Body Double

THIRTY-THREE

Four weeks later

THERE WAS NO PLAYACTING this time, no pretense of madness. Amalthea Lank walked into the private interview room and sat down at the table, and the look she aimed at Maura was clear-eyed and perfectly sane. Her previously disheveled hair was now pulled back in a tidy ponytail, thrusting her features into stark prominence. Staring at Amalthea’s high cheekbones, her direct gaze, Maura wondered: Why did I refuse to see it before? It’s so obvious. I am looking at my own face twenty-five years from now.

“I knew you’d come back,” said Amalthea. “And here you are.”

“Do you know why I’m here?”

“You’ve gotten back the test results, haven’t you? Now you know I was telling the truth. Even if you didn’t want to believe me.”

“I needed proof. People lie all the time, but DNA doesn’t.”

“Still, you must have known the answer. Even before your precious lab test came back.” Amalthea leaned forward in the chair and regarded her with an almost intimate smile. “You have your father’s mouth, Maura. Do you know that? And you have my eyes, my cheekbones. I see Elijah and me right there, on your face. We’re family. We have the same blood. You, me, Elijah. And your brother.” She paused. “You do know that’s who he was?”

Maura swallowed. “Yes.” The one baby you kept. You sold my sister and me, but you kept your son.

“You never told me how Samuel died,” said Amalthea. “How that woman killed him.”

“It was self-defense. That’s all you need to know. She had no choice but to fight back.”

“And who is this woman, Matilda Purvis? I’d like to know more about her.”

Maura said nothing.

“I saw her picture on TV. She didn’t look so special to me. I don’t see how she could have done it.”

“People do anything to survive.”

“Where does she live? What street? They said on TV that she’s from Natick.”

Maura stared into her mother’s dark eyes and suddenly felt a chill. Not for herself, but for Mattie Purvis. “Why do you want to know?”

“I have a right to know. As a mother.”

“A mother?” Maura almost laughed. “Do you really think you deserve that title?”

“But I am his mother. And you’re Samuel’s sister.” Amalthea leaned closer. “It’s our right to know. We’re his family, Maura. There’s nothing in this life that’s thicker than blood.”

Maura stared into eyes so eerily like her own, and she recognized the matching intelligence there, even the gleam of brilliance. But it was a light that had gone askew, a twisted reflection in a shattered mirror.

“Blood means nothing,” said Maura.

“Then why are you here?”

“I came because I wanted to get one last look at you. And then I’m going to walk away. Because I’ve decided that, no matter what the DNA may say, you’re not my mother.”

“Then who is?”

“The woman who loved me. You don’t know how to love.”

“I loved your brother. I could love you.” Amalthea reached across the table and caressed Maura’s cheek. Such a gentle touch, as warm as a real mother’s hand. “Give me the chance,” she whispered.

“Good-bye, Amalthea.” Maura stood up and pressed the button to call the guard. “I’m finished here,” she said into the intercom. “I’m ready to leave.”

“You’ll come back,” said Amalthea.

Maura did not look at her, did not even glance over her shoulder as she walked out of the room. As she heard Amalthea call out behind her: “Maura! You will come back.”

In the visitors’ locker room, Maura stopped to reclaim her purse, her driver’s license, her credit cards. All the proof of her identity. But I already know who I am, she thought.

And I know who I am not.

Outside, in the heat of a summer afternoon, Maura paused and took a deep breath. She felt the day’s warmth cleanse the taint of prison from her lungs. Felt, too, the poison of Amalthea Lank wash out of her life.

In her face, her eyes, Maura wore the proof of her parentage. In her veins flowed the blood of murderers. But evil was not hereditary. Though she might carry its potential in her genes, so too did every child ever born. In this, I am no different. We are all descended from monsters.

She walked away from that building of captive souls. Ahead was her car, and the road home. She did not look back.