Page 11 of The Stranger in the Mirror

My body got cold suddenly, and it felt like my stomach was dropping through my feet. Were they kicking me out?

I suspect Gigi saw the look of panic on my face. “What I mean,” she hurried on, “is that we have a nice one-bedroom apartment above the garage. You could stay there if you like and have a little privacy and room to move around as you please. It even has a kitchen, if you want to cook.” She paused here and gave me a look. “I guess you might not remember if you like to cook or not. But anyway, you’re still welcome to have every single meal with us. What do you think? Would you like to take a look at it?”

“Sure,” I said a little tentatively. The thought of leaving the safe comfort of their house was a little daunting.

Together we walked up the stairs to the small apartment, which was sparsely furnished but adequate for my needs. There was a small galley kitchen and a wooden table with two straight-backed chairs that took up half of the living space. The other half had atwo-seat sofa of dark green velour, next to a round end table with a mock kerosene lamp. There was one picture on the wall—a marshland scene, featuring a black-and-white-spotted dog with a bird in its mouth. I turned to Gigi. “It’s a really nice place.”

“Oh, poppycock.” She laughed. “This furniture? Can you tell Ed picked everything out? It was going to be his man den, but even he thought it was awful.” She laughed again. “Come see the bedroom.”

It was a large room, and totally empty. “What happened to the bedroom furniture?”

“Ed never got around to that. Why would he sleep here when he had our nice warm bed in the house?” She laughed again. “He made this space into a one-bedroom in case we might want to rent it out someday.”

“I see,” I said, wondering how I was going to get money to buy a bed. I desperately needed to get a real job, but that was impossible. Up until now, I’d done odd jobs around the neighborhood—dog-sitting, and that sort of thing.

“I can see your wheels turning,” Gigi said. “Now listen, you and I are going to go shopping and do this place up. We’ll make it pretty and comfy, and it will be your own little refuge. Like I said, you can spend all the time you like at the house. You know we love having you there. But I think you need to take this step if you’re going to move forward.” She gave me the Gigi smile that I loved, the one that made me feel like I was being wrapped in loving arms.

“I can’t let you spend all that money, Gigi. It’s not right. I need to get a job somehow.”

“One thing at a time. And don’t tell me how I can or cannot spend my money. Ed and I both earn pretty darn good money, and we have no other family to leave it to. So I say we should spendit now. And it will give me great pleasure, not to mention a lot of fun, to go on a nice little shopping spree.”

My eyes filled. How had I been so lucky to wind up with these incredible people?

We spent the next week shopping and setting up the apartment. I even hung a few of my photographs, the ones I took the day Ed and Gigi took me to Marsh Creek Lake for the day. The night before I was going to move in all my things, we sat together at dinner. Ed had just gotten back from a long-haul assignment, so we felt a little celebratory. Gigi poured a glass of wine for each of us and made a toast to me and my new digs.

“You guys have been amazing to me. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for all you’ve done.” I put my glass down and pressed my lips together. “But I can’t keep taking from you. I have to figure out a way to earn some real money.”

The problem was that I was a nonperson. With no social security number, no driver’s license or birth certificate, no kind of ID whatsoever, I couldn’t get any kind of job besides odd ones. And when I went to state agencies to ask what I could do, they just looked at me with blank expressions and said, “Nothing. There’s nothing you can do.” What kind of crap was that? How was I supposed to support myself, or drive a car, or open a bank account, or get a credit card? At first it was frustrating, but I’d passed frustrating a long time before. Now it just seemed like a plot against me.

“Well,” Ed said. “I think I may have solved your problem.” They were both smiling like they shared a secret.

I waited.

“I took a small detour from my route. Went to visit some beautiful cemeteries in Georgia and Tennessee.”

“What?”

“Some of those tombstones are very sad. Babies dying just days after they’re born.”

“Are you saying what I think...” I trailed off.

“You need a birth certificate. The only choice they’ve given you is to use someone else’s. Someone who was born around the time you were and died right away. I figured you’re around twenty-four or twenty-five, so I looked for a match,” he said, pulling a paper from his shirt pocket. “And I found one.”

He handed me the paper, which I unfolded.Addison Hope. Born August 28, 1994, died September 3, 1994.I raised my eyebrows and looked back at Ed. “Are you saying I am going to pretend to be this Addison Hope? I don’t understand.”

“No, not pretend to be her. You’re just going to take her name. We have a name and date of birth now. I know someone who can have a driver’s license made for you in that name with your photograph. Once we have the license, I can get her birth certificate from the state vital records office. Once we get that, the rest is easy. Social security card, etcetera. Presto. You are now in the system.”

“How on earth do you know about this stuff?” I asked. “And a guy who can make a fake license?”

“You’d be surprised at the things truckers run across.”

I thought for a minute, chewing on the inside of my cheek. “But is that legal?”

“No. It’s highly illegal. But what’s the alternative?” Ed said, and I heard Gigi sigh.

He was right. Therewasno alternative. So I became Addison Hope and told myself it was only temporary, until I remembered my real name. But despite all my work with neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and even hypnotherapists over the last two years, I’m still unable to recall a cohesive past. When I say I don’trememberanything, though, that’s not entirely true. If you consider the flashes that come at unexpected times to be memories, then I have a few—blood-spattered faces, flesh torn away from bones, eyes open and staring at me, lifeless and condemning. So many bodies.

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