There are these two mad Twins who always stand at the front of my house, telling me that “I’m their Real Mother, and I should not deny them”. My name is Rebecca, married to Isaac, and I have just a daughter, Rachael

Chapter 2

Dinner that night was a funeral without the coffin. I set the plates and Isaac sat across from me, and for a long time neither of us spoke. The food went cold while the silence stretched.

Then he dropped his fork. It clattered against the plate like a verdict.

“Rebecca.” His voice was flat, careful — the voice of a man holding back a storm. “Two ragged girls at my gate, crying that you’re their mother. You expect me to believe you’ve never seen them?”

“I swear it, Isaac. On my life, on Rachael’s life — I have never set eyes on them before this morning.”

He picked up his cup of water and drank. “Street people, then. Beggars. They learn a sob story and play it everywhere they go. Ignore them, and they’ll move on.”

“Isaac, I threw money at their feet and they walked over it. They told me they’ve been searching for me for five years. They stopped Rachael on her way from school and told her — told her they’re her sisters.”

Something changed in Isaac’s face. The irritation hardened into something colder.

“They spoke to my daughter. They put their hands on my daughter.” He set his jaw. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll handle them myself.”

Morning came grey and quiet. We stepped out to warm the car, and there they were — sitting on the ground across from our fence, thinner, dirtier. The moment they saw us they scrambled up and ran, arms outstretched.

“Daddy! Mummy! Please don’t drive us away today! Look at us!”

Isaac slammed the car door and marched at them. He caught each girl by a shoulder and walked them backward toward the main road, his voice ringing out hard as iron.

“Listen to me, both of you. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care. I never want to see you near my house again. If I do, you’ll live to regret it. That is not a threat. That is a promise.”

The girls shrank back, looking at Isaac’s burning face, then at me — and whatever they saw in my eyes broke them. Hope’s face crumpled like wet paper. Faith grabbed her sister’s hand, and they turned and walked away crying, two small shadows swallowed by the morning light.

For days we did not see them again. I told myself it was over, that they were liars — and I almost believed it.

Then, six mornings later, Rachael would not wake up.

I shook her. I screamed her name. I called Isaac. Her skin was cold. Her lips were turning blue. The whole house filled with noise — doors banging, feet running, my own voice somewhere far away — but my daughter lay flat and silent, and no matter how loudly the world shouted around her, she did not open her eyes.