Runaway Twin (14 page)

“By all means,” Starr said. “Let's hear what Daddy's excuse is for not telling me the truth all these years.”

Mrs. Anderson clamped her lips together, clearly stung by her daughter's words. Then, without replying, she went to the phone and dialed. “Al?” she said. “Can you come home? Starr's sister just showed up.”

They talked briefly while I looked at Starr and she looked at the floor.

“He's on his way,” Mrs. Anderson said, after she hung up. She returned to her chair. “You say you've been in foster care,” she said to me. “Here in Enumclaw?”

“In Nebraska.”

“Nebraska! You've been living in Nebraska?”

“Yes. Great-aunt Cora's son took me along when he moved there.”

“Who brought you here?” She looked out the window, as if expecting to see a car waiting for me out front.

“I came alone. Mostly I took the bus. A cab driver helped me. I walked a lot.”

“Your foster parents let you take off across the country all by yourself?”

I hesitated. Should I tell the truth? I didn't want to begin my new life with Starr by telling lies. “My foster mom didn't know I was going,” I said. “She doesn't know about my sister.”

“You ran away?” Starr said.

“I had to find you,” I said. “All these years, I've thought about you every day. When I finally had enough money to travel, I knew I had to look for you.”

“But how did you know where to look?” Mrs. Anderson asked. “Starr has our last name now, and we moved years ago.”

I handed her the picture. “It says Enumclaw, Washington, on the back,” I said, “and you can see a house number. I decided the best way to find Starr would be to come to Enumclaw and see if I could find the house that's in the picture, so that's what I did. I hoped some of the neighbors might remember Mama and Grandma and us. One neighbor did remember; she told me your name.”

“I'll bet it was Mrs. Polson,” Mrs. Anderson said. “Connie Polson lives across the street from where you girls used to live. She is a big snoop, always watching everyone in the neighborhood. She's lived in the same house for decades.”

“That's right,” I said. “Connie Polson told me you took Starr, and I found your address in the telephone directory.”

“So some old woman knows I have a twin sister?” Starr stood and began pacing around the room. “She knew all this time, but I didn't! She's probably told half the town. Everyone knows my background except me!”

Before Mrs. Anderson could answer, a man in a business suit rushed in. He stopped when he saw me. “Hello, Sunny,” he said. “I'm Al Anderson, Starr's dad.”

I stood, and we shook hands. Then he wrapped his arms around me and gave me a hug.

“Except for the hair color,” Mrs. Anderson said, “she's a mirror image of Starr.”

“She is not!” Starr declared. “How can you say that? She doesn't look anything at all like me. We probably aren't even related. Where's the proof?”

“She has a picture of the two of you, with your grandmother,” Mrs. Anderson pointed out.

“That doesn't prove anything. Anyone could find an old photograph and pretend it was their own. She's probably an imposter who wants to con you out of your money.”

“Calm down, Starr,” Mr. Anderson said.

I couldn't believe how angry Starr was. I understood why she felt deceived at not knowing about me, but she must realize the secret had been kept with the best of intentions. If anyone had a right to be angry, it was me. Here were the Andersons, who seemed like nice people, telling me that they had wanted to adopt me. Instead of living with She-Who and the Boss of the World, I could have been here, with Starr. All these years, I could have been loved.

What bothered me the most, though, was that Starr apparently did not remember me. How could she forget the experiences that I cherished?

“If you're my sister,” Starr said, “prove it.”

“Our grandma was Loretta Skyland,” I said, “and our mother's name was Marie Skyland.”

“You could learn that from public records, or from an old obituary notice,” Starr said. “Tell us something that isn't available in print or online.”

“We used to play house,” I told her. “We had white wicker doll buggies and we pretended that our dolls were twins, the same as we were.”

“I remember those buggies!” Mrs. Anderson said. “Loretta used to let you push them around the neighborhood, while she sat on the porch and watched.”

Starr's expression changed. I suspected she
did
remember pushing our dolls in the wicker buggies.

“Do you remember our song?” I asked. I sang, “Twinkie, Twinkie, little star.”

“It's twinkle, twinkle,” Starr said, “not Twinkie, Twinkie.”

“Not in our version.” I stared at her. “You don't remember eating Twinkies and watching the stars come out?”

“No.”

“We were in lawn chairs in the backyard. I was in Grandma's lap and you were in Mama's. We had blankets tucked around us and I remember feeling snug and safe.” Again, I thought I saw a flicker of remembrance in Starr's eyes.

“I ate my Twinkie,” I said, “while Mama sang,
Twinkie, Twinkie, little star.
”

“I don't like Twinkies,” Starr said. “They're too sweet.”

“You don't remember any of it?” I asked.

“No, and I'm not convinced you do, either. Maybe you're making all this up.”

I felt as if a dark shade had been pulled across the sky, blocking out the sun. Starr didn't remember me. She didn't remember the Twinkies, or the song, or playing together. She didn't remember having a sister. What's more, she didn't
want
to remember.

“How can you forget your twin sister?” I whispered.

“I was only three,” Starr said.

“So was I.”

I
looked down, twisting my hands in my lap. This reunion was nothing like the one I had envisioned. “Maybe I ought to leave,” I said.

“No!” said Mrs. Anderson. “Please don't go yet. We want to know all about you, and what's happened to you over the years.”

“It doesn't sound as if you've had much stability,” Mr. Anderson said. “Not the life you would have had if they had let us take you both. I wonder why Cora didn't call us if she couldn't keep you herself. She knew we wanted you.”

“She probably still wanted Sunny to stay in her family,” Mrs. Anderson said. “And she hadn't heard from us. Maybe we were wrong not to keep in touch.”

“That's water over the dam,” Mr. Anderson said. “The important thing now is to find out what red tape we need to cut in order for Sunny to stay here for a while.”

“What?” Starr exploded. “You're inviting her to live with us? We don't even know her!”

“I can't think of a better way to get acquainted,” Mr. Anderson said. “Sunny, could you stay with us for the summer? And then, come fall, we can all decide if you should stay permanently.”

“I've already decided,” Starr said.

No one asked what her decision was. We knew.

Mrs. Anderson said, “We should start by calling the foster mother. We must do that anyway, to let her know that Sunny is with us and that she's safe.”

For the first time, calling Rita sounded like a good idea to me. I wanted to talk to her; I wanted to get her opinion about what I should do. “I'll call her,” I said.

“I am going upstairs,” Starr announced, and she stomped out of the room. Her mother followed her.

I dialed Rita's number. When she answered, I said, “Hi, Rita. It's Sunny.”

“Sunny! Are you all right?”

“I'm fine. I'm sorry I worried you, but . . .”

“Worried me? Do you have any idea how scared I've been?” I heard Rita pause and could tell she was trying to get herself centered, as she called it. “Where are you?”

“I'm in Enumclaw, Washington.”

“Washington! I thought you were in Florida. I got a call from someone telling me you were okay, and I had the call traced to Florida. What are you doing in Washington?”

“I found my twin sister.”

There was a stunned silence. Then Rita said, “You never told me you have a sister.”

“We were separated when we were three. I didn't know where she was until today.”

“Have you seen her?”

“Yes. I'm at her house now.”

“How's it going?” Leave it to Rita to cut right to the important part. It was as if she could tell from my voice that I was unhappy.

“Not exactly like I thought. Starr got adopted right after we were split up. Her parents want me to stay here with them for the summer.”

“I see. Is that what you want to do?”

“I—I don't know. When I left, I thought I wanted to be with Starr more than anything in the world, but now that I'm here, I'm not sure. We haven't had much time together yet. She—she doesn't remember me.”

“Oh, Sunny, I'm so sorry.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

“How did you get there? Where did you get enough money for such a trip?”

I told Rita about the bag of money I'd found and my efforts to locate the owner.

“Let me speak to one of Starr's parents,” she said.

I held the receiver toward Mr. Anderson. “She wants to talk to you,” I said.

The two adults spoke for a few minutes. I heard Mr. Anderson give Rita his phone number. Then he gave the phone back to me.

“I told him you could stay for a week,” Rita said. “That's
if
you want to stay that long. Do you?”

Did I? I wasn't at all sure, but I'd gone through so much to get here, it seemed as if I should stay the week, no matter how unwelcoming Starr was. Once she got used to me, she'd probably warm up. “Yes,” I said.

“Then I'll get you a plane ticket to come home next Thursday. Even if it turns out that you want to return and stay there longer, you'd still need to come back here first and go through the channels with the foster-care system.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Is this what you really want to do?” Rita asked. “You don't sound sure.”

“If I leave now, I'll always think I should have stayed and tried to make it work.”

“Call me if you want to come home sooner. Call any time, day or night,” Rita said. “It's all right to call collect. I'll accept the charges.”

“Thanks.”

“You want to know how worried I've been?” Rita asked. “I ate a whole package of Oreo cookies! I bought them to have on hand in case you came home, and then it was typical stress eating; they were gone before I knew I had opened the package.”

“I'm flattered,” I said. I had never seen a cookie enter Rita's mouth. She had never bought cookies for me before.

“I'm trying to make you feel guilty, not flattered.”

“Rita, there's one more thing,” I said. “I have a dog now.”

“A dog!”

“He's staying with a friend of mine and I need to make arrangements to pick him up.”

“Where did you get a dog?”

“It's kind of a complicated story,” I said. “I found Snickers in a restaurant parking lot, and he was homeless, the same as me, so—”

“You are not homeless,” Rita interrupted. “You have a home here with me. You will always have a home here.”

“I adopted Snickers,” I said, “but the bus driver wouldn't let me take him on the bus so we had to walk and we got caught in a tornado and—”

Rita interrupted again. “A tornado! Were you outdoors in that awful tornado? I saw pictures of it on the news.”

“Yes. I wasn't hurt, but Snickers got hit on the head and was unconscious. We stayed overnight at a Red Cross shelter and then I met Charley, who's a cab driver, and he drove me more than four hours, and then I asked him to keep Snickers until I could come for him. I need to go get Snickers as soon as I can.”

“You are a girl of many surprises,” Rita said. “Let me speak to Mr. Anderson again, please. Maybe he can get Snickers and take him to Enumclaw and then I'll make arrangements for Snickers to fly home on your flight.”

I gave the phone to Mr. Anderson. He listened a minute and then said, “The dog can't stay here. Starr is afraid of dogs.”

“Snickers is as gentle as a kitten!” I said. “He wouldn't hurt anyone and I'll take care of him. He won't be any trouble.”

“If I go get the dog,” Mr. Anderson told me, “we'll board him at a kennel until you leave. Where is this dog?”

I got out Charley's address and told him the name of the town. It turned out that Charley lived almost as close to Rita as he did to the Andersons, so in the end, Rita said she would go get Snickers herself. “It will give me something to do while I wait for you to come home,” she said, “and the dog will be waiting when you get here.”

After we finished talking to Rita, I called Charley.

“Hey!” he said. “Glad to hear from you. Did you find your sister?”

“Yes. I'm at her house now.”

I told him the plan and asked if it was okay for Snickers to stay with him for a few more days, until Rita could pick him up.

“He can stay as long as he wants,” Charley said. “I was kind of hoping you wouldn't come back for him so I could keep him.”

“No chance,” I said. “Thanks, Charley.”

When I'd completed my call, Mr. Anderson said, “You're probably tired. Maybe you'd like to rest a bit before dinner.”