Matilda covered her mouth.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
The Answer Hidden in Their Blood
A DNA test confirmed the truth two weeks later.
Matilda was Claire’s identical twin.
The woman Noah had seen in Cresthollow was not a mother hiding from her children.
She was not a ghost.
She was a living piece of the family Claire had lost before she was old enough to remember.
The truth brought relief, but it also reopened wounds.
For several days, the children struggled to understand.
Some were disappointed.
One had secretly hoped their mother had survived.
Another became angry that Claire had never found Matilda while she was alive.
The youngest stared at the photograph of the sisters’ faces side by side and said, “It’s like Mom came back, but she didn’t.”
There was no perfect way to respond to that.
Matilda never tried to replace Claire.
