Just Like Mother E-Book

Anne Heltzel

• Herausgeber: Verve Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

The last time Maeve saw her cousin was the night she escaped the cult they were raised in.

For the past two decades, Maeve has worked hard to build a normal life in New York City, where she keeps everything - and everyone - at a safe distance.

When Andrea suddenly reappears, Maeve regains the only true friend she's ever had. Soon she's spending more time at Andrea's remote Catskills estate than in her own cramped apartment. Maeve doesn't even mind that her cousin's wealthy work friends clearly disapprove of her single lifestyle. After all, Andrea has made her fortune in the fertility industry - baby fever comes with the territory.

What worries Maeve is that the more she immerses herself in Andrea's world, the more her long-buried memories flood to the surface. But confronting the terrors of her childhood may be the only way for Maeve to transcend the nightmare still to come...

Spine-chilling and sharp, Just Like Mother is a modern gothic from a fresh new voice in horror, perfect for fans of Jessamine Chan’s The School for Good Mothers, Emma Cline’s The Girls and Christina Dalcher’s Femlandia.

'Set to be one of the year's most talked about books. I tore through this urgent, timely, and deeply disturbing tale... And I'll think of it every time I field an uncomfortable question about my own childless status' - Andrea Bartz

'A fierce, frightening novel that examines autonomy, motherhood, and the dark side of feminine power with savage precision. A total thrill ride' - Rachel Harrison

'Lyrical and grotesque, Just Like Mother is written in gorgeous and shattering prose' - CrimeReads

Leseprobe

Praise for Just Like Mother

‘Lyrical and grotesque, Just Like Mother is written in gorgeous and shattering prose’ – CrimeReads

‘Eerie, fast-paced… Heltzel’s probing exploration of women’s bodily autonomy – or lack thereof – makes this a solid choice for those who like their horror close to home’ – Publishers Weekly

‘A fast-paced, creepy, and unpredictable adventure that shines an unsettling light on motherhood and family ties. A page-turner from start to finish’ – Booklist

‘Flooded with visceral dread from the first scene and never letting up, Heltzel’s tale will disturb readers to their core’ – Library Journal

‘Heltzel’s novel bursts onto the scene with all the power and gore of a home birth. With unforgettable characters and details that will haunt your dreams, Just Like Mother is set to be one of the year’s most talked about books. I tore through this urgent, timely, and deeply disturbing tale… and I’ll think of it every time I field an uncomfortable question about my own childless status’ – Andrea Bartz, New York Times bestselling author of We Were Never Here

‘A fierce, frightening novel that examines autonomy, motherhood, and the dark side of feminine power with savage precision. Just Like Mother is a total thrill ride. Buckle up and be warned – there’s no calling for Mommy’ – Rachel Harrison, author of The Return

‘Tautly paced and sharp as a scalpel, Just Like Mother grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. This book offers a dark and searing look at the societal expectations placed on women and mothers, and the lengths some will go to meet them. I devoured this book’ – Erin A Craig,New York Times bestselling author of House of Salt and Sorrows

‘Twisted, elegantly macabre, and brilliantly subversive, Just Like Mother delivers a searing commentary on the damage done to women by putting motherhood on a pedestal and equating feminine identity with bearing children. It got under my skin in the very best way; I’ll be thinking about it for weeks (especially at night)’ – Lana Harper, New York Times bestselling author of Payback’s a Witch

‘Full of dark secrets and even darker deeds, Just Like Mother grabbed me from the start. Heltzel has tapped into a deep-rooted and disturbing cultural nightmare’ – Nicholas Kaufmann, bestselling author of The Hungry Earth

‘An astonishing, chilling meditation on the sharp-toothed joys of motherhood’ – Livia Llewellyn, Edgar Award-winning author

‘As compulsively readable as it is genuinely terrifying, Just Like Mother expertly weaves together themes of motherhood, trauma, and the perversion of feminism. It will sink its teeth into you as much for its incisive social commentary as for its deliciously gruesome horror’ – Jessie Gaynor, author of The Glow

‘A visceral and disturbing ride, Just Like Mother dives deep into the extremes of feminism and motherhood through the lens of true horror. Anne Heltzel is a master’ – Amy Lukavics, author of Daughters unto Devils

‘A chilling look at modern motherhood, friendship, and what it means to be a woman. I thought about it long after reading the last page’ – Danielle Vega, author of The Merciless and The Haunted

‘Totally addictive. Twisty, dark, impossible to put down … a classic, down and dirty horror, ferrying a damaged, winningly prickly heroine ever further into the realms of her deepest fears. I was terrified and obsessed’ – Anna Godbersen, New York Times bestselling author of The Luxe series

FOR ELISABETH

This book contains references to sexual assault.

Prologue

Mother with the lazy eye spoons soup into our bowls. ‘Eat up,’ she says. She smiles, and the eye rolls outward, landing on the crow on the windowsill before it rolls back in. My cousin and I lift our spoons to our mouths and swallow. The other girls – Susie and Beth and Frances and Gloria – are still too little for meals with us. They nurse of the Mothers’ milk in the bedrooms. I dip a crust of bread into my soup until it softens enough to chew. Mother doesn’t like it when Andrea and I don’t finish our lunch.

There is a thud, thud, thud from the room next door and wild grunts like pigs at the trough. Our spoons pause midair and our heads, nearly identical, pivot at the neck. Three sets of eyes fix on the locked door. Mother rises from the table to stand behind us, placing one hand on top of each of our heads. ‘Finish,’ she says. She begins to hum, and the words take shape in my head.

A sailor went to sea sea sea

To see what she could see see see.

But all that she could see see see

Was the bottom of the deep blue sea sea sea.

By the time we are done, the sounds have turned to whimpers. We push back from the wooden table and carry our bowls to the sink. Andrea takes mine and washes it, while I linger at her elbow and Mother observes with her good eye. My cousin is taller than I am. They say it doesn’t matter what we are, we’re all family regardless, but she and I may as well be twins.

Boy has crept in unnoticed. He is just walking and always underfoot. I slip him the heel of the bread that’s been abandoned on the counter. He latches on greedily. I keep an eye on him while he eats; as long as he’s out of the way and quiet, he’ll be okay.

The locked door comes unlocked, opens. We freeze. The water is still running. Mother with the red hair and chipped tooth comes out of the room. Her face is red. Her freckles stand out against the cast of her skin. Her hair is straggly and damp and she smells like sweat.

‘Good morning,’ she says, her voice even. She locks the door from the outside with a key. The whine continues behind her.

‘Good morning, Mother,’ we reply in tandem, while Mother with the lazy eye observes. Mother exits the room, her musk trailing her, and Mother scrubs the kitchen table until I’m sure she’ll bore a hole straight through. None of them seem to notice Boy; it’s as if he’s invisible.

‘Let’s go weed the garden,’ I whisper to Andrea. Mother always says ‘No idle hands.’ When we weed the garden, we can talk and sing and make up stories. Andrea looks at Mother.

‘May we weed the garden, Mother?’ she asks. Mother nods without looking up. Andrea is the favorite. Mother can never say no to her. Boy looks panicked when we move toward the door, so at the last minute I sling him over my hip and take him with me. Andrea rolls her eyes.

‘You’re too soft with him,’ she says, her voice crisp.

‘Just keeping him out of the way.’ My heart twitches when Boy buries his face in my neck and wraps his chubby arms around my shoulders.

In the yard the sun is hot against my back, but the chill in the air makes me wrap my sweater tighter around my frame. The garden is far enough from the house that we won’t be heard. It is our project: a patch of order amid acres of wild brush and water and woods. Mother with the blond hair to her waist – one of the two who looks most like us, the one who sometimes slips us sweets or gives us hugs – is removing sundried sheets from the line on the other side of the yard. Just beyond her is the swimming hole where Andrea and I pretend to be minnows on the hottest days, and beyond that are the trees. We don’t know how far they stretch, with their bright green leaves that look like jewels against the blue sky. We have never seen the other side of the woods.

I settle Boy in the grass next to me and hand him a worm-eaten apple to play with. He amuses himself while I crouch low.

‘What do you think is in there?’ I keep my voice soft, and tug not hard enough at a weed, which breaks above the root. ‘A puppy?’

‘In the locked room? A new baby, maybe,’ Andrea says, shrugging. She’s dragging her finger through the dirt, drawing patterns instead of weeding. ‘A girl, hopefully.’ She shoots Boy a look of disdain. She hates when I coddle him.

‘No,’ I shake my head hard. ‘Not behind a locked door. I think for sure a puppy. It must be a surprise they don’t want us to see yet.’ My birthday is approaching. I have wanted an animal to love as long as I can remember.

Andrea looks at me, her eyes wide. ‘You think so?’ She must be remembering the time we found a dog and tried to keep it in our room in secret, but the owner came to get it, and afterward we stood in separate corners of the kitchen for two hours. It had a chip in it, Mother told us later. The owner could track it. We could have gotten into big, big trouble if people came here and saw things they didn’t want to see. We’ve wanted a dog forever.

‘Maybe,’ I tell her. I’m already exhausted from the heat and crouching in the dirt. Andrea’s feet are flat on the ground, her bum resting on her heels, while the weight of my body balances on the balls of my feet, my torso angled forward and heels hovering inches from the soil. I am awkward and unwieldy where Andrea is graceful and composed.

‘Let’s look,’ Andrea suggests.

‘Mother would never let us.’

Andrea pushes a strand of hair from her cheek, and her eyes sparkle green with mischief. ‘I know where they keep the key,’ she confides, then bites her bottom lip as she tugs halfheartedly at a stubborn root. My pulse accelerates, causing my fingers to turn cold. We never disobey. But I think of the puppy. Alone in the room. Scared. Making those noises.

‘Maybe tonight,’ I concede. I am equal parts afraid and alive with the urgency of need. We both know it could be tonight or some other night, that we are not the ones who will choose when. It’ll be chosen for us, when things line up just so, during the narrow glimmers of our days when all eyes are elsewhere. And Andrea will not be satisfied until her curiosity is sated. The promise is, we do everything together. Never alone, never apart, no matter what.

Mother at the wash line has bundled all the sheets into her wicker basket and begins making her way back toward the house, her ankles red and raw where unruly brush scrapes them above her sandals. Even so, she is elegant like Andrea. Now we are alone outside, and the sun is high in the late afternoon sky. The trees shift gently in the light breeze. Their shade looks cool, inviting.

Andrea sees me staring into the woods and juts her chin in that direction. Her mouth is quirked, the remnants of mischief seeking a place to land. I glance back toward the house. There is no movement from behind the curtains. It is late afternoon, the time when they take their naps. I stand, dusting filthy palms against my thick wool sweater. I nod. She leaps up and throws her arms around me.

‘Shh.’ I clap a palm over her mouth, stifling her squeal. But I laugh too; there is nothing better than making Andrea smile. First, I take Boy back to the house. I drop him in the kitchen and leave a pinch of sugar in his palm so he won’t cry. And then we are off toward the trees, hand in hand.

As we pass the swimming hole and approach the division between the backyard and the woods, I stop. Our palms separate, and I feel a physical ache at their parting. The sun is setting earlier than ever now, since winter is near. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t go,’ I suggest, stopping to catch my breath.

The house looks small from where we stand, and I’m starting to feel afraid. But Andrea has already crossed the border and disappeared into the thicket, fearless as always. I hear her laughter and the sound of branches crunching beneath her feet. I can barely make out the flash of her red ribbon against her blond hair as the distance between us increases. I glance at the house, at the empty kitchen illuminated in the waning light through its narrow window. Then I look back into the trees, where the invisible string between me and Andrea is pulling taut, until surely it will snap. Before I can think about it any more, I’m running after her, eager to relieve the awful anxiety of separation. The woods at night are terrifying, but the thought of Andrea leaving me behind is worse.

I’m sweating and thorn-bitten when I find her. She’s sitting on an upended log in a clearing, drawing in the dirt at her feet with a stick. She doesn’t look at me as I ease down next to her on the fallen tree.

Until she does.

She turns to me slowly, her neck moving stiffy – unnaturally – as if on a wire. Her expression is blank, her eyes empty. I can’t make out their green in the fading light.

‘Andrea?’

‘I am not Andrea,’ she says, and the voice that always brings me comfort is gone. It has been replaced by something low and gravelly, the sound of sandpaper on a wooden door.

‘Stop.’ I giggle nervously to show her I’m not mad. ‘Come on, Andrea. Let’s go back in the yard.’

‘I’m not Andrea,’ she says, her voice still guttural. She seizes my forearm. ‘I am Bloody Mary.’

‘Ow!’ I exclaim, trying to pry her fingers from my arm. With every struggle, her nails dig deeper. ‘Stop! You’re hurting me. Andrea, stop. Please.’

She removes her hand from my arm and slaps me across the face.

It’s so sudden that I don’t fully register what’s happened until it’s over.

‘I am Bloody Mary,’ she repeats. ‘Say it.’

I stand and back away. I won’t say it. ‘You’re Andrea,’ I tell her, more firmly now, certain I can talk sense into her. ‘You’re my cousin who loves me. You’re playing a mean game.’

‘I am Bloody Mary,’she snarls, reaching for me, pulling out a clump of my hair, scratching my face with her hands until I’m running, breathless, and thrashing through the woods in what I hope is the direction of the house.

After what feels like hours of twisting among the trees in waning light – but is probably only minutes – I break the border and find myself in the calf-high wild of our yard. By now my heart is threatening to crack through my ribs. I cross the grass; it’s crisp and deadened from the summer sun. I stumble – nearly falling once – until finally I hurl myself up the back steps to the kitchen, banging on the door.

‘What is it?’ Mother with the lazy eye looms large against the light of the kitchen. She doesn’t let me in right away, and I wonder suddenly if I’ve made a mistake. ‘Where’s Andrea?’

Mother with the long blond hair walks into the room and stands with her arms folded, waiting for my reply. I touch a pain on my head, and my hand comes back red. Boy isn’t anywhere, and I’m glad for it. I don’t want him to be scared.

‘In the woods,’ I tell them, my cheeks wet. ‘She said she was Bloody Mary.’

Mother with the blond hair glares at Mother with the lazy eye. ‘I told you not to speak of such things around the girls. They’re still too young. They don’t know what they’re hearing.’

‘They need to learn.’

Mother with the blond hair grabs my shoulders. Shakes me. Her eyes skitter past my bloody temple. ‘What’s happened to Andrea? You left her in the woods? Where? What were you thinking, you willful girl?’

Without waiting for my reply, she runs into the backyard, screaming Andrea’s name over and over. When Andrea emerges – almost as if she were right there, lying in wait for this moment – Mother grabs her, crying. She holds her tight. Together at the edge of the lawn in the dusk, with their honey-colored hair blending together, they look like one being.

Before Mother can bring Andrea back in, Mother with the lazy eye grabs me by my collar and hauls me toward the closet. ‘You’ll stay in here until you repent. One hour.’

‘No,’ I protest. ‘It’s dark.’

‘Well, now you’ll know how Andrea felt when you abandoned her to the woods. Lucky she didn’t go missing out there in the dark. “If you’re born to be hanged, you’ll never be drowned,” you know. That child was born under a good sign.’ She pushes me roughly to the ground and stares at me with her good eye, the other lolling.

‘What did Mother mean?’ My voice is small. Mother doesn’t like questions. ‘About not speaking of certain things?’

There’s a heavy silence, as if the air around us has condensed.

‘You will know someday. Oh, you will.’ I shift backward on the closet floor, frightened, as she points down at me with a trembling finger. ‘You were born under a bad sign. Rotten through and through. A bad apple, that’s what I always say. Boy-loving and difficult. Not one of us. No loyalty. She’s a bad, rotten fruit, that Maeve. She’ll be a Bloody Mary one day, mark my words. She’ll abandon us all.’

She’s still muttering when she locks the door with a key.

Abandon. I abandoned Andrea. I broke my promise.

The space is too small for me to stretch my legs. Long, threadbare coats hang over my face, tickling my cheeks. Each one smells faintly of the Mothers. Amber and tobacco and sweat and something earthier. My shivers have given way to a warmth so oppressive I can’t breathe. I draw thick, ragged breaths until I am light-headed.

I wrap my arms around my knees and lean against the wall.

A sailor went to sea sea sea

To see what she could see see see.

I murmur it to myself. It is our song. If we’re singing it, nothing can hurt us. That’s what Andrea says. But will it work when we are apart? I imagine the words wrapping themselves around me like an impenetrable cloak. I squeeze my eyes shut. It feels as if the walls of the closet are drawing closer.

But all that she could see see see

Was the bottom of the deep blue sea sea sea.

I sing myself to sleep. When I wake up, the space feels tighter than ever. It’s as if the closet is shrinking, until I’m certain I’m not in a closet at all but a small coffin built exactly for me. I don’t realize I’m whimpering until I hear Andrea’s voice. It brings me back to myself.

‘Maeve.’ She’s whispering from right outside the door. I feel a dampness in my tights and realize I’ve peed myself. I’m seven – too old to pee myself. ‘Listen to me, Maeve,’ Andrea says. ‘I’m right here.’ She knocks three times on the door. ‘I won’t leave you.’

‘Why did you do it?’ I say, sniffling. Even as I ask, I find my anger ebbing.

‘I’m sorry,’ she tells me. I hear her hand shift against the wood of the door. ‘It was only a dumb game. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know how scary it would be.’

‘What dumb game? How did you even know it?’ I ask. For as long as I remember, we know the same things. We share the same thoughts. There are no secrets. Now Andrea is silent. ‘I thought you’d left me,’ I explain, starting to hiccup. ‘I thought you’d become her.’

‘I’m just me,’ Andrea replies. ‘I can’t open the door, Mae. Mother has the key. But I’m going to sit here with you.’

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Please don’t go.’

‘I will never, ever leave you,’ my cousin tells me. ‘I am here always, no matter what. I won’t leave you like you left me.’

Like you left me.

‘I wasn’t going to say this, Maeve. But it wasn’t just a game. I was testing you. I wanted to see how much it would take for you to betray me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper quietly, tears streaming down my cheeks.

Andrea slips a finger under the door and wiggles it around until I find it with my own.

‘Who is Bloody Mary?’ I ask. In her silence, I forget to breathe.

‘Something bad,’ she says finally. ‘It’s what the Mothers call a very bad woman. Forget it. That isn’t the point.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say again.

‘Now I know,’ she says. ‘There are holes in our promise.’ Her voice sounds sad.

‘No! I will never, ever leave you,’ I whisper back to her, honoring our pact. ‘I am always here, no matter what.’

‘But you did, Maeve. You did leave. At the slightest scare. When we promise to stay together no matter what, it needs to mean as much to you as it means to me.’

Distantly, I begin to recognize faint sounds of unrest from the other side of the closet wall. The locked room.

‘Never again,’ I swear, distracted. I bend my fingertip as far as it will go around hers. I mean it. I failed this test, but never again.

The sounds beyond the wall turn to strained grunts, then heavy thuds. The closet wall shudders slightly, and I move closer to the door.

‘Okay,’ she agrees. ‘We’ll start from scratch. People make mistakes.’ At her words, I am awash with relief and gratitude.

‘A sailor went to sea sea sea.’She starts the old, familiar rhyme. The thing behind the wall grows louder and more furious. There’s a clanging sound that threatens to override Andrea’s voice. I raise my own, trying to drown out the sounds in the room. But the louder I get, the louder it gets, as if our song is stirring the thing’s unrest. It isn’t a puppy, I know now. Or if it is, it’s large and feral.

I curl against the door as the thing grows louder, its noises joining with our own rising voices to create a strange melody. We match its pitch. Its exertions match ours in turn. Then there’s a terrific thud, the clanging of metal, the sound of something breaking, and more thuds against the closet wall so powerful I worry it’ll splinter inward, crushing me dead. I huddle against the door, willing it to open, and clutch Andrea’s finger more tightly in my own. The banging grows louder, the closet’s flimsy wooden beams bending against the weight of the thing I’m now certain is a monster, not a dog at all. I hear the Mothers’ voices, the patter of their feet as they move toward the locked room. I try not to cry out as the creature’s efforts threaten to break down the wall and swallow me whole. Andrea’s voice, louder now, grounds me.

I repeat the words – all that she could see see see – even as I hear the Mothers enter the room, hear the beast grow wild. Even as I lose control of my bowels and a dank, putrid odor fills the air and makes me gag through my words. Even as I hear sounds of chaos through the thin slats and the tremble apparent in Andrea’s chanting. Our voices blend together until I can no longer tell hers from mine. Until it feels, again, like our promise is true.

1

It had been years since I’d searched for my cousin. In the early days, I entered fringe-style message boards with a feverish enthusiasm, hoping to find lost girls but more often than not finding derelicts who hoped I was a lost girl, who asked things like whether I was tight or loose long before I knew how those words might apply to my anatomy. Sometimes I’d ask to be dropped at the mall, where I’d comb the shops I thought she’d like, lingering for hours over scents at Bath & Body Works, debating whether she’d like peach or raspberry, before stalking the aisles of Hot Topic.

It plagued me constantly, then, that I didn’t know what she’d become. I imagined all sorts of variations on Andrea: Goth Andrea with pink and green hair and fishnets and a deep love for Joy Division; Andrea who snuck out to kiss older boys on the middle school jungle gym after dark; Andrea who mastered a fouetté and went on to perform at the Palais Garnier. It drove me mad, not knowing. More so than not having her in my life, maybe. It was the lack of connection to who she was, the absence of noise where I’d once been able to read her thoughts almost as easily as my own.

Patty and Tom – my adoptive parents – may or may not have known what I was up to. Patty had a strict rule: No dwelling in the past. What’s done is done. Put one foot in front of the other. Et cetera. To her, that meant no talking about anything that happened before I came into their home. She was desperately afraid I’d be perceived as abnormal, and in the way she fretted, I knew I must be. But Tom was the one who most often drove me to those solo outings, and sometimes the look he gave me when he dropped me off was so nakedly pitying and sweet that I’d have to jump quickly out of the car with hardly a goodbye in order not to cry.

When Facebook finally went wide, I scanned endless pages of anonymous profiles. Every time I saw a girl who looked like me, I clicked, leading to a string of dead ends. Same with Google. My late teens and early twenties were spent skipping parties to stay in and search ‘Andrea Indiana’ and ‘Andrea Mother Collective’ and ‘cult bust 1990s kid survivors’ and a million other iterations of the same damn things. My college roommates would stumble in at five a.m., lipstick smeared, eyes glazed, limbs weak and trembling from dancing, and I’d still be sitting there at my desk. Searching obsessively.

My whole life revolved around Andrea, and Andrea wasn’t even there.

One day I spit in a cup and mailed it in to one of those DNA websites. When that didn’t yield results, it occurred to me to ask the social worker who had been on my case. It seemed so obvious a solution that when I thought of it, I laughed aloud. After that didn’t turn up any results, I gave up. Andrea had disappeared altogether, lost to the foster care system. With no last name or birth certificate, she may as well have ceased to exist the night I tossed a metaphorical grenade into the center of our childhoods.

It wasn’t what I’d intended, of course. As an adult, I have realized that the biggest mistakes usually aren’t intentional so much as idiotic and tragically avoidable. One little error. A misguided tweet, a rogue email, a forgetful, harried disposition and your reputation is ruined, you’ve lost your job, you’ve left your child in the back of the car on a hot day.

It was the start of summer, a Saturday. I had my window open and a soft breeze was filtering through the screen. The piece of tape I’d used to patch it had come dislodged and was flapping around. A mosquito had found its way in and drunk heavily from my left shoulder before I noticed and squashed it, spreading a fine streak of blood across my palm. I’d been editing a manuscript and fighting off drowsiness with Skittles and Diet Coke. I intermittently scrolled through Twitter, following a viral debate over whether Taylor Swift, at thirty, ought to consider having babies before her looks faded and all her eggs turned to dust.

Working well into the weekend evenings, when everyone else was presumably out living their full, rich lives, had become typical for me aside from an occasional happy hour invitation from my supervisor, Elena. Ryan – the guy I’d been hooking up with – worked weekends at a bar, and most other people I knew disappeared at five p.m. Friday, receding into the glow of their relationships and family lives just as I receded into the glow of my computer screen. On the plus side, weekend hibernation saved me money – or rather, prevented me from sinking further into debt. The negative side, of course, was that it made me acutely aware of having nowhere to go.

I’d once been one of the fresh-faced college grads Ryan catered to at the bar. I knew the game too well – was intimately familiar with the thin border between adolescence and adulthood. It was how I’d met him myself – drinking to casual oblivion as I began to cross that very threshold. Mine was a neighborhood for youths, artists, and leftovers. As one of the thirtysomethings who still lived there, I fell into the ‘leftover’ category, though it could have been worse. It could have been a neighborhood populated by pregnant women, nannies, and strollers. I’d graduated from a vibrant, hopeful twentysomething with an alluringly blank future to what I was now – an adult with little to show for it other than a job and a cramped, dingy studio apartment.

The radiator in said apartment was inconsistent, and when it worked it was so hot to the touch it had actually given me a scar once. The second-floor light outside my unit turned off and on at a whim, and more often than not I had to fumble my way home in the dark. The refrigerator worked – kind of – except for the condensation that gathered up top, never falling, like hundreds of small stalactites. I slept on a mattress a former roommate had handed down when she moved in with her boyfriend; all other décor consisted mostly of street finds. The only thing I ever splurged on – my one concession to vanity – was the set of hair extensions I replaced each month to cover the alopecia I’d had since I was a kid.

Even the large canvas that graced the wall above the patio set I’d repurposed as a dining table had been confiscated from a garbage bin outside an artist’s loft during Open Studios. It was a painting of an empty boat, drifting away from its intended occupant, a woman trapped on an island. It was unsigned, and clearly someone hadn’t thought it was very good, but I liked its mood: it had a relentless, lonely sort of beauty to it. I was glad to have saved it. I was proud of all my motley treasures. It was squalor of a kind, but I was comfortable in it. It was my own very small footprint in an oversaturated, overpriced city. Moreover, it was the only proof of progress I could point to.

I toggled fluidly between news headlines, email, and edits on nights like these, when time seemed infinite, so when I saw an email announcing ‘New DNA Relatives,’ it didn’t really register. I absently clicked the See New Relatives button under a message that informed me one new relative had joined in the last thirty-one days.

Every now and then over the years, I’d clicked that same button to find a sixth-plus cousin or to be reminded of the gene mutation that allowed me to smell asparagus in my pee. After more than ten years on the site, I did not expect my one new relative to be Andrea. My Andrea.

Andrea Rothko, the site listed. 1st Cousin. 13.8% DNA shared.

My heart accelerated. Cousin. There it was, confirmed in stark serif font. I clicked on the site’s notifications tab. I had one new message, four days old.

She was cordial, even casual.

Maeve! Is it really you? It’s Andrea. Andrea Rothko, now. I can’t believe this thing worked. I’ve tried to find you forever… why don’t you have your last name listed? Look, I know this probably feels as shocking to you as it does to me, but text me when you get this, okay? Here’s my number.

My fingers went cold and my head swam. I’d imagined this very moment for so long. For more than two decades, I’d fantasized about our reunion. Now she was here. Like it was nothing at all. Like an entire lifetime hadn’t separated us. I had a sudden, visceral urge to slam my computer shut. To stuff headphones in my ears and drown out whatever this was, this seemingly benign interaction that was actually as life-altering as it got. For a second, I was angry. She’d foisted herself on me, knowing there was no way of going back.

I switched over to Instagram and searched her name. Andrea Rothko. She wasn’t even private. I clicked on her profile and felt my heart begin to accelerate as I flipped through her photos. There she was in a wedding dress, with a ruddy-complected man who gazed down at her adoringly. There they were together, posing in an apple orchard, laughing as he hoisted her high, she straining toward a top branch.

The normalcy of it cut me to my core.

I forced myself to take a breath. To pick up my phone, program in her number. It wasn’t even eight p.m. yet; I could text her right then. Casual, confident, just like she’d messaged me.

Or I could ignore it. Go back to my easy, predictable routine of before. I stared at her message on my laptop. I felt hot. I ran a palm across my forehead; it was slick with sweat. I was about to shut my laptop and pretend the whole thing hadn’t happened when a green dot appeared next to her name in the messaging tab of the DNA site.

She was online.

Which meant she’d see that I’d opened her message.

I quickly X-ed out of the site and slammed my laptop closed.

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ I whispered. I stood from my desk and paced the room in circles. If I didn’t text her soon, it would be weird. She’d know how badly I was affected. Or I could pull myself together and send her the same kind of breezy text she’d sent me. Yes.

I picked my phone back up, casting around for appropriate words. I could do this. This was practically my forte: putting on ‘normal’ for Patty as a kid, continuing in that way throughout college and on into my professional life, imposter syndrome lurking long after I’d succeeded in passing. The irony was, I’d managed to convince everyone except myself. Andrea didn’t need to know that, though.

Andrea! I just got your message. It’s me. If our DNA percentage wasn’t proof enough, I can assure you I’m the right Maeve. 

I pressed Send and waited her out, my fingers trembling just above the keys. Why had I included a smiley face? Idiot.I reached for my wineglass, eager for something to do with my hands – I didn’t trust myself not to start typing every single thought firing through my brain.

I took a long sip as the three dots appeared, then stopped, then appeared again. My palms dampened and my breathing had become audibly labored.

I’m so glad I found you, she wrote.

I kind of can’t believe it. Where do you live? She hadn’t listed her location on the site.

New York, she replied. Upstate. Just moved here from the West Coast.

Mere hours from where I sat.

Happy birthday, she typed, after a long pause.

I froze, frowning, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. I was about to be thirty-three the following month. June 16 was the birthday my adoptive parents had assigned me, to commemorate the day I came to live with them. It was the date on all my official documentation. So it took me a second to understand the significance of her words. My eyes flickered to the calendar date on my phone. It was May 7: the twenty-fifth anniversary of the raid on the Mother Collective. I’d celebrated my eighth birthday that same day. How had I forgotten?

I’d love to see you, she wrote. It’s been so long, and – She stopped. I imagined her casting about for words the same way I was. Everything had a subtext. We could celebrate your birthday? I’ve – Her typing trailed off again. There was a long pause as the ellipses started, stopped, started again. So she wasn’t sure-footed. Something about the realization calmed me.

– missed my cousin.

Cousin. A word we’d never really been allowed to use. We’d whispered it anyway, in secret, behind closed doors and in the dark of night. We’d huddled under the covers in a shared bed and whispered it: ‘Cousin, I love you. Cousin, sleep tight.’ It had implied ownership, security, a sense of belonging to someone else when we didn’t know who to belong to. It blew my mind that our relationship was finally confirmed.

I wanted to say yes; I really did. Yet I found myself hesitating. I clicked through her photos again. I scrutinized the images of her with all those smiling groups of people, their arms casually draped around one another. I studied her face for any evidence of artifice or hints of lingering trauma. But she looked happy and well-adjusted. Normal.

It would have been largely my fault if her life had turned out otherwise. My fingertips rested gently on the keyboard. Seeing Andrea again would link my present to my past in a way Tom and Patty never would have wanted.

I’d like that, I typed. Because what else could I say? To reject someone whose life I’d already upended once would be unimaginably cruel.

She was heading to the city the following Tuesday for some meetings, so we agreed to get together that morning for breakfast. After we said our goodbyes, I took a long breath and reopened my laptop. It still felt surreal. Now that I had Andrea’s last name – Rothko – I was hungry for more. According to her LinkedIn, she was CEO of a start-up that had been making the news for its groundbreaking contributions to the lifestyle market and billions of dollars in recent funding. So Andrea wasn’t just a cog in the tech machine; she was crucial to its operations. She’d actually been in the news a lot, though mostly in science journals.

I could hardly blame myself for not knowing the esoteric underpinnings of Silicon Valley. These were the kinds of things you didn’t really pay attention to when you resided on the East Coast with your nose buried in novels. Wealth, tech – they were as distant and theoretical as the luxury buildings in Dubai I’d read about, so tall they punctured the sky.

NewLife Dazzles with Its Cutting-Edge AI Technology, one front-page headline in a major national newspaper read.

Female CEO of NewLife ‘Marries’ Groundbreaking Vigeneros™ Tech with Humanity for Better Family Planning, read another.

I clicked away, eager to absorb everything about Andrea and the details of her world.

I typed NewLife CEO in the search bar. The only photo of Andrea that popped up in Images was her LinkedIn shot. I switched back to the News tab.

Andrea was mentioned in articles featuring NewLife, but she was mostly absent from Google Images. Instead, photos of a colleague, Emily, flooded the results page. Emily seemed to be some sort of tech goddess, worshipped by the top tier of Silicon Valley.

Andrea’s professional life was, admittedly, intriguing. Even in my childish imaginings I had mostly assumed she’d struggled too. It hadn’t occurred to me that she’d be wealthy, accomplished, renowned, and loved. My cousin had made a real life for herself. What did I have to offer, after all these years? If my life was a lazy river, Andrea’s was the Autobahn. I couldn’t help but feel that all those years I was looking for her, she’d been jetting in the other direction.

2

As a nondriver subject to the whims of a limited bus schedule, I couldn’t easily travel upstate to where Andrea lived, so she had offered to drive the two hours to New York. We planned to meet in a café in the West Village so we could catch up ‘for real.’ I’d had to take the day off for the occasion – a possibility Andrea hadn’t seemed to have considered, and one I wasn’t comfortable broaching.

When I got there she was already seated, but she rose quickly and threw her arms around me the second I walked in. Then she pushed me back, gripping my forearms and staring at me hard. ‘My god,’ she said. ‘I still can’t believe it’s really you. Have you been in New York all this time? How could we have been so close without ever knowing it? What am I talking about? I haven’t been in New York all this time. I only just moved out here from the Bay Area a year ago.’ She shook her head and a strand of perfectly highlighted hair tumbled charmingly over one porcelain cheek – healthy, strong hair, unlike my own unreliable strands.

Andrea looked good. Amazing, really. Like a better, more polished, fitter version of me. She was wearing a pair of loose-fitting high-waisted jeans with ankle boots and a white silk button-down, which was carefully tucked into the jeans. Her glowing skin appeared poreless, and I spent a second wondering which expensive laser treatments had produced such perfection. A delicate gold chain encircled her right wrist. And there was the diamond on her left hand: the kind of solitaire that was on the large end of the tasteful spectrum. The sum effect was that of casual luxury.

‘Wow.’ I drew back, separating from her grasp, and indicated her ring. ‘That’s beautiful. So you’re married, then.’ I knew this already from my sleuthing, obviously; she’d had that wedding photo on her Instagram feed. Still, I was experiencing a nasty mixture of envy, possessiveness, and – bizarrely – FOMO. Andrea blushed and glanced down at her hand as if she were surprised by it too.

‘I am,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘And it is. Thank you. Funny how everything looks from the outside, don’t you think?’

I tilted my head. It was a strange admission for the first thirty seconds of our reunion.

‘Things aren’t good?’ I pulled out my chair and slid into it. ‘Are you… is everything okay?’ I suddenly wanted to know her entire story all at once. The juicy stuff, not the curated content I’d found online. If it were possible to reclaim all twenty-five years through immediate osmosis, I would have. My stomach twisted. I clasped my fingers in my lap to still their trembling.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, sliding into the booth across from me. ‘Or I am now, anyway. It’s been a difficult year. Rob – my husband – well, he’s been a saint. Seriously. The silver lining, I guess, is that I found you.’ She stopped, took one look at my confusion, and shook her head as if to clear it. ‘Let me back up,’ she said. ‘But first, coffee.’

Andrea motioned to the waiter for some water and he brought over a pitcher, filling each of our glasses.

‘Coffee, when you get a minute.’ She flashed him a dazzling smile. Andrea oozed the kind of authority that had eluded me my entire life. There were years when I held my breath every time I spoke to a stranger, half expecting to be met with scorn for breaking a random social convention I’d never learned. Half wondering if I’d even gotten my phrasing right. If I was honest, it was part of the reason I’d become an editor: the meticulous attention to detail made me feel more in control. And it gave me a reason to study people. Most people thought editing was about fixing grammatical errors, but that was the work of copy editors and proofreaders. In its way, being an editor was a blend of sociology and psychology: the study of characters and the worlds they moved in. What motivated them. What drove them. What their individual microcosms looked like. What it meant to understand and empathize to an immersive extent. And above all else, how best to craft an authentic-seeming narrative.

I was fascinated by people’s stories. Over the years, I’d become adept at telling convincing stories of my own – namely, the overarching narrative that I was just like everyone else. Despite my knack for blending in, I often caught myself apologizing for basic requests. I was that person who waited to contact her landlord until the cockroach problem was out of control and who preferred to go home empty-handed rather than ask the salesperson for a different shoe size. Andrea, on the other hand – while clearly emotional – exuded self-possession where it counted. This was a woman who never had to wonder how to be. It seemed that for her, moving through life was instinctual.

Our waiter placed two cups of coffee in front of us.

‘Cream, please,’ she told him, offering another warm smile.

I hadn’t told her I drank coffee. But coffee with cream was exactly what I’d been craving.

‘I just… assumed,’ she said, motioning toward my mug. ‘We were always so alike, you and me. But if you want something else…’ She trailed off, her eyes questioning.

‘No, no. This is perfect.’ I added cream to my mug and took a long sip to prove it.

She relaxed into the booth.

‘Maeve, I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you,’ she said. ‘I thought… I wondered… Well, none of it matters now.’

I exhaled loudly. I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding my breath. My napkin, which I’d been clutching in my lap, was shredded.

‘You wondered whether I was alive or dead,’ I clarified. ‘What had happened to me, whether I’d turned out fine. Whether I ever thought of you over the years.’

She nodded, her eyes brimming. ‘It was the same for you, then.’

‘Yes, exactly,’ I told her. ‘It was like losing a part of me. I’m just so glad to see you’re okay. Or – are you okay?’

‘I am.’ Andrea dabbed at the corners of her eyes with her napkin. ‘God.’ She laughed. ‘I really hadn’t planned to start like this. I’m a little vulnerable, I guess. Oh, hell. I may as well just be candid. I lost my daughter five years ago.’

‘Oh god, Andrea –’ Taken aback, I was the first to look away.

‘No, no. Don’t say anything,’ she said. ‘I’ve made peace with it… mostly. We didn’t find out about Olivia’s condition until after we took her home from the hospital. She lived for three months at home, and then she was back at UCSF Benioff and fully reliant on machines. In the end, we made the decision to let her go. It’s been… Well, she was so little when we lost her. Some might say we were lucky. It was probably easier than losing a child we’d had more of a chance to get to know. But I don’t know. It was no easier than the night I lost you,’ she confessed, meeting my eyes again. ‘I just wanted a family, you know? Which is why finding you feels like a gift from the universe. I still can’t believe it.’

‘I can’t either.’ It was weird how simultaneously awkward and normal it felt to be sitting across from her. ‘I’ve got to say, I’ve spent most of my life wondering if you even wanted to find me. Finding each other on a DNA website is just so fated. And obvious.’

‘What can I say; I’m a tech girl. Thank goodness you took one of those DNA tests.’

‘Yeah, but like a thousand years ago. I didn’t even know I had email notifications enabled.’

‘Are we ready to order?’ The waiter interrupted us. He was young and very handsome, early twenties, with slicked-back hair and the sort of angular chin people paid good money for. Likely an actor or model. His smile was from another world, where cousins brunched casually without a lifetime of baggage to unpack.

‘I’ll have the fruit bowl,’ Andrea said. ‘And a spinach omelet with turkey bacon on the side. And a tomato juice with a wedge of lemon. Thank you.’

‘I’ll take two poached eggs,’ I told him. ‘Thanks.’

‘Oh, Maeve. You should have more than that.’

‘I’m not really a breakfast eater,’ I explained. ‘Sometimes it’s hard for me to force food down before noon.’

‘I get it.’ Andrea fidgeted with her bracelet, her forehead crinkled in thought. ‘I was that way too, for a while. Then, when I was trying to get pregnant, I started eating a lot of fiber and protein at breakfast. I guess it kind of stuck.’ She shrugged, losing herself to memories. Then she met my eyes again.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to launch into that whole sad story so soon. But I guess… Honestly, it’s probably good that you know. It’s so wrapped up in who I am now that it would have felt strange to hide it.’

‘I appreciate you sharing it with me,’ I told her, meaning it. ‘I’m so sorry you went through that.’

‘Thank you.’ She smiled tightly. ‘Do you have kids?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m single. No kids. No significant other. Just me.’

‘Oh.’ There was an awkward silence. Then, ‘Well, you’re a high-powered career woman, by the look of it. I checked you out online,’ she admitted. ‘What do you edit?’

‘Fiction,’ I said, embarrassed by her idea of me. ‘The occasional nonfiction. But mostly I love escapism.’

She laughed. ‘Of course! You had the most active imagination when we were kids. And a penchant for overanalyzing. Yeah, I could see you being great at that gig.’

I found myself smiling back. ‘I guess I needed an outlet for that imagination. You remember how you were always teasing me about it? I’d have these ridiculously detailed dreams and force you to listen…’

‘But then I’d interrupt you to tell you my dream, which usually I was just making up on the spot because I was jealous you could remember yours.’

‘Wow. I never knew that.’ I paused, touched that she’d admitted something so personal. ‘You had a great imagination too.’ We both laughed then, longer and harder than the conversation warranted. It was as if someone had hit the release valve on everything I’d been bottling up.

‘You have no idea how incredible it is to see you,’ Andrea said quietly, as the waiter set down her tomato juice and refreshed our coffees. Andrea added more cream to her coffee from a small pewter pitcher.

‘I do know,’ I said. ‘I feel the same way.’ Being with Andrea again felt like getting back an essential piece of me, that part of me that had died when I was eight and she was eleven. I knew all along how much I’d missed her; I simply hadn’t realized how much of me had been missing as well.

‘I just wanted to say…’ I started, hesitating momentarily. ‘About that night –’

Andrea sucked in a breath. ‘Actually, I don’t want to talk about those days. If it’s okay with you. The only thing that matters anymore from back then is that the two of us were together. And now we can be together again.’

‘Okay.’ I nodded, confused. It was hard for me to think about those days too, let alone discuss them aloud. But how could wenot talk about it? Our history was the entire basis for our relationship. It struck me that we actually didn’t have much in common other than our past, that I knew of, and I fumbled for something to ask. Then a smile crossed her face and she reached across the table to squeeze my hand.

‘Tell me everything. What’s been going on all these years? Besides your badass career, I mean.’

I laughed awkwardly. It had been so long since anyone had even asked. I was painfully aware that I had nothing to say.

‘You first. What do you do professionally?’ I bluffed. ‘And who’s this guy you married?’

‘Oh, I can’t wait for you to meet him,’ Andrea gushed. Part of me lifted at that – the acknowledgment that there would be opportunity to meet him, that this wasn’t it for us. As she talked about Rob, the way they’d met, and the house they’d just recently purchased upstate after a year of renting, I couldn’t help but lose myself in the fantasy – becoming friends with both of them, spending holidays at their home. Being part of a real family.

‘And so that was when he proposed!’ she finished. ‘Can you believe it? It was the biggest surprise of my life.’

I nodded, then shook my head, realizing I’d spaced out. ‘No!’ I exclaimed. ‘Wow. That’s so great.’

‘What?’ She looked at me closely. ‘What is it?’