“You’re asking me for almost a thousand dollars.”
“I’ll pay you back.”
“You still owe me from February.”
She went quiet.
Then she said something I spent years regretting.
“You love me better when I’m a problem you can solve.”
I snapped.
“And you love me best when I don’t say no.”
She hung up.
Three days later, police contacted Mom.
A fire had destroyed a roadside motel where Rebecca had apparently been staying.
The woman registered in her room had been badly burned.
Her wallet contained Rebecca’s driver’s license.
A bracelet Mom recognized was found among the remains.
Dental identification was inconclusive because Rebecca’s childhood dental records had been destroyed when her dentist’s practice flooded.
DNA testing wasn’t routine in the way people imagine it is now, particularly when authorities believed they had identification, personal effects, witness statements, and a family confirming belongings.
Mom identified the bracelet.
I identified Rebecca’s overnight bag.
We buried what remained.
For twelve years, I believed my final act as Rebecca’s sister had been refusing her money.
My marriage didn’t survive the next five years.
My daughter, Lucy, did.
She was eleven now.
She knew she had an aunt named Rebecca who had died before she was born.
There was a photograph of Rebecca holding my pregnant belly on Lucy’s bookshelf.
And now someone claiming to be that woman was lying in a hospital ninety minutes away.
I didn’t go immediately.
That surprises people when I tell them.
I drove home first.
I made Lucy dinner.
I checked her math homework.
I called my ex-husband and asked whether he could keep her overnight.
Only after Lucy left did I sit at my dining table and call St. Catherine’s back.
Dana answered.
“What happened to the patient?”
“She was admitted after an emergency appendectomy. There were complications, but she’s stable.”
“Why did she give you my number?”
“She didn’t exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“She arrived without a working phone. During intake, she provided your name. We located your number through public records with her permission.”
That somehow frightened me more.
She had deliberately asked for me.
“Did you verify who she is?”
“We have identification for the name she’s currently using.”
“Which is?”
Dana hesitated.
“I think she should explain that herself.”
“No. If you’re asking me to drive ninety minutes to meet a woman pretending to be my dead sister, I need more than that.”
Another silence.
“Her legal name is currently Rebecca Hale.”
Rebecca.
Not a stolen first name, then.
“How old?”
“Thirty-six.”
Exactly right.
I closed my eyes.
“What does she look like?”
“I’m not comfortable using appearance as identification.”
“Does she have a scar below her left knee?”
Dana paused.
“I can ask.”
“No. Forget it.”
There was only one way.
I drove to Richmond.
Rebecca had broken her left leg when she was nine because I dared her to jump from the roof of our father’s toolshed.
The bone came through the skin.
I remembered the screaming more clearly than the blood.
Dad carried her to the truck while I ran behind them barefoot, convinced I’d killed her.
She kept the scar.
The woman in room 417 had it.
I saw it below the edge of her hospital gown before I saw her face properly.
Twelve years changed more than I expected.
Her hair, once almost to her waist, stopped at her chin and was streaked prematurely with gray.
She was thinner.
