare. “Who are you?”

  Eve tried to control the shakiness of her voice. “Eve Hardy. Who are you?”

  “Terry Bradfield.”

  Terry. Yes.

  “You look familiar. Have you ever lived in Fayette?”

  Terry shook his head.

  “I do,” Eve said. “But I’m—I need to find out about someone. A girl named Bryann—?

  Before she could finish, Terry’s hand was clutching hers. They were running. Over the field, past an adjacent pond.

  “Where are we going?” Eve pleaded.

  Terry didn’t answer. But when he let go, she followed.

  You can trust him.

  Eve knew this. Deeply. Somehow.

  The street soon became a dirt road, which wound through a wooded area. They stopped at a large clearing.