Separated @ Birth: A True Love Story of Twin Sisters Reunited (22 page)

Then I saw Marie carrying our birthday cake—one half was the American flag, and the other half was the French flag, and on top sat a beautiful cupcake, representing our first birthday. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. I was in Paris for my birthday, standing opposite my identical twin sister. When it was time to blow out the candle, I didn’t make a wish—I forgot. I was just so excited to be there in that moment. I hoped Anaïs had remembered to wish, though. If so, she got double the chances. Whatever she wanted, I wanted.

I still hadn’t seen the famous light show at the Eiffel Tower that happens every night on the hour. So we had a bowl of French onion soup in a restaurant with a view of it, and it was the best onion soup I’ve ever had.

When we got back to Anaïs’s apartment, we were
hanging out watching a few YouTube videos when Anaïs pulled up “How It Feels to Be Adopted . . . I Am Sam.” Ugh, I didn’t want to watch that cheesy thing.

“No,” Anaïs said quite seriously. “Can you imagine what I was feeling when I saw this?” She wanted me to experience the video as she had nine months ago when Kelsang had first shown it to her. “I was in shock. But I kept watching it, over and over,” she told me. She was right. . . . What the hell?! What if it had been the other way around, if I had seen Anaïs/myself on the video stating that I was adopted, and I had just found out that I had been born on the same day and in the same city as this stranger/look-alike? There would have been no easing into it. The moment Anaïs had seen it for the first time, she knew we were twins. Her past, the past that she had never wanted to uncover, had to have been barreling toward her in a massive tsunami of fear, happiness, and probably any other human emotion we are capable of. Holy shit, it is hard to imagine.

•   •   •

Lunch at the Bordiers’ was delicious. Patricia had prepared sauerkraut with sausages and ham, an Alsatian dish known as
choucroute garnie
. Earlier that morning, Anaïs had asked me if I liked sauerkraut, and I asked if we were having hot dogs. She had told me, in a very French voice, “
Non
, you don’t eat sauerkraut with hot dogs!” My experience with sauerkraut has always been on a foot-long frank wrapped in sliced white bread with neon-yellow mustard drizzled over the top. Delicious, but I guess slightly subpar to the French palate. To be honest, Patricia’s sauerkraut was excellent, but the dish
was
sauerkraut and hot dogs. Not really, but it was sauerkraut topped with two types of sausages from the hot dog family, and some additional bacon and ham steaks, so I wasn’t totally
off. It was kind of like an upside-down, open-faced hot dog! But anyway, it was superb. In America, we don’t steam our foot-longs in white wine and juniper berries, and our mustard is bright enough to see in the dark and can probably survive the apocalypse.

When we were finished with lunch, we took a nap, only to be awoken by Patricia saying, “foie gras.” Believe me, there was no better way to wake me than to whisper those words in my ear. OMG, if I believed in heaven, this was pretty much what it would look like—my sister by my side, Beaujolais, and foie gras. I mean, Anaïs wouldn’t have to be there in heaven at the exact same moment as me. . . . She could come later, but I’d hope that she’d be there with me . . . am I right?

While packing back at Anaïs’s, I couldn’t figure out how to fit all the gifts. I rearranged and reorganized everything again and again, trying to fit them all in. There just wasn’t space for everything. I decided to leave a few things with my sister to bring when she came to New York for Thanksgiving. Thank goodness for my twin and her extra luggage space!

After I was done packing, we were going to lie in bed and watch some TV, but we both just wanted to chat. We talked about everything—boys and bed bugs, and hair growth, and sex. We were like two girls at a sleepover right before going to bed. I loved being able to gossip and share and gush about men and crushes. I love having a sister.

Naturally we stayed up much later than we should have, but we talked until I fell asleep, and I mean literally fell asleep. It was midsentence. . . .

November 25 was a travel day. Anaïs got in the shower first, as she tends to take a bit more time to get ready. Yet, as I was just finishing up getting dressed, I looked up and there was my sister, standing in her underwear, offering me a piece
of
saucisson
. What the hell? She was “first shower.” Why wasn’t she ready!?

We had just finished scrambling by the time Jacques arrived to take us to the train station. He gave us both a hug and helped get my stuff into the car. He said it was a shame we had just missed Justin Timberlake’s “Mirrors” on his car radio.

At the train station, Anaïs helped me bring my bags upstairs to the Eurostar departure area. It was time. I didn’t want to leave her. I knew I’d see her in a few days, but still I had had so much fun, especially the night before when we had talked the hours away. That had been my favorite part. The fairy tale of being in Paris was nothing to the fairy tale of having a best friend to share all your deepest thoughts and secrets with. That was the real gift.

thanksgiving in new york

The three months between getting home from Korea and going to New York to visit Sam and her family went very slowly. Work was incredibly busy, as the design house I worked for had much to do to get its collection ready for the 2014/2015 season. My job was a leather goods designer in the accessories department. I did my technical drawings by hand rather than using the computer, because I love to draw. I also loved my job. It was teamwork. I worked with the production, marketing, and sourcing teams directly. We traveled to the factories and leather fairs in Northern Africa and Italy, to see new trends and buy the materials according to what was current. At the fairs, we would look at different types of leathers, hardware pieces, and new materials, as we tried to enhance our creativity. Everybody pretty much spoke Italian. I could understand it, but I couldn’t speak it that well, so I was determined to learn.

We were working from morning till night, but I loved that my boss Diane brought me along, giving me both
confidence and experience all at the same time. I was not an intern anymore, and I appreciated that. Diane gave me a chance to be creative and trusted me in my work. I think I grew a few years in confidence in a few months.

Thanksgiving in America did not coincide with any holiday in France. The only two holidays we celebrate in November are All Saints’ Day on November 1, and Armistice Day on November 11. In order to minimize how many days off work I would be taking, I decided to take a red-eye from Charles de Gaulle, which would still have me arriving at the Futermans’ in time for the big feast. My parents were leaving one day earlier, because my father had business appointments in New York, so I would be traveling alone.

I really had no idea what to expect at an American Thanksgiving. The only thing we French knew about the holiday was that it had to do with the first European settlers in North America celebrating a harvest with Native American Indians, or something along those lines. For the French, most of our information about what Thanksgiving meant came from scenes in American movies. Even the nonanimated Spider-Man movie with Tobey Maguire had a Thanksgiving dinner scene. Hollywood versions always had plenty of gluttony, scatological humor, and dysfunction. There is often an underlying theme of a family member bringing in a new love interest to meet the family, and in that warm, comfortable place, everything that could go wrong did, as protected family secrets were unveiled.

I was curious if Sam would have some strange uncle with an embarrassing habit, a taboo past, or an inappropriate sense of humor. Sam hadn’t warned me about anybody, but according to the movies, there is always somebody who gets
drunk and says too much. If there is no such character at Sam’s Thanksgiving, I was sure she and I could step in and fill the role. We loved acting insane together. We could even switch places and take it from there.

My parents were scheduled to arrive first. Jackie and Judd had invited my parents to stay at the house in Verona, too, saying there were plenty of beds for everybody in one room or another. My parents, not wanting to impose, declined, so they were staying in a hotel within five miles of the Futermans’ house. They were very social people, but very private at the same time. As much as they were looking forward to being with loads of Futermans, they also knew it would be best for them to have a hotel room, where they would be able to sleep well and relax, maybe even process their impressions of the people and places they had seen after the very busy days the Futermans had planned for us.

Since May, only Sam and I had managed to get together, so it was really important to me that our parents share time, and their flight itinerary allowed them to do just that. This was an opportunity for the two couples to get to know each other better away from the discerning eyes of their girls.

I tend to think of my parents as old-fashioned, even though they are actually the coolest people in the world to my friends. If my mom translates a word from French into English, but she pronounces it wrong or uses it incorrectly, I might get all annoyed, for no reason other than she is my mother. In my father’s case, he might tell a well-intentioned story about something I did when I was small, but if it embarrasses me, I want to scream at him to stop. In this case, I was feeling protective of them—as they always are of me—and didn’t want to feel embarrassed on their behalf.

Without me around, my parents could be themselves when they first hung out with the Futermans. It really mattered to me that they started feeling closer to each other. They were four people who had twin daughters together. They hadn’t raised twin daughters together, but they shared them now. I knew my mum and Jackie had been Skyping regularly, and my dad seemed to really like Judd, too. My parents didn’t have huge extended families, like Sam’s family did. My mum’s only brother was a priest, so no children or wife there. My dad had lost contact with a couple of his siblings in the last few years, so his extended family was getting smaller rather than larger. Now, with the Futermans, our family was growing again. I thought it would be great if my mum could find a “sister” in Jackie, and my dad a “brother” in Judd. All four of them were wholly likeable, warm, intelligent people. If they needed to find common ground, well, that was easy!

My parents were older when they adopted me, and I have no siblings so Mom, in particular, worried that I would end up all alone with no close family once she and Dad weren’t around anymore. Now, she took comfort that I would always have Sam and her family.

My mum and Jackie had started to get close already. They shared stories about Sam and me as children, looking for similarities. The soup story was the best. According to Jackie, when Sam was little, she loved chicken noodle or chicken rice soup. It had to be Healthy Choice or Progresso or another canned soup, not homemade. Jackie said before she gave it to Sam, she would have to pick out every single shred of carrot, or Sam wouldn’t eat it. If she saw so much as a teeny, tiny orange speck, she’d be upset. My mum had the
very same story about me. No fancy homemade soup, but canned soup with every single piece of carrot removed.

Sam and her dad picked me up at the airport. By the time we got to Verona, I was quite sleep-deprived, but I would never be in a scene like this again, my first American Thanksgiving, just like in the movies, so I was going to make the most of it! It was crazy how I bonded with and trusted Sam’s uncles, aunts, and cousins immediately. It was great to be in a position to observe their relationships, to see my sister interacting with the people she loved the most.

We didn’t even mean to trick Sam’s grandmother, but when she came up to hug me, thinking I was Sam, we couldn’t help ourselves. Other relatives greeted me thinking I was Sam, too, until Sam would come up behind me, and the switch would be revealed. It was too much fun. I didn’t need proof that Sam’s family liked and accepted my family and me, but it felt good to see everyone in the same place discovering more about each other and spending time together, creating memories all together now.

Sam’s house was so incredibly cool. When I entered it for the first time, I felt as if I was really and truly part of the family, seeing their intimacy displayed in every room. It was a testament to their love, habits, and passions. The house itself was welcoming, cozy, warm, and people/pet friendly, absolutely full of photos and treasures from the Futermans’ lifetime here. The furniture looked like it was supposed to be there, and nothing was fussy, formal, or delicate, so there was no reason to be paranoid about doing something wrong.

I could tell immediately why Sam loved growing up there. I imagined what her room must have looked like when she was a child, filled with toys and friends who had come
over after school. I envisioned her playing with her brothers in any of the rooms on the three floors, from the master bedroom with high-peaked windows on the attic level to the enclosed porch at the front of the house on the ground floor. I could picture her arguing in the kitchen with them, and Jackie and Judd teaching them how to behave and not to hit each other. I imagined her and her family sitting together in front of the fireplace or Sam running around with her dogs in the yard. I imagined the whole family watching a baseball game together on television on a Sunday afternoon. It was incredible to know she had been doing all those things while I was on the other side of the planet.

It looked like she must have had a very happy childhood with a big family and a lot of joy. The family parrot, Pelinore, loved to be in the porch room, probably because of all the windows. I had never known a family with a parrot, and I was fascinated by it. He was such a pretty bird, but I had never seen one in someone’s home. He was aggressive and funny at the same time. The Futermans had gotten him when Sam was little, but Sam found him to be quite annoying. Jackie would tease her that “no, the parrot is not going to be made into parrot soup for the Thanksgiving holiday.” I was curious if the parrot could tell the difference between Sam and me. If he were not able to see the difference, the dead giveaway would be my French accent. I think he thought I was Sam, though. She didn’t like him and let him know it, so he was hating me from the beginning and trying to snap me with his beak. The family’s two dogs, Maggie, a King Charles Cavalier, and Seamus, a Wheaten Terrier, were a bit friendlier. Seeing Sam with her family in her world made me understand her even more. Watching her interact with her brothers,
cousins, and friends was fascinating. I could draw on some of the blank spaces in my head about her, about the times previous to the memories we were building now.

There was so much tradition involved with the Thanksgiving feast, with all the different dishes of food, the fancy plates, and the more formal table settings. There really was something to eat for everybody, and nobody seemed to be without a “must-have” side dish on the menu. To me, it seemed like an incredible amount of work to prepare so many different things, but it was also evident that after years of getting this meal ready for so many people, it was probably done by rote. Nobody seemed confused about his role, or what he was supposed to be setting, chopping, serving, stirring, or pouring. It was so much fun!

The food was totally “American.” In France, we hardly eat turkey. For Christmas, my mother makes capons with chestnuts. Some of the Thanksgiving food I loved, and some of it I didn’t really care for. Not that there was anything wrong with it, but it just didn’t appeal to me. One thing I liked was the sweet potatoes with marshmallows baked on top. I had never had anything like it, and who could imagine that such a combination could work?! According to Jackie, it was a distinctly Southern recipe in its origins, but it was featured everywhere at Thanksgiving. The turkey soup Judd made was also outstanding! Sam promised me we’d be seeing a lot of it. She even mentioned it was a breakfast staple in the days after Thanksgiving. Not an American staple, just a Futerman staple. We would even have it for breakfast on the morning before our flight back to Paris.

The meal lasted for four hours and, just like in the movies, everyone was stuffed to a state of delirium. However, for the young people at the gathering—Sam, Matt, Andrew, and
their cousins Jonathan and Jess—there wasn’t a chance to sit around complaining about the excessive eating and drinking. It was time for touch football in the street, another American tradition faithfully honored by the Futermans. I’m not very athletic in contact sports, because in the past I was sidelined by an injury to the face. I used the opportunity to take my first good look around Sam’s neighborhood.

Her street was lovely, huge stately trees everywhere. Each house on the block was unique and well loved, with yards in both the front and back. Some houses were separated from the neighbors’ by some sort of fence, but many yards ran right into each other, fronted by the sidewalk, then the curb, then the street. The houses were wooden, just like you see in films. It was weird to see such an exclusively residential street.

Growing up in Paris, I had grocery stores,
boulangeries
, pharmacies, patisseries, and small produce markets everywhere within a block or two, so nobody ever really needed to drive anywhere to get the essentials. As peaceful as Sam’s neighborhood was, it was still only twenty miles from Manhattan. In fact, the busy roads that commuters used to get to New York were just a few blocks away, yet here on her street, there was a feeling of small-town American charm.

Just as the game of touch football was ending, necessitated by darkness, my sister caught the winning touchdown, a highly dramatic moment that delighted us both, despite the fact that I didn’t know anything about American football. She and her teammates whooped in glory, while the losing team, quite despaired, swallowed their pride and prepared to go back to the house for dessert.

Back at the house, my parents were holding their own beautifully. I was quite proud of them, actually. I am fairly
shy when I first meet people, but in my case I had Sam with me, so there wasn’t a chance I’d be at a loss for conversation. But here Mum and Dad looked relaxed and comfortable. Sam’s dad or Andrew had been picking them up in the mornings, either to bring them back to the house or to begin whatever adventure was planned, and they wouldn’t return until late. Plus, Sam’s relatives were so warm and outgoing, it would have been almost impossible to not feel welcome.

For dessert, we moved away from the Thanksgiving theme and toward Sam’s and my birthday. There were two birthday cakes for us—an ice-cream cake and the other homemade by Matt’s girlfriend. This was only the second time I had spent time with Matt and Andrew. It was great to get to know them more. I was already WhatsApping Matt, and he liked to send me funny pictures. Andrew and I regularly talked on Facebook. It was crazy that I went from being an only child to suddenly having two brothers. I had automatically known that I could trust them from our first embrace in London. Sam had always had two big brothers to protect her, and now I did, too. In Sam’s childhood bedroom, she showed me where she used to stand in front of her mirror to put on makeup. She drew a cow-spot print with her finger where she had painted on her wardrobe door. She was telling me stories from growing up, while acting them out around the room. I could imagine her at different stages at her life—shouting at the top of the stairs to her bigger brothers, running down the stairs being late for school, and tiptoeing back to her room on a late night. I was trying to match in my head the different parts of our lives. When she had been asleep here, I’d have been on a bench at school. When she was having dinner, I’d have been asleep and dreaming. When she had been drawing on a weekend, I would have been
horseback riding. I would imagine Jackie telling them to come down for dinner. It was like looking at a past, like a mystery part of a life bonded with mine.