“The thing is that we’re not triplets,” I say. “We wish we were triplets. We used to think that we were, back when we were little. But really, what we are is… well, we’re clones.”
Part of me wonders whether Sean’s going to stand and run out of the room screaming, but he doesn’t move at first. His eyes stay on mine; his expression is expectant, like I’m going to shout, “Just kidding!” and we’re all going to have a big laugh. But then, about five seconds later, his features give it away when he realizes I’m serious. The upturned corners of his lips flatten out, his eyebrows dip just slightly enough to make him look disbelieving. I could swear his grip on my hand loosens. I loosen mine, too, and our hands fall apart, into the space between our chairs. That space feels like a valley; I knit my hands together in my lap.
“What does that even mean?” Sean asks, looking at the others. Betsey scoots forward to the edge of her chair.
“It means that scientists created us in a lab from someone else’s DNA,” she says, sounding like a mixture of teacher and mother. “We were implanted into our mom’s womb and came into the world just like you did.”
I’ve never been so aware of how much Betsey’s voice matches mine as I am in this second. I hate that Sean’s probably aware of it, too.
“You look exactly alike,” he says, eyeing us. I’m increasingly anxious until he looks at me and says quietly, “Almost.” It makes my stomach flutter and it calms me. A little.
“We do look alike,” Betsey says, “but maybe less alike than identical twins. We’re copies of someone else, while twins start out as the same person but the egg splits apart into two people.”
“How’s that different?” Sean asks.
“A copy’s never as good as the original,” Ella jumps in. “Our Original might have been smarter than us. Or taller. And we probably have other differences because we were grown in our mom’s eggs and not her mom’s eggs.”
Sean’s eyes widen a little. “Is this why you were freaked out by Twinner?” he asks me. “You don’t think that girl is the one—”
Ella and Betsey talk at the same time.
“Maybe,” Bet says.
“No,” Ella says.
I just shrug. “Our mom told us that the baby died.”
“How did this even happen?” Sean asks.
I sigh; this is not going how I planned. But I’m determined to share this side of myself with Sean, so I begin to explain.
“Before we came along, our mom was a well-known scientist at a federally funded genetics lab. Of course, the government didn’t know this, but the lab was working on human cloning in private. One day, this rich couple approached the head of the lab, Mom’s boss, Dr. Jovovich, and secretly offered him and his team a boatload of money to basically bring back their baby daughter who died.”
“Are you serious?” Sean says, looking horrified. “That’s like a movie.”
“Completely,” I say, answering both questions with one word. When he doesn’t ask anything else, I go on.
“Anyway, the scientists agreed, and after tests, they determined that the problem might have been a genetic disorder from the mother, so they decided that they’d need to implant the DNA into a different host’s eggs before they were put in the client’s womb. Mom volunteered her eggs, as she was the only woman on the project. The clients were presented with a full medical history on the egg donor, but never knew it was our mom.
“Around the time when the DNA was implanted into the eggs but before they were put into the mother, the father shared that he and his wife wanted only one of the three viable eggs—the best one—and they wanted to destroy the rest. Mom thought they wanted to make sure that the scientists wouldn’t secretly grow the others in the name of research.
“Mom was probably way too involved in the project at this point, and because she was the egg donor, she sort of felt a claim to us. She didn’t want any of us being discarded. So she and her boss came up with a plan: He’d put the eggs in Mom’s womb instead and she’d disappear, and then he’d tell the clients that there had been an accident in the lab and all the eggs were destroyed.”
“Your mom stole you and raised you herself,” Sean says, looking a little pale. I nod. “But you weren’t hers,” he says quietly.
“We didn’t come from her DNA, so no, not technically,” Betsey says, “but she used her own eggs, and she gave birth to us. She raised us. We’re hers.”
“Oh,” Sean says like he’s not really buying it. Like he thinks Mom did something wrong. I try to make him see that what she did was good. Because as much as I hate living as a third of a person, I’m living at all because of her.
“She did it to protect us,” I say. “We moved and lived as triplets, and we had a happy childhood.”
“Then why don’t you live as triplets now?” he asks.
I tell him the story of when we were nine and Dr. Jovovich was publicly arrested. “He admitted on the stand during his trial that there could be a set of three female clones our age living somewhere in the United States. Girl triplets went under the microscope and Mom freaked out. We went into hiding.”
Sean stares at me; I clarify.
“We each do a third of the day.”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“I mean Ella goes to school until lunch, I do the afternoon classes and cheer practice, and Betsey does our night job and college class, and any other evening activities.”
“But the ones who aren’t at school are homeschooled in the same classes,” Ella adds, like she doesn’t want him to think we each only have a third of a brain, too.
“You’re telling me that since you were ten years old, you’ve only been allowed out of the house one-third of each day?” he asks me, incredulous.
“Nine,” I say, “but yeah.”
“It’s not really that we aren’t allowed out,” Ella says. “It’s just our system.”
Sean turns his body to face mine and there’s an intensity in his eyes that I haven’t seen before. “This is what you meant when you said your mom is strict?” he asks quietly, but doesn’t wait for me to answer. “I mean, this is more than strict. This is… Lizzie, do you realize how messed up it is?”
I’m quiet a few seconds; it’s possible that the others are holding their breath. Then, “I think you get used to things,” I say. “I think you just go with your reality.” I sigh before adding, “But I know how strange it must seem to you.”
I’m about to tell him that it’s strange to me now, too, when he runs his hands through his hair and stands up.
“I’m going to go get some air, okay?”
“Okay,” I say, unsure whether that means he’s going to open a window or flee the scene. But when he jogs down the stairs and goes out the front door, I get my answer.
“That went well,” Ella mutters after he’s gone.
“Shh,” Betsey snaps at her. She nods in my direction, knowing I’m on edge. Probably feeling it. “He’ll be back.”
