Once Two Sisters

by Sarah Warburton

  Ava’s fine. I will be too.

  * * *

  I believe my own lie enough to fall asleep, but unease runs through every dream. In them I’m chasing Ava through a forest of gnarled, sentient trees. I wake up with my heart pounding and the sheets twisted like a bandage around my ankles. Beside me, Andrew sprawls flat on his back, arms open, palms up, his breathing deep and rhythmic. I wish I felt that free and open, at least in sleep.

  Silently I slip my feet out of the coiled bedclothes and pad to the other room, where my laptop is charging on the counter. Andrew gave it to me last Christmas, and I’m still a little suspicious of it. I don’t shop online, and my social-media presence is nonexistent. Our joint family email address is the only one I share with book club and the preschool. Even so, I clear my browser history and power the whole thing off every time I’m done.

  Now I think back to the time before, back when my name was still Zoe, before I had a suburban life and disappeared into a cadre of other moms. My hands hover over the keyboard as I remember the crappy student apartment, the babysitting gigs and bookstore job I worked to supplement my graduate student stipend. I type in that old email address—my birth name and the server. To conjure up the password, I close my eyes against the pale glow of the screen and remember the release date of Ava’s previous book.

  I was working the evening shift at the bookstore, and a huge flat of Ava’s books was waiting in the receiving area for the next morning’s official release date. Straightening the shelves and pulling special orders, I tried not to think about what Ava might have written. I was tired of being disappointed in my callous parents, tired of being angry, tired of living under a spotlight. Or not a spotlight—more like the focused beam from a giant magnifying glass, and I, the hapless ant, always scurrying away to avoid being burned alive.

  The difference with this book was that Ava now had a reason to be angry with me. Before, I hadn’t done anything. I was just trying to live my life. But this time I had broken a taboo. Not only had I coveted my sister’s man, I had taken him.

  And when I sliced open the first box of books and lifted one out to put on the display tower, I couldn’t help flipping it open. The story of a husband, seduced by his sister-in-law and then framed for a murder she’d committed. The dedication didn’t mention me. It read: “To Glenn, my own true love. May you reap in the future all the joy you have given me.”

  That was the moment I decided to burn my own life to the ground and start all over again as someone else. There was no way to be free of Ava as long as I was Zoe.

  Now, looking at the computer screen, I type in my old password, the one I changed right before I left. ZOE IS DEAD.

  I’ve always been careful about not signing up to email lists or passing out my information. Now I realize I’ve been so guarded that no friends from my old life emailed me either. My Texas friends contact me about playgroups and book clubs and wine tastings through the joint account Andrew and I share. Once I killed off the Zoe I used to be, that email account died with her. The most recent email is over two years old, and it’s from my parents. That must have been around the time I started calling them from the burner phone, just two or three times a year. I told them I’d be traveling for work but was vague about the nature of the job and where I would be. They aren’t the kind of parents who really care.

  I compose an email to them now, keeping it short like a virtual telegram.

  Just saw the news. Worried. When can I call you?

  Then I stop. Can IP addresses be traced? Will I be giving away everything I’ve worked so hard to create? No, more than that. I might be giving away everything I’m trying to earn. Andrew is a wonderful guy, easygoing and honest, but not even a saint would let a liar stay in the house with his young daughter. An echo of her warmth seems to press against my cheek. I’ve never had someone I wasn’t willing to lose.

  I delete the email, and then, paranoid that it might have gone out regardless, click on the Sent Mail folder to double-check. Unlike my inbox, this outgoing mailbox is full. The most recent message dates only a few days ago and was sent to Ava’s private email.

  Horrified, I read the subject lines: “You Bitch,” “You Can’t Hide,” and “I See You.” I click on the most recent one and read:

  Ava, the time has come for you to pay. You stole my life, my soul, and now I will steal everything from you. Are you ready to star in your own horror thriller? Better start sleeping with one eye open … unless you’re afraid I’ll put it out. Together we’ll see if blood really is thicker than water. Your devoted sister, Zoe.

  Frantically, I click on one message and then another, each full of threats. There’s one about her first husband, Beckett—how Ava wasn’t good enough for him, how she destroyed his life and humiliated the most talented writer she’d ever know. Most of the others talk about her current husband, Glenn. Do you know what he does when you’re out? the writer taunts. He has seen the venom in your soul. Do you think he loves you? That he’s forgiven you? He’s playing a long game. I only hope he doesn’t get you before I do. Get in line, Glenn.

  My mind is a staticky blank. I slam the laptop shut and put it away. Some of those thoughts are as angry as anything I might have written, but I didn’t. But they sound like me, they sound like someone who hated Ava. Someone who wanted her missing.

  The back of my neck prickles, and I can’t help glancing at the kitchen windows, discreetly shaded by lace-trimmed curtains. I stand up, my heart racing. I should check the locks, double-check the security system. Someone is after me too. Someone wants to frame me for Ava’s disappearance.

  Who hated Ava as much as I did? Her former agent, her ex-husband, Glenn, anyone who’s ever been in a writing class with her. Anyone could have done it, but I’m the one who will look guilty. Shaking, I open the laptop and it glows back to life. Does the writer of those message know where I am, who I am now?

  No. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to think. Just because someone hacked my email doesn’t mean they know where I am. Probably they thought I’d be an easy target. They don’t realize I’m a good person now, a person with a clean house and a loving husband and a beautiful child.

  But I don’t know much about how the internet works or how IP addresses can be traced. One at a time, I shut every open window and every app, then push a button to disconnect the internet. I clear the browser history. Is that enough?

  If only I could completely erase the messages from my outbox and Ava’s inbox and the whole internet. The empty wineglasses, rinsed and waiting in the drying rack, give me an idea. I race to the fridge and grab the nearly empty bottle of Pinot Grigio. As I pull out the cork, there’s a moment when I long to down the cold dregs, go back to bed, and trust this has all been an alcohol-fueled nightmare. But I’m not drunk, and I’m certainly not sleepy. This shit is real.

  Deliberately I pour the wine over the keyboard, taking the time to saturate each and every key. There is still some wine left. Resisting temptation, I tip the laptop to the side and pour the remainder into every hole and port. The screen flickers and goes dark. I shut the lid and tip the whole thing, heavy and dripping, into the trash.

  The clock says three AM. The worst hour of the night, when everything becomes bleak and real. It’s closer to dawn on the East Coast and my parents get up early. In just another hour, I can call them again.

  I sit on the sofa. Perhaps I can find more news now. I keep the volume off, turn on closed captioning, and flip to one of those twenty-four-hour news channels. Nothing about Ava comes on, and after watching the news scroll across the bottom of the screen and the subtitles blur on top of it, in spite of everything I know and all I learned, I fall asleep with the remote in my hand.

  * * *

  As I struggle back to the waking world, first my neck protests, bent at an awkward angle and jounced by an unseen force. Then I hear the high-pitched noise, closer than the television, and it resolves into words. “Lizzie! Lizzie!”

  I’m not really a morn
ing person, so it takes a few more minutes to realize that the jolting and noise are coming from Emma bouncing me on the sofa.

  “Hello, sleepyhead.” Andrew is in the kitchen. He must have been silent as a housebreaker, because he’s already made coffee.

  He smiles at me as he fills a mug and adds a splash of milk, the way I like it. “You were really out. Bad dreams?”

  I mean to say Something like that, but it comes out as an unintelligible garble and he laughs, but not unkindly. I love it when Andrew laughs and the tension in his shoulders releases. That’s one of the scars from the loss of his wife, the constant vigilance. He’s never forgotten the burden of being a single parent.

  Pushing myself upright, I reach out for the mug Andrew brings me, and at the roasted-earth aroma, my eyes fill with tears. Stupid sentimental things like puppies and warm coffee can make me cry, but huge things—distant parents, a missing sister, or the dawning realization that I will have to tell Andrew everything—leave my eyes dry. Anything I say will cost me this home, this safety, this sweet child snuggling next to me on the sofa. I curl my hands around the mug and wish I could stay here forever.

  Emma must feel the same way. “I want to sleep out here too. Tonight, Daddy, can I have a sleepover with Lizzie?”

  Andrew meets my eyes with a wink. “I think it’s easier for everyone if you sleep in your own special big-girl bed.”

  I can still see CNN playing on mute behind Andrew, and in that moment everything outside the television screen seems to freeze. There is a podium on the screen, and police officers and my parents. With them is a man I haven’t seen for three years. Glenn. He and Ava are married now. I hate myself, but I wish they weren’t. His shoulders look broader, his face more chiseled than I remember.

  I have to hear what he is saying.

  I grab for the remote control, but Emma tips over, giggling, and my coffee sloshes over my arm. Jerking away, I send the remote skittering across the floor, before I realize the coffee is warm, not scalding. I’m okay, I’m okay, I tell myself, but I feel as wired as if I’d had three pots.

  “You really aren’t yourself this morning,” Andrew says. “Why don’t you go back to bed, try to grab a few more hours? I’ll get this monkey dressed and off to school.” He leans over and scoops Emma up effortlessly, dropping a soft kiss on the top of my head.

  Wrapping my arms around myself, I sit in the spilled coffee, letting my pajama bottoms soak it up. I don’t deserve Andrew’s love, and Glenn is back to make sure I can’t keep it. I turn the sound on and rewind to the beginning of the news story.

  “We’re asking anyone with information about Ava to come forward. In addition, there is some indication that her sister”—Glenn stumbles over the word—“my sister-in-law may be involved.”

  My skin puckers with goose bumps that have nothing to do with the rapidly cooling coffee. I thought that even if Glenn didn’t love me, he knew me, understood me. But there my former lover stands in front of a microphone, throwing me to the wolves. I wish I could feel hate for this judgmental stranger, but there’s only pain and rising fear. Someone is setting me up. Is it him?

  My parents are just standing there behind him. Walter and Nancy Hallett. The Doctors Hallett. How can they believe I’m involved? All those years they didn’t defend me against Ava, all those times they said I was overreacting. They never really saw me. Whatever parents are supposed to be, my mother and father can’t manage it.

  I pause the television and squint hard at Glenn, standing there in his dress shirt with the rolled-up sleeves. He has changed. I used to think he looked dangerous, sexy, but time has made his good looks softer, more conventional. He’s the kind of guy anyone would call handsome and some might call trouble. Not like Andrew. My husband looks like a nice guy, a guy you can trust. He has creases in the corners of his eyes from smiling and a deepening line between his brows from worrying.

  Glenn is standing there between my sleek mother and my distinguished father, like part of our family. There wasn’t a press conference when I disappeared. Not even in the months before I made my first phone call. No sign of fear or worry, no missing persons report. That must be why I’m such an easy scapegoat. No one cares where I am. Not like precious Ava.

  I push play again, and it catches me by surprise how quickly the screen changes to the news anchor. Behind her, much bigger than her head, is a picture of a girl in her early twenties. Her eyes are wide and startled, what Andrew calls crazy eyes. She is looking up from a cutting board with a knife in her hand. Then the picture zooms in—the eyes even bigger, thin lips parted in surprise, the kitchen counter cropped out. I know the girl is finely dicing onion for a mirepoix.

  I know, because the girl is me.

  From the hallway there’s a commotion, loud footsteps, and then Emma’s excited voice cries, “Lizzie, you’re on TV!”

  Behind her Andrew says, “We talked about this, Emma. I’m not Tom Hanks, and Lizzie—” He stops, and I know he is looking at the screen, where the anchor is completing her story about the strange coincidence wherein I have not been seen for over three years.

  “But this isn’t the first time an author’s life has become a real mystery. Over ninety years ago, the ‘Queen of Crime,’ Dame Agatha Christie, staged her own disappearance and inspired an eleven-day manhunt. Now crime aficionados are wondering if Hallett’s disappearance is another elaborate hoax or a case of foul play. Officials ask anyone with information about either of the Hallett sisters to come forward. More news, after this.”

  I keep my eyes on Andrew, watching him see the screen split with the old picture of me even more wan and pathetic next to a vibrant publicity shot of Ava. Then he looks at me, and my expression must confirm it. I am guilty.

  “Lizzie,” Andrew’s voice is extremely calm. Too calm. “Let’s speak in private.”

  “Me too, meee too,” Emma cries, unwilling to be left out.

  I put a hand on the top of her head, where the feathery curls are impossibly soft between my fingers. When she was being born, when her mother was dying, I was killing off the person I had been and birthing the lie I am living now.

  Andrew picks up the remote. “You can watch Dora for one episode. Just one.”

  Emma lights up at the unexpected treat, usually reserved for getting her nails clipped, taking medication, and other painful occasions. She squirms out from under my hand, flops on the sofa, and sits motionless, barely breathing as the petite explorer appears on screen.

  Back in the bedroom, I expect threats or recriminations. The bed where only eight hours ago we both slept back to back is now neatly made. For a moment, with piercing ferocity, I hope Ava is dead. If this is a stupid publicity stunt and it costs me everything, I will kill her.

  Then I remember the vicious emails, and I am afraid again.

  CHAPTER

  3

  ANDREW SITS DOWN heavily on the edge of the bed, rumpling the cover he’s pulled up neatly, the way he always does. His bedside table has only a lamp and a copy of New Scientist. Mine is littered with lip balm and hand cream, crumpled tissues and paperback novels.

  “What the hell, Lizzie. Or … what did they say your real name is?” His gaze skates away, as if looking at me will distract him from figuring out what to do next.

  Can I lie, pretend that picture wasn’t me? I want to scramble farther away from the truth until I am the woman I pretend to be. But Andrew is smart, really smart, and I do love him. I can’t run away from this without losing him and Emma both. “Zoe,” I say softly. “My name was Zoe.”

  “Zoe,” he repeats, twisting his wedding band around his finger. “And your parents aren’t dead.”

  I shake my head, but he isn’t looking at me. “No.”

  “Did they think you were—?” He doesn’t say dead, but I know he is thinking about Emma. What he would do if she disappeared. He is compartmentalizing his emotions and analyzing the situation, just like my parents would do, if they ever had emotions.

  “No!”
The word is stronger than I expected, but I need him to feel. “No, I wouldn’t just … I call them.” And now he knows the lie has been ongoing, that I’ve been sneaking off to make phone calls. How can I fix this? “We’ve never been close, but I didn’t want them to worry. I just needed to leave.”

  “Why? Lots of people aren’t close to their parents. They don’t change their names and scam themselves into someone else’s life.”

  Scam. Fraud. Liar. My heart is pounding. “I didn’t. It’s a real name. I changed it legally; my driver’s license is real. I just needed to be someone else. Someone not related to her. I didn’t plan to meet you.”

  He looks up, his brown eyes boring into mine. “You were on a dating site. You were looking for someone. And you found me.”

  My heart feels cold and leaden, like I’m turning to marble. Now that he is looking at me, I feel like he sees all my weaknesses. Look closer, I want to say. See me. See that I love you.

  But he’s frowning as if I’m an insect he’s trying to identify. “You found me and used me, used Emma to … what? Hide? I thought I knew you.”

  I sink to my knees so we are face-to-face. “You did! You do. I’m the same person.”

  “I don’t know anything about you. Except you’re Ava Hallett’s sister.”

  I have to make him understand. “You haven’t read her books. They’re all about me. She took my life, anything I did, anyone I loved. She took them and twisted them and ruined them.”

  “What are you talking about?” He has a vertical line between his brows, and I long to press my thumb onto it, to smooth it away.

  Instead, I reach out for his hands, clinging to them. “Anywhere I went, she set a novel. Anything I tried to do, she wrote about. Anyone I knew, she used against me. She’s not just a writer, Andrew, she’s a best-selling author. Haven’t you seen her books in the airport or her movies on a plane?”