Page 12 of Mirror Image

I grabbed Sam’s hand in mine and gave it an excited squeeze. She smiled back a little uncomfortably.

“So, Sam,” my mother began, carefully polite, “why don’t you tell us about yourself? Where are you from?”

The question, while perfectly reasonable, struck me as faintly surreal. She was from where I was from in the most literal sense imaginable. But I doubted “the same uterus as your daughter” was going to be well received, so I kept quiet and let Sam answer.

“Um . . . I lived in Homestead with a series of foster families,” she said.

“Six,” I offered, remembering our conversation in the car.

She gave a small nod of acknowledgment. “Right. Six.”

“Six?” Dad repeated, startled. “Six?”

Sam’s shoulder lifted slightly. “A couple of those were when I was a baby. I don’t remember much about the early ones.”

“So how old were you when you were adopted?” my mother asked.

I felt Sam go still beside me.

“I wasn’t,” she said simply. “Adopted, I mean. I stayed with different foster families, but a permanent placement never really happened. When I was around fourteen, I was moved into group homes and different programs. One of them was this wilderness camp for teens.” She added, “Classes were indoors, but the rest of the time we lived in tents. Carried our own water and firewood. That sort of thing.”

Mom inhaled sharply. “Oh, my goodness. That sounds absolutely horrible!”

Sam shook her head. “It wasn’t all bad. Some parts were rough, sure, but . . . I liked being outside. You learn to make the best of whatever situation you’re in.”

Her voice wasn’t defensive—just matter of fact. A simple telling of what was.

“So that was my life for a while,” she finished. “Until I aged out.”

“Aged out?” I echoed, unfamiliar with the term.

She nodded and glanced my way. “Yeah. You’re on your own once you turn eighteen.”

“But what if you don’t have money to go to college or for an apartment or whatever? What do you do then?”

“Then I guess you’re outa luck,” she replied. “I was lucky, though. I really enjoyed the whole wilderness thing, and turns out I’m pretty good at it too. That’s how I was able to score a scholarship as an outdoor education major there at the college. I’m hoping to get a job as a tour guide, maybe even own my own company someday.”

“Oh. My. God!” I yelped loud enough to startle all three of them. “I love camping too! Right, Dad? Don’t I love camping?” I turned to my father so he could verify my love of the outdoors.

“Uh, yeah, you sure do,” he answered in a tone that was much less enthusiastic than my own.

“Isn’t that amazing?” I asked my parents. “We both love the outdoors! And we’re both allergic to peanuts. And can you believe we both hate strawberries? Oh, and—”

Dad held up his hands to stop me. “Mary, slow down, honey. A lot of people love the outdoors and are allergic to peanuts.”

“‘Slow down’? Are you kidding? I think we should be calling the newspapers! This is an amazing story. I mean, what are the odds of us reconnecting at some random liberal arts college in Nowhere, Florida? And how did we come to be separated in the first place? Maybe I was ripped from my mother’s arms, or there was a mix-up—”

“Mary!” Mom cut me off sharply.

“What? What’s wrong?” I demanded. “This is amazing! We should be celebrating, cracking open a bottle of champagne . . .”

“Mary, they’re not happy,” Sam muttered from next to me.

When I glanced over, she was staring at the floor. I elbowed her gently.

“What? No, don’t be silly,” I insisted, still grinning.

But when I looked back up at my parents, I saw it then too.