Ethan stepped closer, nose-to-nose; the two tallest guys in the room squaring off, an unimaginable faceoff. Identical twins usually can’t help feeling like they’re looking in a mirror.
This wasn’t one of those times.
“Talk to me, Jack. What is this really about?”
“It’s about me putting myself first for once, getting what I want, what I deserve.”
“I see therapy is working.”
“Self-awareness can lead to change,” Jack said. “You should try it sometime.”
“I already know who I am. I just have to look at you and think of the opposite.”
“Lucky you.”
“Lucky me.”
The staff pretended not to pay attention, but the Stone brothers were getting louder than they meant to be; a lifetime of trying to be heard in stereo will do that.
“So that’s it?” Ethan said, discontented. “You want to have a life and put yourself first. Did I get that right?”
“Pretty much.”
They both fell silent. Combustible twin towers. You could hear a pin drop.
Ethan nodded because he knew what his brother was really saying. They were housemates, business partners, and identical twins, but all things were not equal, and never had been. Ethan now had a bigger role in the company.
And he had Brooke.
Ethan nodded. “This is about Brooke, isn’t it?
“Get out of my way.” Jack shoved past Ethan and headed outside.
Ethan followed after him, shielding his eyes from the blinding late-morning sun, considering the possibilities for such an angry reaction.
It has to be about Brooke.
Brooke Shaw was Ethan’s stunning English girlfriend. He had met her at the Stalker’s corporate retreat in Big Sur last year and she had been living in the twins’ bachelor bungalow ever since. Ethan had wanted to tell Jack that he had been ring shopping and preparing to pop the big question, but he hadn’t found the right time.
Maybe he knew.
Ethan caught up with Jack in the parking lot. “I’m okay with you leaving,” he said, “if that’s really what you really want.”
Jack kept walking. “Now you don’t have to ask me to move out.”
He knew.
“I wasn’t going to ask you to leave,” Ethan explained. “Brooke and I will get our own place.”
“Now you don’t have to.”
Jack reached for his car door. Ethan blocked him and said, “I want to marry her, start a family, the whole nine yards.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“But it doesn’t have to change us, you and me. And you certainly don’t have to leave Stalker.”
“I want to leave Stalker.”
“Let me put it another way—”
“No.”
“No?”
“You’re trying to talk me out of doing what I want, like you always do, as if I should want what you want. But I’m not you.”
“I never said you should want what I want.”
Jack laughed sardonically.
“Give me one example.”
“When I wanted to study business with you at Stanford—”
“That’s not fair,” Ethan protested. “You got accepted in the engineering school. That’s your strength. We were going to build a tech company, it made perfect sense.”
“To you.”
“If I’d known you’d harbor resentment—”
“Oh please, you have plenty of resentments, too.”
“Oh really?”
“Really.”
“Like what?”
Jack squared off, looked him in the eye, and said, “Like Barry.”
Barry was their mutual best friend who killed himself in college.
Jack said, “You blame me.”
“What?”
“I spent that last summer with him and you think I should have known.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to. If you didn’t think I felt bad enough…” Jack wiped a tear and moved on like he was reciting a rehearsed list. “When Dad died, you took his entire baseball card collection, which I later learned was worth a small fortune.”
“He and I shared an interest,” Ethan tried to explain. “Those cards are worth a lot, but I’m never going to sell them. He wanted me to have them.”
“Yeah, right, you were a much better athlete. And I remember your love of the game. Like when I served your detention so you could play.”
“Seriously?” Ethan said. “We were like sixteen, and it was a playoff game. They needed me. You took one for the team.”
Jack took a step back, looking satisfied, as if Ethan had just proved his point. “Now it’s your turn to take one for the team.”
Jack got inside his car. Ethan let him go and watched him drive away.
On one level, Ethan felt relieved. He and Brooke were now free to start their life together, and he could run Stalker without Jack’s restraints and complaints.
On the other hand, his heart ached more than he could ever have imagined.
Monozygotic twins, brothers of the same mother (and egg), are nothing like other siblings. Their genetic reflections make them feel a connection like no other.
After three decades of sharing everything, they were finally parting ways.
Ethan thought about their father on his deathbed, asking him to watch over Jack, as if he were the big brother. Their father knew that Jack was too sensitive for his own good, but maybe there was more to it. Brooke once asked Ethan if Jack was the second son. He told her what his father once told them, that confusion in the delivery room prevented anyone from noticing who was born first.
Brooke didn’t believe that. “Your father knew,” she said. “Birth order and birthrights shouldn’t matter, but they always do.”
Ethan would soon learn what she meant by that.
CHAPTER 3
Ethan called Brooke as he walked back to the office. He explained everything that happened in the meeting and told her that Jack was on his way home to move out. He expected her to be as shocked as he was. She and Jack were close. They had spent a lot of time together, especially when Ethan put in insane hours at work. But she didn’t comment on Jack’s departure at all.
“You can’t upload the Face Match Mode,” she said, “it’s not ready.”
“We have to.”
“When?”
“Now. This afternoon.”
“What?”
“Did you hear the other part that I just told you? Jack is moving out. Today!”
“I heard you,” she said in a wispy voice.
Did she already know? Did he tell her he was leaving before he told me?
Brooke switched the subject back to the face recognition issue. “You said that feature was several months from working correctly.”
“Why are you so concerned about that—?”
“I do want to see Jack,” she interrupted. “I’ll be home in a little while.”
“I figured you would.”
“Will you be there?”
“I think he wants some space, and to be honest, I don’t want to get into it with him again.”
“I get it,” she said. “You should take some time after work. Blow off steam. Do what you have to do to process this.” She paused and then said wistfully, “I’m sorry, Ethan. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
Odd way to put it.
“I think he’ll regret this,” Ethan said, “but this is what he wants and I can’t change his mind. We just don’t see eye to eye anymore.”
“You and your brother are as different as chalk and cheese,” she said, “but that’s not what I meant…”
Unlike Bailey, whose British accent and colloquialisms sounded amusing
, hers came off as profound, and her insights about people were usually spot on. “Go on,” he prompted. “What did you mean?”
“I know you always feel responsible, but sometimes there are other factors you don’t know about and there’s nothing you can do.”
“What other factors?”
“Point is,” she continued, “the world has been kinder to you and you feel guilty about it sometimes. But don’t. Your brother likes exactly who he is, and he should. Let him be happy. It’s his time.”
A bit overdramatic, he thought.
And then she whispered, “I love you.”
Ethan could feel her heavy heart through the phone. And when she hung up, he’d never felt a deeper void.
—
The Face Match Mode feature took a few hours for the Stalker team to upload. Ethan configured a warning banner to explain the possible hiccups users may encounter, and then he wrote and distributed a press release announcing its launch.
Bailey dipped into his office and asked, “Are we good to go?”
“Good to go.” Ethan confirmed.
“It’s the right thing to do, Gov.”
Ethan forced a smile. “I know.”
Ethan liked and trusted Bailey because there were no pretenses and he was as committed to Stalker’s success as he was. Ethan was also well aware that Stalker never would have been launched without the seed money Bailey brought to the table. Two years prior, Bailey had approached Ethan at Pitchfest, a convention like Shark Tank, where entrepreneurs practice their ideas on venture capitalists searching for a diamond in the rough. Ethan had been pitching his concept for Stalker all day. Bailey came along and told him he was searching for a tracking app for an angel investor in London. It was a perfect match. Only after contracts were signed did Ethan learn that Bailey didn’t even know his well-heeled angel’s real name, only his shell company—Highpoint Corporation—and his rules: the angel would only communicate through Bailey, only when necessary, and always on his terms. At first Ethan didn’t mind the arrangement. He knew that venture capitalists often required discretion for the same reasons tech companies don’t want competitors to know how they were funded. But now they were heading toward a desperate turning point; their angel was a ghost, and they were completely dependent on this phantom.
Bailey headed out to deposit the Highpoint Corp check before the bank closed, and the Stalker staff left early. Ethan grabbed the extra surfboard he kept in his office and hit the beach.
—
Ethan rode the waves just north of the Santa Monica Pier until sunset and realized that Brooke was right, he really did need some time alone to process what his brother’s departure would mean—to Stalker, to him, and to their relationship.
His first reaction, like Brooke had said it would be, was to feel responsible, and his mind raced with questions:
Did I shut Jack out when Brooke came into my life? Was I too preoccupied by her and Stalker?
Then he started to think about what life would be like without his brother. Jack had been his reflector, shadow, sounding board, advocate, and devil’s advocate. When Ethan and Jack were at their best, they mastered the bait and switch, knew each other’s thoughts, and even spoke for each other. They got twice as much done, could be in two places at the same time, and always knew the other had their back. Can you imagine how much you could get done in a day if you could clone yourself? It had always been them against the world, simpatico, two sides of the same coin.
But Jack had also been a perpetual thorn in Ethan’s side. All siblings deal with favoritism, jealousies, and entitlements, but twins have to deal with a unique set of rules. There are expectations to live up to: expectations for each other and expectations from others. Ethan always felt that there were too many expectations.
He didn’t feel that way with Brooke.
Brooke was about to become his new life partner, the one he chose. And somehow she understood the twin dilemma better than anyone. She once told Ethan that having a counterpoint in life was a gift because it allowed him to make sense of the world, but it also could distort the truth.
She understood. Somehow, she knew.
Ethan rinsed off at the public beach showers, threw on a change of dry clothes he kept in the trunk of his car, watched the sun dip below the horizon, and came to the conclusion that the timing of Jack’s departure was a blessing, for all of them. He and Brooke could start their life together. He and Jack wouldn’t bicker over the details of the business anymore, and they could be brothers again. Jack could get a life, his own life, and do it his way.
Let him be happy. It’s his time.
Ethan figured another hour or two should be enough time for Jack to have cleared out of the bungalow, so headed over to James Beach, an upscale hangout on Market Street in Venice, to kill some time.
He grabbed a stool at the bar and ordered a beer. He didn’t want to be alone but he didn’t want to talk to anyone either. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a place he could be a fly on the wall.
A gorgeous redhead sat on the stool beside him.
“Do I know you?” she asked him, her emerald eyes impossible to ignore.
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m Julie.”
“Ethan.”
“Are you meeting someone?”
“No.”
She moved closer. “Would you like some company?”
He reached for his wallet and waved for a check. “I actually have to get going.”
She put her hand on his. “I just broke up with someone. I could use a little company.” Then she whispered, “No strings attached.”
“I’m flattered,” he told her. “But I couldn’t do that to my girlfriend.”
The redhead didn’t relent. “Did you hear the part about ‘no strings attached’? I have a place just up the street.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“Because of her?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Because of her.”
The redhead pulled back. “She must be something special.”
“She is.”
“Lucky girl.”
“I’m a lucky guy.”
“Now I feel like a creep,” the redhead said. “I got so used to dealing with jerks, I’ve become one. Where can I find a guy like you?”
“I’d introduce you to my twin brother but he just left town.”
She laughed.
He wished he were joking.
—
Ethan left James Beach and headed home under a dim waning crescent moon, looking forward to seeing Brooke’s warm smile and spending their first night on their own. Hill Street was just a five-minute drive and he found a parking space right in front. Maybe his luck was about to change, he thought as he approached the cozy bungalow. How great it would be to have the run of the place—just him and Brooke—and not have to close doors for privacy anymore.
When one door closes, another door…
Unfortunately, when he went inside, another door was about to slam in his face.
CHAPTER 4
The bungalow was dark and dank. The windows were all shut, sans the usual cross breeze that masked the mold. When Ethan flipped the lights on, he saw that all of the furniture was exactly where it had been when he left for work that morning. Since the twins had split all the expenses of furnishing the home, Ethan had assumed Jack would split it fairly and take what he wanted.
Apparently, he wanted nothing.
Ethan went into Jack’s bedroom, which was on the first floor, expecting it to be emptied, but only his clothes and personal knick-knacks were gone. The bed, the sheets, the dresser, even the plants were left behind. Ethan peeked out the window just to make sure Jack’s car was gone. It was.
“Brooke!” he called out.
There was no response.
Whenever Ethan woul
d work late, she would usually wait in bed and read. Sometimes she would fall asleep. So he ventured upstairs, quietly, hoping to sneak under the covers to consummate this new beginning, their first night living together alone, but when he arrived at the hallway landing, he had a strange feeling. Something about the house felt desolate, cold, and uneasy; the evening’s crepuscular charm began to turn sibylline; every creek in the hardwood floorboards seemed to forewarn malevolence.
When he entered the bedroom, he saw what it was, and it rendered him immobile. He couldn’t move, couldn’t feel his hands or feet. And he knew that his life would never be the same.
Brooke had left him, too.
All of her clothes were gone. The only thing she had left behind were some of her paintings, a dozen or so watercolors she had been working on, stacked in the corner, possibly forgotten, more likely abandoned.
And there was a note left on the floor beside them. Ethan picked it up and sat down on the bed to read:
Dearest Ethan,
You once said that my happiness was the most important thing to you. If you meant that, please respect my decision. There’s nothing you could do to change my mind. Please do not search for me, or contact me. I love you and always will. I am truly sorry. Unconditional love is, unfortunately, always conditional. Please be mindful.
xo,
Brooke
Ethan went numb.
Please be mindful.
Mindfulness was one of the first things Ethan ever heard Brooke talk about when he first laid eyes on her at the Dancing Rabbit retreat in Big Sur, and that indelible moment played back in his mind.
—
Billowing morning mist rose from the glassy ocean surface to a sea of vibrant wild flowers. She emerged like a dream, the warm sunlight cascading over her swarthy, silky skin; the soft breeze fluttering through her long black hair. The angel with piercing azure eyes and a Mary Poppins accent chose her words thoughtfully, an oracle’s soliloquy with a sexy Brit brogue. “We try to make sense of the world as a place of binary opposites,” she began, somehow coming off more poetic than pompous. “Earth and sky, light and dark, good and bad. But when it comes to human nature, we’re less clear. Our differences make each of us unique and yet we still hide who and what we really are. Why? Why is that…?”
The Second Son Page 2