The Girl in the Mirror(37)

I’m only telling one lie, but that’s the only part the inspector doesn’t question. Everything else comes under scrutiny. I must seem like a fraud with a poorly concocted story. There’s so much I don’t know. What day of the week did my sister disappear? I don’t even know what day it is today. The inspector makes a big deal of the fact that I was asleep at the time, as if I should have stayed awake across the entire Indian Ocean. Me, a pregnant woman.

“Let’s check the ship’s log,” Adam says. He moves toward the pilothouse.

“Yes!” I shout. Too enthusiastic. I know the log backs up my story. I took care last night to throw away my crazy notes, even the paper beneath them, in case the indent of my pen showed through. I flung the skipper cap overboard, too, in order to keep my options open, even though I was determined not to pull this stunt. But now I have to double-check that there are no stray pieces of paper lying around the pilothouse. Did I throw everything overboard that I needed to? I stand up to look, and my legs buckle. Adam rushes back and takes me in his arms. My face presses into his collar, his soft cotton shirt. I close my eyes and inhale.

“My wife is pregnant, sir,” he says. “She’s been through an ordeal. Iris is her twin. Their bond is incredible. We can’t imagine what she’s going through. She must feel like her soul has been torn out.”

He continues in Creole, but the police inspector cuts through. “I am a twin.”

Adam stops short. I start. I feel that this man can see right through me. He’s not going to fall for this incredible-bond bullshit.

“Take your wife into the shade,” he says. “We don’t want our witness collapsing. Get her some water.”

“There’s no water,” I say. “There’s not a drop left.” I let my legs wobble as Adam helps me step over the child gate into the pilothouse. What can it mean that I’m “our witness”?

The inspector pushes his way down to the saloon and I see him moving the faucet up and down, turning it from side to side, to no avail. He lurches into the bathroom, no doubt to try the tap in there.

Now he pounds back up to the deck, brushing past us, shouting orders in Creole, his face a deep, angry frown. The men on the foredeck stomp aft to where the launch is tethered. Bathsheba lists under their assembled weight.

“We will take you to shore, Mrs. Romain,” the inspector barks.

I stand. This is it. He’s seen something in the bathroom, and he knows.

“Wait,” says Adam. He speaks to the inspector in Creole.

I can’t tell what’s going on. I haven’t even caught the policeman’s name, and I can’t imagine why he had to bring ten or twelve men to the boat. Are they the regular customs team or are they onto me? I can’t read the vibe between him and Adam. They seem to be engaged in some sort of staring competition, but I can’t tell if it’s going to end in smiles or blows.

The inspector blinks first. He comes back toward us and holds out his hand. “Mrs. Romain,” he says, “you have searched for your sister until you ran out of water. It is a miracle that you have survived. You must take care of yourself and your baby. The interrogation”—he says the word the French way—“Can wait. First we will take you to the hospital.”

“No!” I cry. I’m not letting a doctor anywhere near me till I’ve told Adam the truth about the baby. Everybody—Adam, the inspector, the men on the side deck—turns and stares. “Please, I just need water and food. I’ve barely eaten since it happened, but I don’t want anything to delay your investigation. Please take the ship’s log to shore. It records our position when she disappeared.”

I’m already learning. Don’t say names. Say “she.” Be vague, like you can’t bear to think about it. Like you can’t remember. Let them see you stumble.

The men climb down into the launch one by one. While we wait in the hot sunshine, the inspector opens the log. He turns page after page filled with Iris’s neat, backward-slanted handwriting, the purplish ink smudged by her left hand. Her last entry is at six p.m. on the twenty-eighth of March. It’s precise and impersonal, the latitude and longitude noted to three decimal places. Motoring due south to cross equatorial zone. Wind changeable. Making 6 knots. Confused seas, squally weather.

The next page is covered with the scribblings of a madwoman. GPS coordinates are scrawled at all angles, illegible, covered in dried blood. A crude chart of the area lays out a search grid covered with arrows. No one would recognize this mess as the handwriting of either twin.

The inspector snaps the book shut and ushers me to the side deck. It’s a big step down to the launch, but even with my weakness and thirst, I could skip down in an instant. But I lean against Adam’s firm shoulder, and he and the inspector take an arm each and lift me down, like a little doll, into the brawny arms of the troops. I’m in a sea of men, all panting to hold me up as the launch bobs and bumps against Bathsheba’s side.

Something surges inside me like an ocean swell. I can do this. I can be Summer. The things I don’t know, they’re details. Adam is familiar in my arms, like we’ve been married for years.

I’ve got Summer’s essence. I’ve been practicing for this all my life. I am Summer. And every man in sight is falling over himself to help me.

The madness that engulfed me on Bathsheba will be my best friend. Summer can’t remember things, Summer seems different, Summer gets confused. Of course she does. Out there on the ocean, she lost her soul.