Chapter 2 - the name on the death certificate
They escaped through the kitchen of a small Italian restaurant.
The owner shouted as Eleanor dragged two children past a row of startled cooks.
Noah, who had never skipped school without written permission, looked both terrified and thrilled.
Owen moved like someone accustomed to running.
He knew how to disappear behind trucks.
How to cross against traffic.
How to change direction suddenly.
By the time they reached a crowded subway entrance three blocks away, the man in the charcoal coat was gone.
Eleanor refused to take the subway.
Instead, she led the boys into a pharmacy.
She purchased sneakers, socks, antiseptic wipes, bottled water, granola bars, and a cheap baseball cap.
Owen tried to protest when she paid.
"I don’t need all that."
"You’re bleeding."
"It’s nothing."
"You’re seven."
He stared at her.
"So?"
The answer hurt more than it should have.
Children who were cared for did not say things like that.
They found an isolated table in the back of a crowded cafe.
Eleanor cleaned Owen’s knees.
The injuries were shallow.
Old scrapes mixed with new ones.
Noah watched everything.
He had been unusually quiet.
Finally, he asked the question Eleanor had been dreading.
"Did I really have a twin?"
Eleanor’s hands stopped.
"Yes."
"Why didn’t you tell me?"
"I was going to."
"When?"
"When you were older."
"How much older?"
Eleanor looked away.
She had no good answer.
Noah folded his arms.
"What was his name?"
She looked at Owen.
"Owen."
Noah’s anger disappeared.
The homeless boy lowered his eyes.
"That’s my name."
The silence between them became unbearable.
Eleanor took out her phone.
She had seventeen missed calls.
Twelve from Daniel.
Three from their driver.
Two from the school.
She switched the phone off.
Then she asked Owen to tell her everything.
He began with a woman named Mara.
Mara Vale had raised him for as long as he could remember.
They had lived in several places.
New Jersey.
Connecticut.
Queens.
For the last year, they had been staying in a small apartment in the Bronx.
Mara never allowed photographs.
She never enrolled Owen in regular school.
She taught him herself.
She changed their last names frequently.
Three nights ago, someone broke into their apartment.
Mara woke Owen and told him to run.
She put the brass locket around his neck.
Then she gave him a piece of folded paper.
"She told me if something happened to her, I had to find the woman in the picture."
"What picture?" Eleanor asked.
Owen pulled a creased photograph from inside his jacket.
Eleanor’s breath caught.
It was a picture of herself.
Taken seven years earlier.
She was pregnant.
Standing beside Daniel outside their Brooklyn townhouse.
On the back, someone had written an address.
The address of Eleanor’s current home.
"Why were you sitting under that streetlamp?" Noah asked.
Owen shrugged.
"I went to your house."
Eleanor stared at him.
"When?"
"Yesterday."
"You came to my house?"
"A guard told me to leave."
"What guard?"
"The one by the gate."
Eleanor’s home did not have a gate guard.
Not normally.
"When I came back later, there were men outside. I got scared."
"So you went downtown?"
"Mara used to bring me near that streetlamp."
"Why?"
Owen’s expression became uncertain.
"She said if I ever got lost, I should wait there."
Eleanor felt cold.
Mara had selected the location.
Mara had anticipated that Owen might need to find Eleanor.
This had been planned.
Noah suddenly leaned across the table.
"Can I see your hand?"
Owen frowned.
"What?"
"Your left hand."
Owen slowly lifted it.
Noah lifted his own.
Both boys had a tiny crescent-shaped birthmark beneath the thumb.
Eleanor covered her mouth.
She remembered kissing that mark when the twins were born.
Both babies had possessed it.
Daniel had joked that they came from the same mold.
Noah whispered, "We really are twins."
Owen looked uncomfortable.
Eleanor felt the room tilt.
She needed proof.
Not memories.
Not lockets.
Not matching faces.
Scientific proof.
She called the only person she still trusted from her old life.
Dr. Samuel Reeves had been Eleanor’s family physician long before she married Daniel.
He was semi-retired now, working two days a week at a private clinic near Union Square.
When Eleanor explained that she needed a confidential DNA test immediately, he asked no questions.
"Come through the rear entrance."
Thirty minutes later, Samuel stared at the boys.
Then at Eleanor.
"My God."
"I need to know."
Samuel swabbed both children.
He told Eleanor the laboratory could produce a preliminary sibling comparison within hours if he called in a favor.
Eleanor also requested a maternal test.
Samuel nodded.
Before she left, he caught her arm.
"Eleanor."
"What?"
"Does Daniel know?"
"No."
"Keep it that way until you understand what happened."
She studied him.
"Why would you say that?"
Samuel’s expression was careful.
"Because seven years ago, Daniel was the one who brought me Owen’s death certificate."
Eleanor froze.
"What?"
"You were still hospitalized. He asked me to update the family medical file."
"I thought the hospital sent that."
"No."
Samuel walked to an old records cabinet.
He entered a code on a computer.
A scanned document appeared.
Certificate of death.
Owen Alexander Whitmore.
Cause of death: respiratory failure following neonatal complications.
Eleanor scanned the signature.
Her eyes stopped.
The attending physician listed on the certificate was Dr. Julian Mercer.
She looked at Samuel.
"I don’t know that name."
"You should."
May you like
"Why?"
"Because according to the original hospital roster, Julian Mercer never worked at St. Matthew’s."
