The Twin Missing From the Family Photo novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: I'm Sorry You Feel That

Talbot's POV

Carrie said I could come in as long as I stood in the doorway and kept my mouth shut.

I did both.

It was midnight, and the Unsworths' kitchen was white and spotless, with one lamp lit over the table.

Her mother sat there in her champagne gown with a cup of tea she had not touched.

She had taken off her earrings and lined them up beside the saucer.

"Your father's with the hospital lawyers," she said, when Carrie sat down across from her. "He won't be home tonight."

"I don't care where he is."

"No. I suppose you don't."

Ivy had gone to the hotel with Miles.

It was only the two of them at the table, and me by the refrigerator, and the clock over the stove.

Mrs. Unsworth looked at her daughter for a long time.

"You wanted me to tell you what I knew."

"Yes."

"I didn't know about the six minutes." She turned the cup in its saucer. "I swear that to you. I was under anesthesia. When I woke, they put a blue baby in my arms and a pink one in the bassinet, and your father said the clinic had saved us both."

"But."

"But there was a nurse at Mercy when Ivy was three. She looked at the scans and said, this doesn't look congenital. I asked Gordon that night what she meant."

"What did he say?"

"He said, Do you want to know?" Her voice was very even. "And I said no."

I watched Carrie's hands.

They lay flat on the table and did not move.

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