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.”

The Kitchen Dishes

She wasn’t crazy. But people were talking about Rosie like she had lost her mind. Her honest reputation had turned against her as the towns folk swallowed up rumor after rumor.

‘Did you hear about that girl Rosie? She’s broke into her own house to collect insurance money.’

‘I heard she’s taking advantage of that Good Samaritan, Carter. He lets her sleep in his house! Poor man’s being robbed blind.’

‘Her mind is messed up… she’s got multiple voices up there talking and she can’t figure out which one to listen to.’

It had been two weeks since the store clerk and market cashier had identified her as the one leaving sunflowers on parked cars and buying brown hair dye. Rosie didn’t dye her hair, she never had. But the clothes the woman had been described as wearing belonged to her, except she hadn’t seen them since her house had been burglarized.

She’d even had instances where she thought she might be crazy, though she was pretty convinced she wasn’t. A crazy person wouldn’t wonder if they were actually crazy, would they? she often thought.

Last week she was in the kitchen at Carter’s place, he was out, and she’d made some eggs. She’d put the pan in the sink to let it cool and went to eat her breakfast in the den. When she came back into the kitchen, the pan was back on the stove. I probably didn’t put it in the sink, Rosie thought.

She thinks someone is in the house undoing all the things she does… what a nutcase. I’ll tell you who’s putting the dishes back on the stove- voice number two in her head.

A few days ago, in the guest room closet where she kept her remaining wardrobe, Rosie saw her navy blue blazer hanging alone. It was that blazer that the clerk and cashier witnessed the look-a-like wearing. And now it was hanging in the closet like it was never stolen.

That girl Rosie tried to tell the cops her jacket was stolen from her house… it’s been in her closet the whole time! She’s got a screw loose, just like her mom. Doesn’t the saying go, ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?’

That rumor was partially true. Rosie’s mother, Claire, had cracked a few years ago and was living in a nursing home outside of town. Rosie had since fallen out of grace with her mom and hardly ever went to visit.

This morning though, she had a missed call from the nursing home and a message to call them back.

“Ms. Lawrence, we called this morning because your mother kept insisting she needed to tell her daughters something. Do you have any siblings?” the woman from the home asked. “She seems very insistent that she has two daughters.”

“I’m an only child. She’s probably just remembering something her mother said. Mom had a sister that died in a car accident when they were teenagers,” Rosie said. She could tell the nurse was calling from her mom’s room because of her voice in the background.

“Let me talk to Rosie! I have to tell her something. It’s important!” Claire often grew impatient with the staff and frequently requested to speak to Rosie directly.

“Hi Mom, how are you feeling today?” Rosie asked when the nurse put Claire on the phone. “Are you doing okay? The nurse said you had something to tell me.”

“I’m fine. I should have told you this sooner and I’m so sorry, Rosie,” Claire said. “I see you on TV and you look so worried.” Today her mom sounded coherent and lucid. Other days she sounded lost and confused.

“Mom, I’m okay. The police are just looking into who broke into my house. Remember when the nurses told you about that?”

“Yes, yes I remember. I have a brain, you know. It still works.” The irritability in Claire’s voice was growing and Rosie could tell her mom was about to slip into her twisted reality. “Rosie?”

“Mom.”

“Tell your sister I’m sorry. I should have kept her too.”

“I don’t have a sister,” Rosie said. I knew she was talking about her memories, Rosie thought. “You had one, Mom. Her name was Beth.”

“You have a sister, Rosie. She’s your twin. I named her Jane.”