The Girl in the Mirror(39)

My lips were moving, but you can’t read lips off grainy CCTV footage. Even if I could somehow get back to the yacht and play that disc—it’s still hidden in my suitcase lining—Iris’s suitcase lining—it wouldn’t help.

Did Adam hear the thwack that killed my sister? The boom crashing into her skull? He must have heard a loud noise, maybe a splash, and then the line would have cut, and he wouldn’t have been able to call back. And now he’s going to find out that the phone is missing. How am I going to explain all this? He thinks he was talking to me, Summer, the twin who survived.

One thing is certain: I can never let Adam see that footage.

What did he say to me on that call? Something about Tarquin? They were only going to make phone calls in emergencies. What has happened to Tarquin?

A crash. I’ve dropped the milk on the floor. My hands are shaking. Daniel catches me as I reach to pick up the broken glass.

“Leave it,” he says. “Don’t eat or drink any more for now. Your body needs time to recover. You need to rest.”

I almost blurt out something about him being no expert, when a voice behind me says, “Dr. Romain, your car is here.”

Dr. Romain. Jesus, the last thing I need near me is a freaking doctor. Can he diagnose a fake pregnancy from across the table? Somehow, I find myself being led out of the yacht club. I’ve barely noticed where I was, but I glance around as I’m leaving. The diners at the other tables avert their eyes.

The yacht club has no walls; a set of white pillars hold up the roof, like something from ancient Rome. On the nearest pillar, level with my eyes, is an algal stain. A watermark. I look around and see a similar stain on every pillar at the same height. I press my hand into it, and the plaster crumbles.

I’m standing underwater in this building, up to my eyes in the sea. I’m drowning, but I can’t move. “Is this really here?” I ask. “Did the sea come into this building? Up to here?”

I turn and look behind. The waters of the harbor reach almost to the edge of the yacht club. From here I can see the concrete pier and, beyond it, Bathsheba’s mast bobbing in the open harbor. But how could the sea have come so high? Am I hallucinating?

“The tsunami,” Adam says. No, not Adam, Daniel. “Back in 2004.”

I’m straining for breath. The air turns ocean-green, and I’m stuck, anchored by my feet. Daniel takes me by the shoulders and steers me outside—a flash of sunshine—and then into his car. I’m on a leather seat in the back of an air-conditioned sedan. Daniel sits beside me, and his driver pulls out onto the road.

I can’t ask Daniel what happened here, how many people died. I’m torn into madness by the loss of one person. How many friends did Daniel lose? What did the people here live through?

I’ve heard about the tsunami before, of course; nobody could spend time in Phuket and not hear, but it was something that had happened to other people. The sea takes its toll.

I thought I was exempt, but now Iris Carmichael is lost at sea. Somehow, I’m still here, but it’s only a matter of time. Collapsing into Dr. Romain’s steady arms, I feel I can see the future. The sea will claim its dead.



I walk a fine line between delicate and sick. Too distraught to be questioned, but not mad enough to be hospitalized. Would it cross the line to ask where Tarquin is? To have forgotten every word of the phone call?

The sedan glides along a modern road, through succulent forest. Women bounce along the footpath in tube tops and miniskirts. They look free and happy, comfortable in their beautiful clothes. If I were Seychelloise, I could get out of the car and disappear into the crowd.

No, I don’t need to escape. I can do this. Adam and I haven’t been married long, and he’s never been able to tell me apart from my twin.

I need to get back to Adam. Why did he leave me with his cousin? I can’t understand how I didn’t notice the switch.

And where is Daniel taking me? Please not a hospital. I can’t ask. Alone with a doctor, I’m history. I can feel Daniel pressing his fingers into me, confusion appearing on his chiseled features as he palpates my empty womb.

I’ll pull him onto the examination table, on top of me, my hand snaking into his pants. Doctor, give me a baby. I’ll split the cash with you. He must have a lot of Adam’s DNA. No one would ever know.

“Adam’s waiting for us at La Belle Romance,” says Daniel. He’s reading something on his phone. “He’s leaving your son with my mother for the night. Tarquin’s desperate to see you, Adam says, but he thinks it’s not a good idea. Not until”—Daniel smiles uncomfortably—“You’re more like yourself.”

I frame a sad-but-compliant expression. Like I’m desperate to see Tarquin, but too tired to argue. Doctor knows best.

If I never see the kid again, it will be too soon.



I’ve heard Adam and Summer talk about La Belle Romance. A big part of Adam’s business involves booking wealthy Australians into his grandparents’ hotel. Romain Travel attracts a lot of honeymooners, and older couples celebrating anniversaries. Yet I have always pictured a run-down building, rustic, cramped.

Daniel’s driver takes us over the steep hills of Mahé’s interior and down toward the opposite coast, and now the car turns into a boulevard lined with flourishing frangipani and vertiginous palms. The dangling coconuts are a weird doubled shape, as though each one tried and failed to split in two.