The Substitute

Chapter 12 — The Call

They called Tom Renner from the basement. He arrived in twenty minutes, white-faced, and held Milo so tightly the boy squeaked.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Tom whispered. “Don’t ever.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Milo whispered back. “I had to show her.”

Tom looked at Nora over Milo’s head. “Show her what?”

“Everything,” Nora said.

They drove to the Renners’ house — Milo passed out cold in the back seat, exhausted — and Nora told Tom and Sarah the whole story. The fire. The twins. Margaret. When she finished, Sarah was crying and Tom was staring at the wall.

“Twins,” Tom said slowly. “Jesus.”

“I need to see Margaret Hale,” Nora said. “Today.”

“Nora —” Sarah started.

“She’s my aunt. She knew about the twins. She brought — one of us — to visit Milo. She knows which one I am. She knows what happened.” Nora stood up. “And I’m done being afraid of her.”

Tom drove her. Milo insisted on coming — “She’s my aunt too,” he said, with the unassailable logic of a nine-year-old — and Sarah came because, as she put it, “someone has to make sure you two don’t get yourselves killed.”

The house on Chestnut Street was a Victorian mansion with a wraparound porch and gardens that looked like they’d been planned by someone with strong opinions. Margaret Hale answered the door herself — silver hair, gardening gloves, the woman from Boyle’s photograph.

She took one look at Nora, and the color drained from her face.

“Eleanor,” she whispered.

“No,” Nora said. “Lena. Or — one of them. That’s what I’m here to find out.”

Margaret stared. Then she stepped aside. “You’d better come in.”

The house was a museum — all dark wood and family portraits. In the parlor, above the fireplace, hung a photograph: Thomas and Eleanor Ashford, and three children. A boy. And two identical girls with gap-toothed smiles.

Twins.

Nora stared at the photograph, at the two small faces that were her face, and felt the floor tilt.

“Lena and —” Her voice failed.

“Lena and Nora,” Margaret said quietly. “My sister named you for the two heroines of her favorite novel. She always said you’d be trouble — two of you, twice the trouble.”

Milo tugged Nora’s sleeve. “That’s her,” he whispered, pointing at one of the twins. “The one who visited me. Her.”

Nora looked. The twins were identical — but one of them had a small scar on her chin. A tiny white line.

Nora touched her own chin. There — a scar. Faint, old. She’d always assumed it was from childhood. She’d never asked.

“Which one is she pointing at?” Margaret asked.

“The one with the scar,” Nora said.

Margaret closed her eyes. “Lena. That’s Lena.” She opened them. “Which means you’re Nora.”

Silence filled the parlor like water.

“I’m Nora,” Nora repeated. The name she’d worn for twenty-six years — the name she’d thought was borrowed, secondhand, a replacement. “I’ve always been Nora.”

“Yes,” Margaret said. “You were always Nora. And Lena — Lena was always the other one. The brave one. The one who —” She stopped.

“The one who what?” Nora demanded. “What happened to her? What happened that night?”

Margaret sat down heavily. She looked suddenly, terribly old.

“I need to show you something,” she said. “Eleanor’s proof. I’ve kept it for twenty years. I told myself I was keeping it safe. But really —” Her voice cracked. “Really, I was just a coward.”

She left the room. They heard her climbing stairs, opening drawers.

Tom put his hand on Nora’s shoulder. “You okay?”

“I don’t know who I am,” Nora whispered. “I was Lena for twenty-six years — in my head, I was Lena, the girl who survived. But I’m Nora. I’ve always been Nora. So who —”

“You’re you,” Milo said firmly. “You’re my sister. That’s who you are.”

Nora hugged him hard.

Margaret returned with a metal lockbox. She set it on the coffee table and opened it with a key from around her neck.

Inside: a stack of documents. Insurance papers. A child’s diary — Lena’s diary, the one Rachel had photocopied. And a letter, in Eleanor’s handwriting, dated three days before she died.

“Read it,” Margaret said. “It’s time someone did.”