the Third Twin (1996)

That suggested that Dennis was not adopted or that his adoption was not acknowledged. Jeannie concealed her disappointment. Was Charlotte going to deny that Dennis could be a twin?

The question had to be asked. Jeannie said: “Mrs. Pinker, is there any chance Dennis might have a twin?”

“No.”

The response was flat: no indignation, no bluster, just factual.

“You’re sure.”

Charlotte laughed. “My dear, that’s one thing a mother could hardly make a mistake about!”

“He definitely isn’t adopted.”

“I carried that boy in my womb, may God forgive me.”

Jeannie’s spirits fell. Charlotte Pinker would lie more readily than Lorraine Logan, Jeannie judged, but all the same it was strange and worrying that they should both deny their sons were twins.

She felt pessimistic as they took their leave of the Pinkers. She had a feeling that when she met Dennis she would find he looked nothing like Steve.

Their rented Ford Aspire was parked outside. It was a hot day. Jeannie was wearing a sleeveless dress with a jacket over it for authority. The Ford’s air conditioner groaned and pumped out tepid air. She took off her panty hose and hung her jacket on the rear-seat coat hook.

Jeannie drove. As they pulled onto the highway, heading for the prison, Lisa said: “It really bothers me that you think I picked the wrong guy.”

“It bothers me, too,” Jeannie said. “I know you wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t feel sure.”

“How can you be so certain I’m wrong?”

“I’m not certain about anything. I just have a strong feeling about Steve Logan.”

“It seems to me that you should weigh a feeling against an eyewitness certainty, and believe the eyewitness.”

“I know. But did you ever see that Alfred Hitchcock show? It’s in black and white, you catch reruns sometimes on cable.”

“I know what you’re going to say. The one where four people witness a road accident and each one sees something different.”

“Are you offended?”

Lisa sighed. “I ought to be, but I like you too much to be mad at you about it.”

Jeannie reached across and squeezed Lisa’s hand. “Thanks.”

There was a long silence, then Lisa said: “I hate it that people think I’m weak.”

Jeannie frowned. “I don’t think you’re weak.”

“Most people do. It’s because I’m small, and I have a cute little nose, and freckles.”

“Well, you don’t look tough, it’s true.”

“But I am. I live alone, I take care of myself, I hold down a job, and nobody fucks with me. Or so I thought, before Sunday. Now I feel people are right: I am weak. I can’t take care of myself at all! Any psychopath walking around the streets can grab me and hold a knife in my face and do what he wants with my body and leave his sperm inside me.”

Jeannie looked across at her. Lisa was white-faced with passion. Jeannie hoped it was doing her good to get these feelings out. “You’re not weak,” she said.

“You’re tough,” Lisa said.

“I have the opposite problem—people think I’m invulnerable. Because I’m six feet tall and I have a pierced nostril and a bad attitude, they imagine I can’t be hurt.”

“You don’t have a bad attitude.”

“I must be slipping.”

“Who thinks you’re invulnerable? I don’t.”

“The woman who runs the Bella Vista, the home my mom’s in. She said to me, straight out, ‘Your mother will never see sixty-five.’ Just like that. ‘I know you’d prefer me to be honest,’ she said. I wanted to tell her that just because there’s a ring in my nose it doesn’t mean I have no goddamn feelings.”

“Mish Delaware says rapists aren’t really interested in sex. What they enjoy is having power over a woman, and dominating her, and scaring her, and hurting her. He picked someone who looked as if she would be easily frightened.”

“Who wouldn’t be frightened?”

“He didn’t pick you, though. You probably would have slugged him.”

“I’d like the chance.”

“Anyway, you would have fought harder than I did and you wouldn’t have been helpless and terrified. So he didn’t pick you.”

Jeannie saw where all this was heading. “Lisa, that may be true, but it doesn’t make the rape your fault, okay? You’re not to blame, not one iota. You were in a train wreck: it could have happened to anyone.”

“You’re right,” Lisa said.

They drove ten miles out of town and pulled off the interstate at a sign marked “Greenwood Penitentiary.” It was an old-fashioned prison, a cluster of gray stone buildings surrounded by high walls with razor wire. They left the car in the shade of a tree in the visitors’ parking lot. Jeannie put her jacket back on but left off her panty hose.

“Are you ready for this?” Jeannie said. “Dennis is going to look just like the guy who raped you, unless my methodology is all wrong.”

Lisa nodded grimly. “I’m ready.”

The main gate opened to let out a delivery truck, and they walked in unchallenged. Security was not tight, Jeannie concluded, despite the razor wire. They were expected. A guard checked their identification and escorted them across a baking-hot courtyard where a handful of young black men in prison fatigues were throwing a basketball.