The paper had no names, but the birthdates were the same and there were three, not two of them on the page. I didn’t look up until I finished scanning the page. Eva had already moved on to another one when I looked at her.
“Do you think there’s a chance you have a third sister?”
“Why do you say that?” Her eyes widened when she looked over.
I held the page up. “There are three people on this page and they all have the same birthday.”
“Right. Wouldn’t that mean three different babies born the same day?”
“Three adopted babies, all girls, with the same birthdate, and the same agency?”
“Where do you see the agency?” Eva took the paper from my hand and looked at it again. “Oh shit. St. Nicolas’ Orphanage.”
“We need to go there and ask questions.”
“Karen tried that when I was hell-bent on finding my birth mother. They said she didn’t want to be found.”
“It’s not about your birth mother, Eva.” I turned to her so that our knees were touching. I needed her to understand the gravity of what I was trying to come to terms with. “If you have another sister, that means there are three of you. Three women who have been in contact with The Maslows since they were babies. You and Stella were both invited to The Swords and Will did some digging, the third girl? She also has your birthday. Is that a coincidence? I don’t think so.”
“But she didn’t make it there either. Only I did. Not only that, Stella said Neil Maslow was the one who stopped her from going inside The Manor that night. He made her go to The Institute, while Dr. Thompson made me go in her place.”
“I’m not saying this makes any sense. I’m just saying we need to consider that you have another sister involved in all of this.”
“The girl,” she whispered, her eyes flicking back to mine. “The visitor.”
“What visitor?”
“Someone keeps visiting Stella at The Institute. She said she thought it was me, but then decided it wasn’t. I guess she looks like us but not identical? Is that possible? Is it possible for triplets to not be identical? Or for two to be identical and the third not to be?”
“It’s possible for multiple fetuses to have different fathers, so yes, I’m sure it’s possible for one of you not to have shared the same sac as the other two.”
“Oh my God.” Eva brought her hand to cover her gasp as she stared at me. “I think it’s a nun. I think our sister is that nun Will and I saw.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Eva
I’d hung up the phone with Karen a few minutes ago and couldn’t stop pacing. She’d been drunk when I called, which meant I had to repeat myself more than a few times.
“What are you doing?” I walked back to the couch and plopped down beside Adam, who was furiously typing into his phone.
“I contacted our family lawyer so he could look into the orphanage and I sent these to my mother, but she’s still on her flight, so she won’t be able to answer until she lands.” Adam sighed heavily, looking at the papers again. “They must have separated you when you were just days old.”
“But Karen didn’t adopt me until I was five months old,” I said. “So where was I during those five months?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it normal to separate multiples like that?”
“When I first started at The Institute, I was in Neil’s internship program. I’d wanted to go into psychology like my mother, but I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to see patients or do research work.” He set his phone and papers down and looked at me. “This was my first semester here, before I was recruited by The Swords and decided to go into neuroscience instead. That was when I learned about the Twin Study.”
“The one where they got people who looked almost identical but weren’t actually twins,” I said.
“Yes, that’s one of them, but prior to that there had been a longitudinal study about multiples. Originally it was about actual twins, triplets, etcetera. Part of the deal for twins to qualify for their scholarship is that they answer a series of questions from The Institute. It’s really no big deal. Nolan and I were done in a day. That was where we first met Nora and Will,” Adam explained. “I keep thinking back to that day. Dr. Maslow was riveted by the fact that Nora and Will were twins, one black, one white, and such different experiences growing up.”
“Did they do that longitudinal study on them?”
“No. They didn’t go back.”
“How does the longitudinal study work? Weekly basis? Monthly?”
“It takes place over a long period of time. They’re conducting some, unrelated to multiples, that they’ve been doing for over sixty years.”