I crack my knuckles absentmindedly and readjust the collar of my ill-fitting high school uniform. I shuffle uncomfortably in the cold metal chair. I could have chosen an indoor table, but it’s quiet out here. No uncomfortable stares from curious strangers, followed by muffled conversations and the not-subtle-enough pointing of phone cameras. I used to hate being outside all the time, on the city streets, but now feeling the harsh pavement underfoot feels like returning to a long forgotten home. I check my phone again and sigh.
I flinch at the sound of a door pushing open and the waiter brings the two drinks I ordered to the small wooden table. I smile and thank him as he goes back inside the little café, thinking how bastards like him used to shoo me away for daring to sit near their paying customers.
Then she appears, mumbling apologies as she rounds the corner. She looks just like the photos, the spitting image of her stern mother. Prim and proper in her pristine coat and office-work attire. I’m already up and running to her. I wrap my arms around her tightly. I feel her pat my back awkwardly.
“Cecilia! It’s so good to finally see you!” I say, painting my face ecstatic, as I look her up and down.
Cecilia wears a pained smile. I take a step back from her.
“You’re so much—” I falter for just a moment, trying to remember the photos, the old family videos I used to play on loop. “—taller! Well, it has been five years. Six now. Come, sit down. I already ordered drinks. I hope you still like hot chocolate.”
“I prefer mocha these days, but that’s fine,” she says through thin lips.
“Still a sweet tooth then?” I laugh.
She murmurs something noncommittally.
I lead her to the other chair at the little table and we both sit down. I take her in, scanning every manicured feature, and she’s staring back just as hard. Neither of us move to take our drinks.
“You seem well. Almost… normal,” says Cecilia.
“Yeah, well, a year of just getting to be a kid again has done me good I think,” I say. “It helps that the journalists have finally stopped following me around. I can finally just, go out to eat and relax like everyone else.” I break eye contact and go to take a sip from my piping hot mug. The liquid burns my tongue but I down it anyways.
“I bet mum hated that. All the journalists,” says Cecilia.
“Yeah hated it. Who can blame her though? Five whole years with me gone. She wants me all to herself now,” I say with a chuckle. “She was so worried when I started going back to school, when I started going anywhere without her really.”
“Yeah, I bet,” says Cecilia, staring into her hot chocolate as she stirs it. “Did you tell her where you were going today? That you’re seeing me?”
“No, of course not. She thinks I’m at cricket practice.”
Cecilia nods slowly, says nothing.
I put my arms on the table and lean forward. “Shock still not worn off?” I say. That must be her problem.
“No, I guess not,” says Cecilia.
“I know I’ve changed a lot but, it’s me. It’s just—” What would the emotion be here? He would be missing her attention. “It’s been a whole year since I came back. I know it’s a lot to come to terms with, you live on the other side of the country, and you’ve fallen out with mum but… a whole year before you came to see me? It’s not every day your missing baby brother comes home after being kidnapped for five whole years. I’ve missed you so much.”
Cecilia puts the spoon firmly on the table.
“I know you’re not my brother,” says Cecilia.
“Wh— What? Are you kidding?” I say, anxious laughter spilling out of me. My nerves stab like ice.
“Drop the act. I. Know.” Cecilia’s stare is firm, direct. This is no hunch, no guess. She really does know I’m not him.
I look away, drop the fake painful smile, and crack my knuckles. She’s backed me into a corner. There’s no running away this time. I turn back to Cecilia.
“Our mum, our aunt and uncles, our cousins, the journalists, the police, they all accept me as Abel,” I say, voice low. “How the fuck do you know?”
“Who are you?” demands Cecilia.
I’m Abel. That’s the story I’ve been living for a whole year. It’s so ingrained in me now it’s hard to drop the act. I stare into my drink.
“I’m not telling you anything until you tell me who you really are,” says Cecilia. “And you can’t risk me going off and telling someone what I know, can you?”
I wring my hands. Fuck. What has she found? What gave me away? I was perfect, am perfect. I’ve studied Abel’s childhood, practised his mannerisms, know everything down to the most minute detail. Everything I’ve worked to build, it’s all crumbling around me.
“I grew up on the streets,” I start slowly. Someone like her would feel bad for me, surely. But I need to keep my voice quiet. I scan the street around us, searching for anything, anyone out of place. She doesn’t need anyone lying in wait though. If she’s recording me, I’m screwed. Maybe I can convince the cops I was under duress? “I got in the police records for loitering, petty theft, stuff like that, so I moved around a lot. This one couple, thought I’d run away or something, brought me to the cops. I couldn’t let them get my fingerprints. My record was starting to build up. So, I thought, they think I’m some abused kid? I’ll play the part.”
Cecilia’s face twitches at that. I can’t read her. This is bad. What is she going to do to me for stealing her brother’s life? She could snap at any moment.
“I wouldn’t let them near me, wouldn’t say a word,” I continue, hoping she’ll understand. “Then they started trying to figure out who I was, and I realised I needed to say something. They couldn’t keep me at the station forever, eventually they were gonna put me in the foster system and I wasn’t having that. I’ve seen what the system does to kids like me. They had this board, full of missing persons stuff. I chose someone I thought I could pull off, said I’d escaped from some man and that was me. Abel was me.”
“What was it like, meeting my mother?” says Cecilia.
I tense. “You said you were going to tell me how you knew after I— He’s back isn’t he?” I feel the words, the fear bubbling out of me now. This is it. The one thing that could upheave everything I’ve worked for, the one scenario I have nightmares about, Abel turning up at our doorstep, his doorstep. “He’s really shown up and now—”
“Tell me about when you met my mother. Or I’m going,” says Cecilia coldly.
I take a deep breath. Try to slow my breathing. Try not to think of the real Abel, somewhere out there. I can’t let Cecilia go to the cops, can’t let her tell the family that I’m a fake.
“They called your mum up, the cops at the station,” I say, breath shaky. “I didn’t say much, kept my voice quiet, but that was enough to convince her to come right over. I thought, there’s no way his own mother is going to buy it. She’s going to see right through me, and the cops will be furious. But as soon as she saw me she hugged me so tight I thought I was gonna choke.” I sigh and pull at my shirt collar. “It makes sense. Who wouldn’t want their kid back? She wanted to believe it.”
“The police would have done something to make sure they had the right person though, surely?” says Cecilia. She’s stiff, poised, but there’s some emotion in her eyes building that I can’t place.
“Well, I told your mum I’d forgotten everything because I’d been beaten around so bad, which the cops and her believed, because you can’t live on the streets without getting a few scars. So she shows me all these photos on her phone, tells me everything about the family, about your brother. She was so desperate for me to remember. The police let us reunite, of course, then they question me to make sure I’m him, and bless her, she’d told me everything I needed to know about Abel’s life,” I say. It was perfect. Everything was perfect. It can’t end now.
“It wasn’t a coincidence. That’s why she told you all that stuff,” says Cecilia.
“What do you mean?” I say, uncertainty creeping up my throat. I clutch at my hands.
“She knew you weren’t Abel. Because she killed him. You don’t have to worry about him turning up.”
“Killed him?” I start to laugh. But her face is set, sure. This is no joke. “Why? Why kill him?” I say, suddenly demanding now. It feels like something is wrapping itself around my vocal cords.
Cecilia leans back, blinking away tears. I can finally read her eyes. It isn’t anger in them, it’s grief. “She used to hit us. She got mad a lot. Abel came home late one night. And she killed him for it. I was in my room on the second floor when it happened. I come down the next morning and she says he didn’t come home, says she would be telling the police he’s gone missing, but I saw her bury him in the back yard from my bedroom window. Planted an ash tree over him. It’s a big son of a bitch now.”
I reel back and stand, my chair crashing to the ground behind me. I pace back and forth by the table. Cecilia turns to watch me. I crack my knuckles harshly.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” I say.
“Why would I lie? If I wanted to reveal you as a fraud, there would be easier ways to do it. You must have slipped up at some point by now. You can’t have gotten where you are without inside help, without her help.”
“I’ve lived with a murderer for a year.” I want to scream it but someone will hear, so instead it comes out as a harsh hiss. “I sucked up to her.”
“You’re better than any alibi she could ask for,” Cecilia says plainly. “I can’t have killed my son, he’s standing right here.”
“Why didn’t you tell someone she killed him?” I snap back to her.
“Life sentences don’t last a life,” says Cecilia. “She’d kill me too, even if there was a chance it wasn’t me who ratted her out. And what’s the point of revenge? Abel’s dead. I have a new life.”
“And what about me?” I say. “The kid stuck with a murderer.”
“That’s why I’m here, to warn you. But you can’t tell her,” says Cecilia. “It might be too suspicious to kill you, but she can make your life hell. And the police would be in a bad way with you if you told them you’d been impersonating a dead boy for a year, right?”
“So what? I’d rather live on the streets again than in that house, with him in the backyard,” I seethe.
“So you’re going to run away? Take off in the middle of the night? Do you really think she’d let her perfect alibi get away like that?” says Cecilia.
“No,” I say. “That’s not what I’m going to do. I can’t keep running away. I want to live a normal life, the life I deserve.”
I bang both my hands on the table. Cecilia jolts. I look her dead in the eyes.
“I’m going to dig up that ash tree.”
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