"I am stuck between believing and not believing," Iris said. "It feels safer not to."
"I know. The DNA made it unsafe. One number and suddenly you are someone else's history."
Iris looked at her wrist. "What was it like? When you saw the result?"
"Like someone moved my furniture while I was sleeping. And you? When she laid it out on your table?"
"Like finding out the house was rented."
Nora was quiet a moment. "That is a good way to say it."
"I am an architect," Iris said. "I think in structures."
"And I am a waitress, so I think in rushes and tips."
They talked for forty minutes. Twice Nora said she had to get back to work and twice she did not hang up. Iris had been holding her left wrist in her right hand the whole time, her thumb circling the mark.
"I should go," Nora said finally. "They are glaring at me through the kitchen window."
Iris smiled. "She said we should meet. Catherine."
"She said that to me too. Before asking either of us, probably."
"Probably. Do you want to?"
Nora did not hesitate. "Yes. But not at her house. Not with her watching like this is an experiment."
"A cafe," Iris said. "Neutral ground. You pick it."
"There is a place on Eighth. Blue door. Quiet in the afternoons. Saturday?"
"Saturday," Iris said. She hesitated. "You do not have to bring the wrist."
Nora laughed, soft. "I was going to say the same to you."
"Bye, Nora."
"Bye, Iris."
Iris set the phone down. The apartment was quiet. The mark looked the same as that morning, and entirely different. She touched it once more, gently, the way she might touch a bruise finally healing.
"You can stop hiding," she told it.
Chapter 18: Two Sisters
The café was called Blue Fern, tucked between a florist and a bookstore on a street Nora had never walked before. She arrived twelve minutes early, took the corner table by the window, and ordered coffee she did not want.
Iris came in slowly, scanning the room, and Nora knew her instantly and did not know her at all. The same cheekbones. The same impatient hair. Iris saw her and stopped between the tables.
"Hi," Nora said.
"Hi," Iris said.
Iris sat down.
"You look like me," Iris said.
"You look like me," Nora said. "We should stop saying that."
They laughed, and their laughter had the same shape.
"On the phone," Iris said, "you were easier."
"On the phone we could hang up." Iris turned her cup in slow circles. "I almost did not come."
"I walked past the door twice."
"I did three times."
"Three is acceptable. Four would have been a problem."
Iris's smile faded. "I keep thinking you are going to try to convince me of something."
"I am not going to try anything. I do not have a plan. Catherine had the plan, and I declined to be briefed."
"I threw her out of my apartment."
"She told me. She said you had excellent throwing form."
That laugh lingered. "She is kind."
"She is relentless. Sometimes both at once."
"That sounds like family." Iris said it lightly, then heard herself and went still. "I did not mean that."
"I know what you meant."
"I have been practicing ways to say this might be a mistake," Iris said. "The records. The DNA. That she might be wrong."
"She is not wrong about me. The test was ninety-nine point nine nine. I watched them take the swab."
"I am not asking about you." Iris's fingers tightened around the cup. "I am asking whether it has to include me. Whether I rearrange my entire life because of a fire and a doctor and a man who paid for me."