I thought of the day I went ice fishing with Cameron. It felt like a million years ago. That was back when my biggest problem had been assuming I was the illegitimate child of Cameron and Annie. If only that was my problem. I’d felt a special bond with Cameron that afternoon, but like everything in my life, it was nothing but a fantasy. My whole life was one big lie, like the blatant beloved mother line on Susie’s headstone.
“I hate coming here,” Cameron said. “I come out here thin-
king I’ll be able to connect with him somehow, but he’s not here.” I nodded because I didn’t know what to say. “Where do you think they are?”
The obvious answer was in the ground, but I knew what he meant. Down there, buried in their coffins, those were simply cadavers. They were just the husks left behind after death. What did happen to the people? Did I believe in some sort of afterlife? Was Cameron’s dad in heaven? Was Susie? Could she be? Or was she inside of us somehow? Had our creation somehow gone and stolen her away from death, as my father had so desperately hoped?
“Maybe they’re just gone,” I said. It sounded bleak, so I said, “Maybe they’re finally free.” I wished it was true, but I didn’t believe it. Cameron nodded, as if he thought this was a valid possibility.
“Hey,” he said, as if suddenly snapping out of his grief. “I know it’s been a few years since I was a teenager, but this does seem like a weird place to spend an afternoon. Are you one of those goth kids or something?”
“I just needed to think about some things,” I said.
“Well, I mean, with the hair and the hanging out in graveyards and all, people might get the wrong impression.”
“I don’t really care what anyone in this town thinks,” I said.
“Amen to that.” Cameron laughed. He smiled at me, and I could see how my sister had fallen for him all those years ago. Well, how both my sisters had fallen for him. “It’s cold as hell out here, isn’t it?” he said.
It was my turn to laugh. It seemed pretty gutsy to refer to hell in a place like this.
“I’m freezing,” I admitted.
“Did you walk down here?” he asked. I nodded. “God, you’re crazy. But you’re a Bunting. It pretty much goes without saying. Come on, I’ll give you a lift.”
As soon as I got in his car, it hit me. I was sitting beside Cameron just as Gracie did when she went out with him, and as Annie had done before her. I thought about what Annie had said, about people belonging together. Was there some indefinable thing that drew two people together? Was there some pull that existed between us and Cameron Schaeffer? Perhaps he was powerless to resist Gracie. And me? I suddenly shifted in the seat, moving an imperceptible inch or so away from Cameron as he started up the car and cranked up the heater.
Gracie said my father hated Cameron, and now that made sense. How could he not hate Cameron? Because we were not just his daughters—we weren’t really his daughters at all. It was like Cameron was dating his wife. The thought was disturbing, and like so many of my thoughts of late, it made me a bit dizzy.
“Are you headed home?” Cameron asked.
“I’ve got a volunteer thing I have to do. You can drop me off at the municipal building.”
“You graduate this year?” he asked as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure you aren’t secretly some goth chick? You’ve got the whole apathetic thing down to a T. Man, when I was your age I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of this town. You are going to college, right?”
A week before, I would have known exactly how to an-swer the question, but now everything was different. “I’m not sure,” I said.
“Don’t let Gracie talk you out of it,” he said. “She thinks she’s not smart enough for college, but that’s crap.”
“It’s not that,” I said. “I just don’t want to get my hopes up.” I knew Cameron would hear it as my concern about getting into a school, not my conviction that fate would prevent me from ever leaving this town.
“Jesus. Listen to you. You have to think positively. You won’t get anywhere with a negative attitude like that.”
“Says the guy who is unemployed and back living with his mother at age twenty-six.”
“Ouch.” He turned and gave me a smirk to show he wasn’t really wounded. Unfortunately, he took his eyes off the road. It was only for a second, but the car ahead of him came to a halt and when he turned back to the road, there wasn’t enough time to stop. He swore and slammed on the brakes. They squealed, and we smacked into the car in front of us hard enough to put a dent in its bumper.
We both sat there for a moment, too shocked to breathe. Cameron recovered first. “Babie, are you okay?”
I nodded.
“Crap,” he said.
I amended that to double-crap when I saw who stepped out of the car we’d hit. He was off-duty and dressed in jeans and a ski jacket, but I recognized Officer Hantz right away. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who recognized him, because Cameron began to curse quietly beneath his breath. He opened his window.
“I think I hit some black ice,” he said.
“Cameron,” Officer Hantz said, looking into the car. Then he glanced over at me and his expression darkened. “Barbara.”
“I was driving Babie over to the municipal building,” Cameron said.
Officer Hantz nodded like he didn’t entirely believe this, so I added, “I’m volunteering. At the call center.”
“Speed limit here is twenty-five,” Hantz said.
“I know. Like I said, I think there must have been some ice. I couldn’t stop in time.”
Hantz glanced at his car with its dented bumper. It wasn’t that bad. He seemed to be considering the situation.
“We don’t have to report this,” he said. “I can send you a bill for the repairs.”
“Thank you,” Cameron said. “Thank you so much.”
“Just slow it down, and watch where you’re going. Barbara, I’m headed over to the station anyway. I can drop you off at the call center.” It was only another couple of blocks to the municipal building. It seemed silly to get into Officer Hantz’s car when we were almost there.
“It’s not that far,” I said. “Cameron can drive me.”
“No,” Cameron said. “It’s okay. You should ride with Officer Hantz.” The two of them stared at each other, and I got the feeling a silent conversation was taking place that I was not privy to.
It was not until I was in Officer Hantz’s car that I remembered about Cameron being on the Megan’s Law website. Apparently finding out you’re a clone and that your whole life has been a lie can make you forget minor details like that. Besides, I’d pretty much come to the conclusion that Cameron’s appearance on the website was more of a misunderstanding than anything else. But misunderstanding or not, maybe Officer Hantz didn’t trust Cameron.
“Do you spend a lot of time with Cameron Schaeffer?” he asked. He watched Cameron in his rearview mirror and waited for him to drive away.
“No,” I said, and then because I thought it would somehow help Cameron’s reputation, I said, “He’s dating my sister.”
“You might want—well—it would probably be better if you didn’t spend much time with him.”
The call center was quiet.
“Weekday afternoons usually aren’t too busy,” Danielle told us. “Sometimes people just call to chat. We’ll get more calls later on tonight.”
Danielle stayed on the line while Meg chatted with an older woman whose husband was terminally ill. It wasn’t a domestic violence situation or any sort of crisis, just someone who needed to talk to another human being. Each call was anonymous. I imagined calling the hotline myself. Had they ever had someone call to say they were the product of some genetic experiment and needed reassurance that they were not a complete and total freak of nature?
My guess was probably not.
Later in the afternoon, I had my own opportunity to take a call with Danielle listening in.
“I don’t know what to do,” said the woman on the other end. Her voice was weak and shaky. “It’s not that I don’t care for him, but I’m not in love with him. Does that make sense?”
“Sure,” I said.
“But he says that doesn’t make any sense, that I must be confused because if I care for him then I must be in love with him. I told him I need time and space to think about it, but he thinks the only reason I need space is because I have another boyfriend.”
“This is your boyfriend?” I asked.
“Ex-boyfriend.” She sighed. “He just doesn’t seem to understand.”
“Has he hurt you?”
“No, nothing like that. But he follows me around wherever I go. If I don’t let him in the house, he breaks in.”
“Are you at your house right now?”
“Yeah,” she said. “But he’s not here right now. Not yet, anyway.”
“Do you have anywhere you could go?” I asked. “A friend’s house or a relative’s? We have a shelter if you need a place to stay.”
“I guess I could go to my friend’s house.”
Danielle scribbled something on a notepad and held it up to me.
“It would probably be a good idea to file for a protection from abuse order,” I said.
“He isn’t abusive,” the woman said quickly.
“It doesn’t just mean physical abuse. He’s harassing you and breaking into your home—that’s a form of abuse.”
The line went quiet. Was she still there?
“Are you there?” I asked. I didn’t hear anything. I looked at Danielle in alarm.
“He says he only does those things because he loves me, because he can’t live without me. He thinks I’m being unfair.”
Danielle scratched out another note for me.
“Why don’t you go and stay at your friend’s house to-night? Can you call us back when you get there?”
“Okay,” the woman said.
“Then we can talk with you about what is involved in filing a protection order.”
“Okay. I’ll do that. Thanks.”
She hung up. I hung up my own phone and took a deep breath.
“You did a good job,” Danielle said to me.
I didn’t feel like I’d done a good job, though. I felt shaky. I didn’t know anything about this woman’s boyfriend, but for some reason the picture that had leaped immediately to my mind was the picture of my father that hung on our living room wall.
This woman’s boyfriend had passed the point of love, to something darker and uglier. It was no longer love; it was obsession. I thought of Annie’s late-night story. She said we were born of love, but that wasn’t really true. We were born of obsession. Just like that woman’s boyfriend, my father had been unable to say goodbye, unable to let go. In response, he created us.
Meg caught up with me as we were getting ready to leave. I had been doing what I could to avoid her, as much as I could avoid her while being in the same small room as her.
“He loves you, you know,” she said.
“Who?” I honestly didn’t know who she was talking about.
“Zach. Is there someone else I should know about?”
“No.” I paused. “You two really aren’t … ?”
“A couple? Nah, I meant what I said. I’d kind of prefer to not be with a guy who was into someone else. Call me crazy. Anyway, I kind of got back together with my ex.”
“I’m not really who he wants,” I said. It hurt to say the words out loud, but as I said them I felt sure I was right. I thought of what he’d said in the park. He wanted me to tell him the truth, but if I did, he would only run away screaming.
“Trust me, you are,” Meg said. “I could give you a ride over to his place.”
I thought of the way it had felt to kiss Zach. I wanted to feel that again—it might just be enough to escape this ugly world for a little while. It was selfish, but I wanted that.
“You know where he lives?”
“It’s not like that,” she said. “My aunt is his landlady. So, what do you say?”
“Okay,” I said.
Twenty-Five
Zach’s apartment was over a detached garage on a piece of property at the outskirts of town. Meg’s aunt owned the house, which was about a hundred yards away from
the garage. Farmland surrounded the rest of the property. Meg offered to wait for me, but I saw that Zach’s light was on, and I saw his silhouette pass across the window.
“I’m okay,” I said.
I climbed the stairs to Zach’s door and stood there, my hand poised to knock, my heart beating about a million miles per second in my chest. I now wished I’d told Meg to wait. I didn’t even know what I was doing there.
Meg thought Zach was in love with me, but she hadn’t been there at the pond. She hadn’t seen the way he’d pushed me away and shut me out. I couldn’t do this, but I was stranded. It was too far to walk home. I could call for a ride … in fact, Annie was probably nervous that I wasn’t home yet. I should call her anyway. I pulled out my phone. I hadn’t turned it back on after shutting if off for working the call center, and now I powered it up.
The door suddenly opened. Zach stood there looking at me, a puzzled expression on his face.
“How long have you been standing here?” he asked.
“Not long,” I said.
“Sorry. I didn’t hear you knock.”
I didn’t bother to tell him that I hadn’t yet worked up the courage to actually knock.
“How did you get here, anyway?”
“Meg gave me a ride.”
He nodded, as if he’d expected this. “Well, don’t just stand there. Come inside.”
I stepped into his apartment. I hadn’t realized how cold I was until I started to defrost. I glanced around. The place wasn’t very big, but it was his own place, and it was bigger than my bedroom.
“I’m sorry things are kind of a mess. I wasn’t really expecting company.”
I knew what I had to do, but first there was one thing I wanted to do. I knew I might never get another chance. I reached up, pulled his face to mine, and kissed him as if we were long-lost lovers reunited after being separated for years. I kissed him as if it was the last time I’d ever kiss a boy—because probably it was. He slid his hand to my waist and pulled me to him. It worked for I don’t know how long … I broke free from earth’s gravitational pull. I left the whole ugly mess behind. I felt only Zach’s lips on mine, the slightly rough texture of the stubble on his cheek. His body pressed against mine was warm and solid. There was no world between the two of us.
Zach pulled away from me long enough to say, “I’m sorry I yelled at you. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I don’t care. You don’t know how badly I need you.”
Then he kissed me, and this time, if it was possible, it was more intense than before. He held me to him and I wrapped my legs around him. He carried me to his couch and we tumbled onto it.
“I want to tell you,” I said. “I need to.”
Zach lay on top me. He leaned in to kiss me, but I held him back.
“You were right,” I said. “I need to be honest with you. I need to tell you everything.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. His hand slid beneath my shirt. His body pressed against mine. What was I doing? Why didn’t I just shut up? He said he didn’t care.
“My sisters and I aren’t really sisters,” I said. I hated myself for saying it, but I couldn’t help it. Once the words started flowing there was no way to turn them off. “We’re clones,” I continued. “The man I always thought was my father cloned us from the woman I always thought was my mother, because he couldn’t ha
ndle her death.”
Zach mulled this over. “Well, if this is a pissing contest over who has the weirder life story, you win.” Then he pushed my restraining hand away and devoured me with kisses.
I pushed him back after a few seconds. “Wait,” I said. “Don’t you care? Aren’t you completely creeped out? I’m a freak.”
“So you don’t have the usual sperm-meets-egg story, big deal. It’s not really that much different than someone who was conceived with fertility treatments.”
“It’s completely different,” I said. “I don’t have parents. I was grown in some sort of a laboratory. I’m a copy-and-pasted person, a genetic mutant.”
“You certainly look like a human being to me. A very, very attractive human being.”
“I’m not joking around.”
“And I’m not either,” he said. “I need you, Barbara Bunting. You have no idea how badly I need you.”
This time, when he kissed me, I didn’t even need to escape. There was nothing to escape from. Zach didn’t care that I was a clone—and that seemed like undeniable proof that Zach and I belonged together. I couldn’t imagine anyone else ever accepting such a confession with the laid-back reaction that Zach had. We belonged together, and Zach was wrong about me not knowing how badly he needed me. I knew, because I needed him as badly as he needed me.
I heard the ringing sound, but I didn’t immediately identify it. It sounded like something far away, something I didn’t need to worry about.
“It’s your phone,” Zach said, and I realized he was right. It would be Annie calling to find out where I was. As I pulled the phone out of my pocket, I tried to think of what to tell her, but then I saw it was Jenelle calling. As I clicked to answer, I realized I should have just let it go to voicemail.
“Hey,” I said.
“Look, technically I’m not really speaking to you, but Gracie called me like five times trying to find you, and I guess your phone was turned off or whatever, but they need you back at home.” I started to say something but she’d already clicked off.
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