Page 76 of What Goes Around

There were hundreds of her.

So I changed tactics.

I filed a request for her death certificate. Attached a copy of my ID. Marked “daughter” in the relationship box.

Now all I could do was wait. If I was lucky, the certificate would list her parents. Her birthplace. Something real. Something I could trace.

If not…

Then I’d find her marriage records.

And if all that failed…

My gaze slid to my phone.

Amy.

I pushed the thought away. For now.

While I waited, I ordered an Ancestry DNA test with access to European databases. Another line cast into a deep ocean. If blood wouldn’t speak through paper, maybe it would through science.

I was mid-search when my door opened without a knock.

Apple.

She walked straight into my room like she owned the place and headed for my closet.

I closed my eyes for a second, pressing my thumb against the bridge of my nose.

“Oh, you won’t mind,” she said lazily, already pulling hangers aside. “I just need to borrow something.”

I watched in silence as she pawed through clothes that hadn’t existed in my last life.

Back then, my wardrobe had been a graveyard of oversized sweaters and faded colors. She’d never wanted anything of mine.

Now, apparently, I was useful.

“This one,” she said, pulling out a fitted red dress. She held it against herself in the mirror, twisting a little, smiling at her reflection. “This would look amazing on me.”

“It wouldn’t,” I replied calmly.

She blinked at me.

“What do you mean ‘it wouldn’t’?”

I finally looked at her.

“You’re at least a head shorter than I am,” I said. “And about twenty pounds heavier. That dress will hang wrong. It’ll hit your hips in the wrong place and make you look shorter.”

Silence.

Apple froze.

Then she shoved the dress back into the closet like it had bitten her.

“Why couldn’t you just say you didn’t want to lend it?” she snapped. “You don’t have to be such a bitch about it.”

And with that, she stormed out.