Page 16

NOW

July 2023

Lily

Phibsborough, Dublin

Lily looked back and forth between the photograph of Robert, aged forty-two, and at Zach, comparing the two, as her mind raced. There was little more than a passing resemblance between them. Zach was clearly delusional. So why say it? Had he fixated on Lily maybe and wanted to establish a connection? That didn’t sit right with her, though. They’d only had a couple of sessions, hardly enough time for him to have an unhealthy obsession with her.

‘Are you okay?’ Zach asked, moving closer.

Lily took a step backwards.

‘Sorry,’ Zach said, holding his hands up as if in surrender.

Lily sat down, her breath ragged, as if she’d run a three-minute mile.

‘It’s the shock,’ Zach said kindly. He poured two glasses of water, mirroring the trick Lily often used with her clients when they became overcome with emotion.

She took the glass offered and gulped the water down. As she composed herself, she looked at Zach, wondering what to do next. She was the professional, and it was clear that this man had issues. He had convinced himself that he was her brother, attaching himself to her family because his own was unhappy. Was he a fantasist or simply confused? She knew it was her job to help him, but first of all she needed to confirm whether he was dangerous.

‘Zach, why do you think you are my missing brother?’

He pointed to the flyer, to the two photographs and then back to his own face as if this explained everything.

‘But you look nothing like Robert. You’ve got a square jaw; Robert has an oval face. And your nose is different. Yours is much smaller than his.’

‘We have the same eyes.’ Zach removed his glasses and presented himself to Lily in a Clark Kent/Superman reveal.

She studied his face and then looked down to Robert’s eyes. ‘Okay. Your eyes are similar. But the rest, sorry, I don’t see it.’

‘I’ve been researching age progression technology. I assume they’ve used your mother, your image, and this one of Robert at two years old to create forty-two-year-old Robert.’

Lily nodded warily. She didn’t like to think that anyone was researching her family. It felt intrusive, and every antenna in her body screamed stranger danger.

‘But the forensic artist is missing one half of Robert – of me – for the progression: my father’s face. So it stands to reason that without that there would be differences in the final result.’

Lily could not deny the logic in this argument. But the way Zach was referring to himself as Robert so emphatically made her deeply uncomfortable.

Then Zach reached into his pocket again and pulled out a bundle of photographs. ‘Can I show you something?’

Lily figured that there was little point in saying no. Zach was clearly on a mission.

He passed the snaps to her as he said, ‘These were taken on my third birthday and the others, later that year.’

Lily looked down and felt her body tremble as she took in every detail of the first image. A little boy, sitting in a high chair with a big smile on his face, looked at a cake with three candles on it. Blonde curl and sparkling steel-blue eyes smiled up at the camera.

That boy, whoever he was, could be Robert’s double.

‘You see it too, right?’ Zach asked, his voice little more than a whisper.

Lily couldn’t speak. The air in her body had vanished, and she couldn’t breathe. Tiny dots danced in front of her eyes, and the room swam around her. She felt arms round her, steadying her. The dots disappeared, bringing sharp focus. Lily reached her hand up to touch Zach’s solid and muscular arm. And she caught a sob before it escaped.

‘Robert . . .’

‘I think so.’

‘Your other mother,’ Lily whispered, thinking about the discussions she’d shared with Zach about his imaginary childhood friend.

‘I know. It’s all starting to make sense now,’ Zach said grimly.

Lily pulled back from Zach’s arms. For goodness’ sake, he was still her client. She took a steadying breath and signalled for him to sit opposite her. Then, using every ounce of her inner resolve, she asked him, ‘Can you start at the beginning? You said you saw the interview on Ireland AM .’

‘Yes!’ Zach answered enthusiastically. His shoulders dropped, and Lily thought that this was the first time he looked relaxed since he’d started seeing her. ‘By pure chance. I’m normally out of my apartment before seven. I use a gym in the office complex before I start my day. But I pulled a muscle in my thigh the day before, so I was taking a day off from my usual workouts.’

Lily had to stifle a scream of frustration. She wanted Zach to stop waffling and get to the point.

‘I flicked through the TV channels, then stopped in my tracks when they announced the next guest coming up after the break was a man who was looking for his stepson, who’d gone missing forty years ago. And then they showed a photograph of me . . .’ Zach paused when he heard a snort from Lily. ‘Of Robert, I should say, taken on a cruise ship in 1983. I recognised that child’s face. Lily, I promise you, that child is me.’

Lily counted to ten in her mind, only responding when she was sure her voice was steady enough. ‘Did you call your mother to ask her to explain?’

Zach shook his head. ‘I told you. She doesn’t do well with conversations about our past,’ he said.

Maybe because she snatched you. The thought sneaked into her mind, but she pushed it aside, refusing to let it stay. ‘But surely, if you think you are Robert, you have to confront your mother?’ She leaned in and said gently, ‘Is it possible that you don’t want to do that because you know, deep inside you, that this is a . . . fantasy?’

Now Zach sighed, looking at Lily in disappointment. ‘You think I’m crazy. Of course you do.’

‘You’re not crazy, Zach. I believe you have a lot of unresolved childhood trauma, though. And because of that—’

Zach interrupted her before she could finish. ‘I know what it must look like. And I know that I don’t look much like the progression photograph, but how can you explain the similarity between my childhood photograph and Robert’s?’ He pointed to the photographs again so she could examine the likeness.

Lily took in every detail, from the matching curl of the two boys’ hair to the cow’s lick at their crown. Their eyes were the exact same shape and colour. And their noses were slightly upturned at the end. Freckles scattered across their cheeks, almost in mirroring patterns. Yes, they could be brothers. Or twins.

‘I read an article recently about doppelg?ngers. Unrelated people, yet they look like siblings or, in some cases, like twins,’ Lily said. ‘There were two women – one from India, one from Eastern Europe. And, oh boy, they looked identical, other than their height, which was mismatched. Honestly, the similarity was uncanny. But they were not related in any way. There were dozens of cases, all similar to those two women.’ Lily touched the flyer once more with her forefinger. ‘I can’t explain why Robert’s and your DNA made your features similar; no more than those two women could explain why their looks were mirrors, especially from different ethnicities. But it happens.’

Zach listened to Lily and, for a moment, uncertainly flashed into his eyes. He stiffened on the chair, shoulders hunched up again, and his jaw clenched with tension.

‘You think I’m making this up? If so, for what purpose?’

‘I don’t know why, Zach. And I want to help you understand that. Answer me this. Does your mother have any photographs of you as a newborn?’

‘Yes,’ Zach answered warily. ‘There are some of her in hospital in London. And of my baptism.’

‘And does she have any of you as a young baby?’

‘Only a few. But I’ve seen some of them. She said that when she left my father she could only take a small bag and left most of her photographs behind her.’

‘That makes sense. Don’t you agree?’

Zach shrugged.

‘And do you look like the newborn infant in those photographs?’ Lily asked gently.

‘Impossible to say. I’m wrapped up in blankets.’ But when Lily raised her eyebrows at him, he conceded. ‘Some of the photographs I believe are me.’

‘Okay, let’s look at this logically. Why does your mother have photographs of you as a newborn if she only abducted you when you were two and a half years old?’

‘Photoshop.’ But even Zach didn’t believe this, judging by the quiver in his voice.

‘Do you believe your mother is capable of abducting you and pretending you are hers for forty years?’ Lily asked.

Zach’s face crumpled. He didn’t need to reply to the question. Then Lily’s watch buzzed as her alarm notified her that Zach’s time was up. Her mind raced with questions that she needed the wherewithal to answer. But, for now, she wanted this man out of her house.

‘We’ve come to the end of our session, Zach. I think it’s time we wrap this up.’

He stood and looked at Lily with such longing it made her shiver. ‘I know this doesn’t make sense. And I know how crazy I sound. But I believe that I’m your brother. I truly do. From in here.’ He thumped his gut. Then he reached up and touched his heart. ‘And in here too. I’ll go, because I know I’ve given you a shock, but, please, Lily, I beg of you. Please think about what I’ve said. Allow yourself to acknowledge the possibility that I’m right.’

Lily looked into his eyes, and, try as she might, she could not look away. For a few moments, the rest of the world disappeared, and it was just the two of them. She swallowed rapidly, wrapping her arms round her body, until he walked out of the room with one last shy glance in her direction.

And only when she heard the front door shut did she allow herself to think the unthinkable.

What if he was right? What if his mom had crept into their cabin forty years ago, and stolen Zach? Could that man be her long-lost brother Robert?