Free Stranger With My Face by Lois Duncan Page A

qualify. We heard that there were babies with mixed racial backgrounds available
     in the Southwest, so we went there. That was the trip we were talking about that night Helen was here.”
    “Mixed racial backgrounds,” I repeated numbly. “What exactly am I?”
    “Your biological father was white,” Dad said. “Your biological mother was full-blooded Navajo.”
    “I’m half Native American?” I whispered, stunned. “That’s why I look so different from you and the kids! My hair—my features—”
    “Your alien eyes.” Dad was trying to make a joke of it, but he couldn’t pull it off. He took a deep swig of wine and refilled
     his glass. “Come on, Laurie—lots of family members look different from each other, or have varying backgrounds. The roots
     of humanity are so meshed, we’re all blends and combinations.”
    “That’s not funny.”
    “It’s not supposed to be. Honey—” He reached for my hand and looked hurt as I jerked it away. “Laurie, it’s not that big a
     deal. You’re the same person you always were. You’re our beloved daughter. You’re one of us, a Stratton. So what if the same
     wind that blew your brother and sister into our lives didn’t carry you? You got here. That’s what’s important.”
    “If you really felt that way you wouldn’t have hidden the truth from me,” I said coldly. “Now, I want to know about my twin.”
    “What’s there to know except that you had one?” Dad said. “Your father evidently walked out on your biological mother at some
     point during her pregnancy. She gave birth to two babies and knew she wouldn’t be able to raise them alone. It was a measure
     of her love for you that she wanted you to have a better life than she could give you.”
    “Did you see her?” I asked. “The other baby?”
    “Of course. You were there together in the same crib at the agency.”
    “Did she look exactly like me?”
    “You were identical.”
    “Then, why—” The question rose to my lips without my even realizing that I was going to ask it. “Why did you take me instead
     of her?”
    “We couldn’t raise both of you,” Dad said. “We were going out on a limb to take on even one dependent at that point in our
     lives.”
    “That’s not what I asked,” I said. “What I want to know is, why did you choose me over my sister?”
    There was a moment’s silence as my parents exchanged glances.
    Then Dad said slowly, “Your mother—your mother, well, she thought—”
    “I didn’t want her,” Mom said. Her normally gentle voice was strangely sharp. “I just didn’t want her. I wanted you.”
    “But if we looked exactly the same—”
    “You weren’t the same,” Mom said. “You looked just alike—both of you so beautiful with big, solemn eyes and all that thick,
     dark hair. The people at the agency wanted us to take you both, and despite what Dad says, I really think we might have done
     it. It seemed wrong to separate twin sisters. I picked you up and cuddled you, and I knew I never wanted to let you go. It
     was as though you were meant to be ours. Then I handed you to Dad to hold and picked up the other baby, and—and—”
    “And what?” I prodded.
    “I wanted to put her down.”
    “Why did you want to do that?” I asked.
    “That’s what your dad kept asking me. I couldn’t explain it to him then, and I can’t to you now. It was instinctive. She felt
     alien in my arms. I knew I would not be able to love her.”
    “Just like that? Without any reason?”
    “There was something strange about her. I can’t tell you what it was. I know it doesn’t make sense. I’m not a baby-lover by
     nature. There are women who are, you know—women who adore all babies, just because of their babyness—but I’ve always been
     selective about the people in my life, babies as well as adults. I even used to wonder, when I was pregnant with Neal, how
     I would feel about him after he was born, and whether I would be able to love him the