[photo by Andrea Davis from Unsplash]

Leni

The walk home goes by too quickly—despite my efforts to slow it down. I need more time. I need to come up with a way to make Dee understand why I stayed, why I had to meet him.

"Topher from London," I say, imitating his accent. Badly.

And now I'm smiling again. Not good. This is not a situation that warrants smiles. And what the heck is going on with my stomach muscles? The same thing happened while I was shaking Topher's hand. But it wasn't like my birthmark, not a reaction to touching him. The stomach commotion didn't start until I looked into his eyes.

Which, I guess, could've been nerves. But that doesn't explain why it happened just now.

I stop a few feet short of our driveway, feeling nauseated—speaking of nervous reactions. Maybe I don't have to tell Dee right away. The first thing she's going to do is yell at me for sneaking out. So I'll concentrate on explaining that. Then I'll apologize and we'll hug and I can go back to my room and try to make sense of everything else.

There's a surge in the cricket chatter. It's almost dark and Dee is surely frantic by now. I walk, exaggerating my stride so the crushed oyster shells sound my arrival. The door to the mud room can be temperamental, but it has never denied Dee or I access. This time, my hand barely touches the knob before it swings open—with a squeal that sounds judgmental. "I know," I mumble. "I'm a horrible sister."

I lay one perfect olive shell on top of the dryer and drop my flip-flops onto the pile of shoes. The aroma of stewed tomatoes and cilantro overpowers the mud room's trademark scent of wash powder and sweaty feet.

But Dee is not in the kitchen. It's empty and clean—the excessively scrubbed kind of clean that only happens when she's nervous or upset. Or both, as she appears to be now. She didn't hear me come in because she's in the family room having an agitated, one-sided conversation.

Please don't be on the phone with the police.

I take a fortifying breath while I watch her pace back and forth behind the sofa on a track she's worn into the pine floor. Her eyes go wide when they find me. Then they narrow. "She's home," she huffs into the phone.

She stalks toward me, phone arm extended. "Tell Matt he's wrong. He says you've been gone so long because you're avoiding me."

The hurt in her voice cracks a sharp fissure in my heart. I keep my fisted hands by my sides and lie. "You're wrong, Matt. Love you—bye." To Dee I say, "I need to go change," and I walk, very quickly, to the small bedroom we used to share.

I'm barely into dry clothes when the door opens. "He's coming on Thursday," Dee informs me.

"Good." Hopefully Matt's visit will take the edge off—for both of us.

Our eyes meet in the mirror. Then hers drift to my still partially damp hair. I expect a question: Why did you go swimming in your clothes? "I was getting really worried," she says instead.

"I know. I'm sorry. I forgot my phone."

"As usual."

It's a statement of fact, but she says it with a sad resignation that reminds me I promised to do better—especially after the wedding.

"You can't keep doing this to me, Len. How am I supposed to move eight hours away? You're going to give me a nervous freaking breakdown!"

I gather my hair and twist it into a knot, but there isn't a single hair clip on my dresser. Meaning there's a dozen of them in Dee's room.

"I know I've been a little neurotic lately," she says, climbing onto my bed. "Some days I want to avoid myself—but am I so unapproachable that you had to climb out a window?"

"I didn't. The door let me..." Not the point. "You're not," I amend. "I mean, yes to the neurotic part. But you're not unapproachable. I was just being weird and...a gigantic chicken. I couldn't figure out how to explain..." I ball my hands into fists again. That itchy, stretched-too-tight sensation on my arms and shoulders is coming from the stress of this moment, the guilt. I do not need another swim. I need to tell Dee the truth.

"I didn't know how to say it without sounding like I'm complaining or being ungrateful—because I'm not, Dee. I swear to God."

"Okay, noted. I promise not to take it the wrong way."

I launch myself onto the bed, crisscrossing my legs so our knees are pressed together. I'm still Dee's stretched out, fun-house mirror image, but I don't think she's remembering our childhood joke. Her eyes are red and watery.

"It's not that bad," I say, taking her hands in mine. "It's just...you're spending all this time on cooking for me—when you're already so busy with wedding stuff and training your replacement at work."

"I don't mind. I like cooking. It de-stresses me."

"Okaaay." Let's pretend that's true. "The thing is though, you're moving in October. That's four months into hurricane season. We don't have a generator and—"

"Oh, God. I hadn't thought of that. If we get a hurricane after I move, Leni, you have to come to Asheville."

"Of course. But that's not what I'm trying to say. Can you remember a single year when we didn't lose power? And the entire contents of our freezer?"

"Well crap. I hadn't thought of that, either." Dee's shoulders drop with a sigh. "Fine, I'll stop."

"Good. But also—even more than that—you need to believe that I'm going to be okay here without you."

I've lost count of how many times I've said this since Matt gave Dee her beautiful engagement ring. But it was always a thing I said for Dee. To help her feel okay about the move. This time it feels like a revelation. Because now it seems very possible that I won't be left alone.

"Leni?'

"What?"

"You didn't hear what I just said?"

"No, sorry. I...there's something else I need to tell you—it's about a thing that happened while I was on the beach. But it's a long story and I'm starving. Can we move this conversation into the kitchen?"

"Well that sounds ominous," she says, lifting a dark, demanding eyebrow.

I unfold my legs. "Food first, story second."

"Fine." Dee scoots off the bed. "I saved you a plate."

She goes straight to the refrigerator and pulls out the plastic covered plate. I reach for it, planning to warm it myself, but she shoos me away with the swipe of a hand and opens the microwave. "Tell me what happened."

Okay. Here goes the easy part. "There was an inexperienced surfer out in front of the lighthouse. He got tangled up in the jetty and I fished him out."

"Wow, Leni. Was he injured?"

"Yes, deep gash on his head. Broken arm."

"So you got to do your thing," she says, warmly. But her smile fades much too quickly. "Why aren't you exhausted?"

"I am." I slump into one of the breakfast bar stools, trying to look the part.

"No. You're fidgeting." Her eyes dip communicatively and I look at my hands. The tips of my fingers are red and indented, due to a nervous habit of touching my thumb against them, sort of like I'm counting. Except that with each tick, I'm pressing thumbnail into finger pad.

"What happened, Leni?" Dee's tone is tinging on panic now. "Did someone see you?"

"Um..." I ball my hands into fists. "The beach was empty. The man was unconscious."

"Obviously. Or you wouldn't have done what you did. Right?"

"Yes, right. Of course. It's just that..."

"Oh my god, Len. Tell me."

"Okay, okay. Something strange happened when I touched him. Something new. So I waited for him to wake up."

Dee takes a wide-eyed moment with this. "Please tell me you did not let a man—who you magically healed—see you."

Her tone is judging and parental. And it reignites the irritation that had me ready to climb out a window. "I did more than that," I say. "We had a conversation."

"You spoke to him?"

"I thought it through first. I understand the risk, but I didn't feel like I had a choice. My birthmark reacted to him."

"Dammit, Leni. This is exactly the reason I lie awake at night worrying about leaving you here." She grabs the sponge out of its ceramic holder. Takes the spray cleaner out of the cabinet. "You know what could happen if the wrong people find out what you can do—do you want to end up strapped to a table in a laboratory?"

I don't think Dee even knows she's scouring the already spotless sink. And apparently she missed the part about my birthmark?

Oh wait, here we go. She stops scrubbing and her eyes lift to mine. The angry lines on her forehead soften. "What do you mean reacted?"

"It was heat, similar to what I feel in my hands during a healing, but this was concentrated, right on my birthmark."

"That's never happened before. Has it?"

"No. But it happened every time I touched him. And then after he was out of danger, when he wanted to shake my hand, it happened again and it was..." The memory brings a rush of heat to my face. "I don't know," I finish—and it's true. That feeling of extreme comfort was still there, but it was somehow at odds with itself. Equal parts calm and exhilaration. "I've never felt anything like it."

The microwave beeps. Dee frowns at the sponge in her hand and lets it drop to the sink. She gets a fork out of the drawer, opens the microwave and focuses her anxious energy on stabbing at the plate of food.

"I'm sure staying there was the right thing to do," I say, but my confidence is waning. "I had to talk to him. How else was I going to find out what the reaction meant?"

Dee's eyebrows lift at this. But only momentarily. "Did you find out?" she asks, but she closes the door and pokes in another minute like she already knows she's not going to like my answer.

But it's the only thing that makes sense. "His coloring is similar to mine: light hair, pale skin. His eyes are basically the same blue-green but darker, more saturated. He's not from North Carolina—he's British—but I'm not from here either if my rosary is any indication. So maybe he's like me. You know, a relative or something."

Dee takes up the sponge again. Her jaw muscles are twitching.

"Please stop doing that," I tell her. "And say whatever it is you don't think you should say."

"I want to say I can't believe you're making this about finding your birth family, but that would be a lie since that's all that seems to matter to you these days."

"Ouch."

"You asked for it."

The timer sounds again, but neither of us answer the call.

"What if this isn't about your past?" Dee asks. "What if this man has something to do with your future?"

"If you mean a future where I finally have an explanation of where I came from—why I am the way I am—then yeah, we're on the same page."

"Leni, you're twenty-five years old—"

"As far as we know."

"Not the point. When are you going to accept that there are things about our birth families we're never going to know?"

"That's easy for you to say. You know your real name. You know your parents are gone. And you are not a freak."

Dee groans. "I'm not having this discussion—unless you just need to hear, again, how amazing you are."

"If I'm so amazing, then why did they leave me under the pier with no answers, nothing but the clothes on my back and that stupid, useless rosary around my neck?"

"I hate this question. I've come up with a hundred possible answers over the last decade but none of them satisfy you."

"Possibilities are not answers."

Dee lets out another, much louder groan and marches out of the kitchen. She paces a lap around the couch. Then stops in front of the narrow table by our front door. It holds a vast collection of framed photos, but I know the one she's reaching for without even looking. It's our first family photo, taken by the social worker on the day she brought Dee to our house. The two of us are standing center frame: me a pale, pint-sized soldier, Dee clinging to my right arm, looking mildly terrified. Pop is probably a little terrified, too, but it comes off as impatience. He's leaning away from his family in a way that makes the photo seem out of balance. It's no reflection on the Dad he was to become: steadfast and loving.

And that's the perfect way to describe Mom, standing behind her two newly adopted daughters, face radiant with joy.

"Maybe it's simple," Dee says. "Some people can't handle a child with special needs. Even Mom admitted she considered calling the social worker that first winter, when you walked around the house crying and scratching your skin raw. She told me it was Divine Intervention that gave her the idea to add salt to your bath water—did she ever tell you that?"

"At least a hundred times."

"Well I believe her. And I believe the same force brought the four of us together in the first place. Some things are just meant to be, Leni."

"I never said I didn't believe—all of that. But I also hoped that someday, I'd find a person who can explain all the things that made Mom seriously consider giving me back. I think today is that day, Dee. Topher is...my birthmark's reaction to him is concrete. It's evidence. We have an undeniable connection. How can it be anything else?

My sister returns the picture to its spot on the table with a sigh. "What if that crazy mark on your back is some kind of husband detector?" she asks, heading back to the kitchen.

I trail behind her. "Please don't joke about this."

"Who says I'm joking?"

"Okay then. When are you going to accept that not everything is about romance?"

Dee scowls at this—which I take as a win. She opens the microwave and transfers the hot plate to the breakfast bar. "So what's next? Are you going to see him again?"

It's not casual, the way she asks this. Dee may be tempted to romanticize my discovery, but that doesn't mean she's okay with the way I've exposed myself.

If I'm being honest, I'm not entirely comfortable with it either.

"I don't have a way to see him," I say. "When he asked for my name, I blurted out Galene—for some stupid reason. And the way he reacted made me feel self-conscious so I walked away."

"That's probably for the best, Leni."

Her relief is palpable. And I get it. I even tried to console myself with that thought on the walk home.

But here's what I truly believe: I was meant to find Topher and I will see him again.

Unless he's a tourist and today was the last day of his trip.

I slump into one of the padded stools and pick up my fork, but I've lost my appetite.

"You're going to look for him," Dee says with a sad resignation.

"Yeah."

"Well. I can't say I'm not curious, but I will say this again—and I can't stress it enough: You need. To be. Careful."