The Mirror Image

It was like looking in the mirror, but seeing a face that wasn’t quite hers.

The gaunt face and ragged brown hair of the woman who had tried to physically become Rosie was starring back at her.  Even though the two women were seemingly identical twins, the differences were stark. Jane was wearing another outfit she’d stolen from Rosie’s closet, but her body didn’t fill in the clothes as much as Rosie’s had. The jeans were a little too baggy, the shirt’s collar hung askew.

“How long have you known about me?” Rosie asked. The two women were sitting at the kitchen table in Rosie’s damaged house.

“Since you’re dad got shot. I saw you on TV and wondered why you looked like me. I didn’t know I was adopted until then. So thanks,” Jane said, looking straight at Rosie. Though she had willingly shown up to meet Rosie, Jane wasn’t planning surrender.

The sisters sat in a tough silence in the space where the collision of their lives had happened. Rosie got up and paced the kitchen floor.

“Why did you do this,” Rosie said. Though she was asking a question, she demanded an answer.  Her anger was flaring. “Why did you come into my life and turn it into this. I was fine not knowing you. And then you came and screwed it all up.”

“You think life was easy for me? My parents couldn’t tell me why I had a twin sister or why my birth mother had chosen to give me up. They didn’t have answers. They just kept telling me your mom must have known I’d be the troubled daughter and wanted someone else to raise me.” Jane was standing now too, but maintained the space between her sister. “You were right in your little newscast. I don’t know how you knew it, but my life was harder than yours.”

“Twin’s intuition,” Rosie said.

“Lies. You don’t know my life,” Jane retorted.

“I know what you did—,” Rosie started.

“I don’t believe you,” Jane whipped back.

“—then why are you here?” Jane questioned. She slammed her fist on the table. “You’re afraid of that small chance that I might actually know what happened. And you’re even more afraid I’ll tell someone who will do something about it. My father died in a tragic accident. Tell me, Jane, how did your parents die?”

“I did what I had to do.”

“You saw me on TV after my father’s death, in a press conference, I’m assuming. And then you thought, ‘Huh, I have a way out of this life. I’ll just become my twin sister.’ I realize we weren’t fortunate enough as children to play ‘let’s switch lives for the day to see if anyone notices,’ but I thought people grew out of that as they became adults,” Rosie said, tauntingly. She had had enough of mind games from Jane and it was time to ensure Jane understood.

“At least you thought you were crazy,” Jane said. Her confidence was regaining strength. “I almost won. You would have been committed just like your mom and I would pretend to be you. Not in this town, of course, but I could have gotten away with it somewhere else.”

“You killed your parents, didn’t you,” Rosie said. “Did you kill those two cops whose uniforms your men borrowed?”

“I returned those police officers this morning. But they won’t say a word about me,” Jane said. “And as for the couple that adopted me, you would have done the same.”

“Just because evil runs in your veins, doesn’t mean it pulses through mine.”

“I made it look like an accident,” Jane said. “No one suspected I set that fire.”

“Then why did you run?” Rosie was curious.

“I wanted freedom.”

The next few moments were a blur for Rosie, but they were all in the plan. Once Jane had revealed her motive and her secret, she was arrested by police who were standing just outside in Rosie’s backyard. Jane was taken by surprise and fought the officer who read her the Miranda rights and enclosed her delicate wrists in handcuffs.

The screams of Rosie’s twin sister echoed as she was escorted to an awaiting police car. Her words were inaudible. But when the car pulled away, there was a sense of relief.

Rosie was free.

The end.

The One Who Stood Alone

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for this important announcement.

“I’m sure by now that most of you know who I am. My name is Rosie Lawrence. I’m the woman with the rumors. Though I didn’t contribute to those rumors personally, I would like to reach out to the woman who did.”

Camera crews and news vans crowded the parking lot at the station. Microphones from every news channel in a 50 mile radius lined the top of a podium where rumor was the key suspect in a bizarre break-in would be announced.

“Her name is Jane. She has a thing for sunflowers and brown hair dye. In her spare time she enjoys planning ways to steal my identity, a process which begins with breaking in to my house and stealing my clothes. If you wanted to borrow my wardrobe Jane, all you had to do was ask. I thought any sibling of mine would at least have manners.”

The press was starting to stir and the lights were getting hot.

“You see, Jane is my twin sister and up until a few days ago, I didn’t know she existed. But the cunning woman she is, she knew a long time ago. And from what’s been going on the past few weeks, I’m bold enough to gather that I had the better childhood. After all, I’m the lucky one who spent her childhood growing up with her biological parents.

“She’s the reason my car sits abandoned in front of a skeleton of my house. She’s the reason two police officers are still missing. She’s the reason people think I’m crazy. And I have to give her some credit because for a half second, I actually thought I might be. My favorite memory of this whole ordeal was when she snuck into Carter’s house and kept moving the dishes I’d put in the sink back to the stove. That was hilarious.”

Rosie’s sarcastic tone and awkward chuckling kept the parking lot audience silent.

“She’s played a great game, Jane has. People were starting rumors and despite my honest track record in this town, the rumors ruined me. Congratulations, sis. You wanted my identity and now you can have it. But with this victory of yours comes a little reward for me.

“I don’t want to get to know you, Jane. I don’t want anything to do with you. But you had wanted something to do with me. And I know why. I know what you did Jane. I know why you wanted to be me. So here’s where we play my game. We make a deal. You know what you did and if you don’t want people to know what it was, you meet me tomorrow. If you don’t meet me then your world starts to burn.

“Don’t think about leaving town Jane. You can’t. We’re all out looking for you.”

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

The Eye of the Cat

The police were unsure whether or not to accept the confession from Rosie’s mother Claire that Rosie was one half of a whole. Rosie was never told that she had a sister, let alone a twin, and the idea that a mother gave one child away while keeping the other sounded improbable.

But a call to the hospital set the record straight. Rosie’s twin sister, Jane, was given up for adoption at birth.  Since it was a closed adoption, Rosie would never know who raised her sister or where they had lived. The police were able to get in touch with the doctor who had delivered Rosie and her sister and ask for an account of what happened that night so many years ago.

Her parents were expecting one child, a daughter. Claire had arranged for an adoption, despite her husband’s wishes. He had wanted children, but Claire didn’t think she could handle being a mother at that point in her life. He didn’t know she planned giving the child up for adoption and informed the new parents of this dilemma.

Claire’s husband waited outside the delivery room (he was never good with needles) and when she gave birth to twins, she made a quick decision. The new parents were expecting a child, but only one child. Her husband was expecting a child as well. She had the doctor bring in one of the newborns and she presented it to the awaiting couple, knowing full well she was deceiving both parties and denying her husband the chance to know both of his children.

The doctor who related the information to the police was the same doctor Claire had confided in to keep her secret. And now the truth was out.

“So what’s the game plan now?” Rosie asked. She was down at the station with Carter sitting next to her on the green leather couch. “Do we go after my evil twin or what?”

“We still don’t know where she’s hiding or if she’s really the one behind all of this,” said Officer Brown. “She’s a suspect, but we don’t have any evidence saying it was definitely her.”

“Well, we know it definitely wasn’t me,” Rosie insisted. “I’m not trying to make myself look crazy, but because of her, people think I am.”

“We can approach this one of two ways,” Brown said. “We can purposely put you in situations that make you look vulnerable and she might strike or you could reach out to her publicly and catch her tripping up in her own game. Do you have a preference?”

“Rosie’s already been doing option number one, though, hasn’t she?” Carter said, speaking up for the first time. “She’s been a pawn in this woman’s game and we haven’t been able to gain any leads on where she’s staying or why she’s doing this. Yes, we didn’t have this information before, but I think we need to use it now that it’s ours.”

“What’s your decision, Rosie?” Brown asked.

“Get me a news crew, I have something to say to my sister.”