Page 118 of Mirror Image

“But I can’t just go take her, right? She probably has no idea she even has a mother out there somewhere. God only knows what they told her.”

“Exactly. And the reality is that if you’d come forward as Mary—as the aunt—you’d have no automatic standing. You’re just one relative—potentially among many. It’s conceivable that if word somehow got out that she was Julian’s daughter, someone from his family might come forward. Really, anyone even remotely connected to Julian or Sam could petition for custody.”

She blanches.

“If you identify yourself as Mary,” I continue, “Jocelyn becomes a child with no living legal parents. CPS would open a full investigation. They might keep her in foster care while they sort everything out. You would have to fight to prove you’re the right person. And you could lose.”

She closes her eyes as if bracing against a blow.

I go on gently.

“But . . . continuing as Sam keeps the circle small. The system treats you as the surviving parent of record, and that gives you the strongest position while they verify things. It limits who has a say. It limits who’s notified. It limits who can intervene. It protects Jocelyn from becoming a public case and from being bounced between strangers. But, like telling the world about Julian, this decision also comes at a cost.”

She opens her eyes. There’s steel in them now.

“I’ll have to stay Sam the rest of my life.”

I nod. “Exactly. If you proceed like this—as Samantha Kinski, Jocelyn’s mother, you’ll be burying your own life. Your past. Your dreams. Everything you thought your future might be.”

She doesn’t look away.

“There’s a lot to consider,” I go on. “Things that aren’t on your mind at this moment but that will become important later. Someday you’re going to fall in love, Mary. Will you tell your partner the truth? How about Jocelyn—does she have a right to know? And then there are your parents . . . are you really okay with letting them grieve for you for the rest of their lives? Especially now that you know they were innocent in all this?” I pause for emphasis because she needs to hear this question and consider it. “Mary, you’re a very young woman. Are you really prepared to carry this alone? Forever?”

A long, aching silence.

Then she wipes her face with the heel of her hand.

“I can do it,” she says. “I made Sam a promise. She trusted me with her daughter. That’s all that matters. Jocelyn is all that matters.”

There’s no wobble. No hesitation. Just iron.

I exhale slowly, nodding. “Okay,” I say quietly. “Then we’ll do this your way.”

Chapter Forty-Six

Mary

Last weekend

Samantha Kay Kinski died sometime in the middle of the night, somewhere in the middle of the Everglades, leaving me truly alone for the first time in my life. She had literally been a part of me since before I was born—even if I was never aware of her existence.

It was only in her absence that I truly appreciated her presence.

I don’t know how long I held her in my arms, crying. It was the kind of inconsolable anguish that comes when you finally understand that sometimes people you love leave and never come back. No matter how hard you wish, or beg, or pray. I held her like that, even as my teeth chattered and my muscles contracted, the chill of the damp night air settling into my bones. Even as my heart cracked open, spilling its contents into the brackish water under a moonless sky, in my own literal nightmare.

Eventually, the well of salty tears dried up, and the fog of my grief was pushed aside by the most primal instinct of all—the one that was threaded into the code of our very DNA: survival.

I had to live. For Sam.

I promised my sister that I would do for her what she had not been able to do herself. I would find her child, and I would give her the life and the love that Sam had never had. And I would see to it that the man who had done this to her paid for his sins.

With great care, I wrapped my sister’s body in the tent material, tucking and securing it tightly so the bugs couldn’t get to her still-warm flesh. Then I fumbled around until I found a flashlight, putting it in my mouth—cursing myself for not bringing the headlamp on this trip.

As the tide rose, so did the canoe, higher and higher until I was well above the mud, the carcasses of so many fallen, rotting trees swallowed up by the black water once more. The air grew thick, humming with unseen life, the mangroves shifting and creaking as if the swamp itself were breathing.

Then the hull scraped against something—roots, maybe, or a half-buried trunk—and the canoe jolted sideways. I clutched at the gunwale, heart pounding, but the sluggish pull of the tide twisted us again. A splash, then another, and I heard the soft thuds of our gear sliding into the water. The tent poles, the food, the spare clothes—gone, swallowed whole by the dark. The swamp gave nothing back.

I steadied the canoe, wiped the sweat from my eyes, and kept paddling. I managed maybe another mile before meeting a wall of tangled debris that couldn’t be rowed over, under, or around. I’d lost the energy required to saw through it hours ago. My only choice was to tether the boat to a thick branch, leaving my sister behind while I struggled to make my way out on foot.