“Twin brother, obviously. We share a passing resemblance, or so I’m told.” He was being a jerk, his voice was thick with sarcasm, and I could see why. He bore more than a passing resemblance to Ronan. He was the spitting image of the man. I still wasn’t quite sure I believed the words that were coming out of his mouth. Identical twins were very real, of course—there had been two little girls in my class at Saint Augustus’s who used to have to wear name badges because they were so hard to tell apart—but this was insane. There was nothing to define the man standing in front of me from Ronan Fletcher. They were the same height, the same build. The way they held themselves when they leaned against a wall was exactly the same; they were carbon copy replicas of one another, not just two people who had happened to share the same embryonic sack.
“Linneman called and told me what happened,” Ronan…no, Sully said. I had to wrestle to get his name right in my mind. “I came by last night, but you seemed spooked. I thought you’d be less crazy if I came back during daylight hours. Looks as though I was wrong.”
Stunned, I took a step down the stairs, eyes locked on him, as though he’d vanish if I looked away. “I’m sure you can understand why…”
“I look like my brother. I’ve been hearing it my whole life. When I look in the mirror, I get to be reminded of him. Daily. So yeah. I understand. Now, like I said. Can we please move on? I’ve had this conversation more times than I can count, and it gets really fucking old.”
Slowly, I descended down the remainder of the stairs, trying to regain some of my dignity. Probably no chance of that happening in Sully’s eyes, but still, I had to try.
“Linneman didn’t mention that you were coming by,” I muttered, rubbing my slick palms against my jeans.
“That’s because I didn’t tell him. No point. He’d only have tried to talk me out of it, in that round about way of his, and I’d have ended up being rude.” Seemed like rude was a predetermined state of being with these Fletcher boys. I’d never have thought it possible, but Sully was even more prickly and unfriendly than his brother. “I don’t plan on being here long, either way,” he said, angling his jaw upward in a defiant, fuck-you fashion. “I came to tell you not to bother.”
“Excuse me?”
“Linneman told me what my brother did. That he wants you to hang around here on the island until I give in and decide to take care of his kids. I came over here to tell you not to bother. I won’t be taking them. He was crazy to think I’d ever be able to look after them. So you do what you have to do. I’m staying out of it.”
“Daddy?” From upstairs, Amie’s high, frightened voice echoed down the hallway. Sully’s eyes widened.
“Is that…that’s the little girl?” He looked like a rabbit trapped in headlights.
I nodded. Glancing over my shoulder, I tried to catch sight of her, but Amie was still making her way down the corridor, footsteps uncertain and timid. “I get that you’re a little freaked out right now. But…maybe you’d like to meet—”
I turned back to Sully, but he wasn’t there. The front door was yawning open, and the man was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a short woman in her late twenties, maybe early thirties with bright red hair and a black woolen hat was standing there in his place, an awkward look on her face. She glanced over her shoulder, scowling.
“I see you met Sully, then,” she said. Entering the house, she held out her hand, her scowl transforming into a small smile. “Hi, I’m Rose. Ronan hired me to help you take care of the children? Mr. Linneman came to see me yesterday. He told me what happened. I’m sorry I didn’t come straight over. To be honest, I was in shock. I’ve known Ronan all my life. I just…couldn’t quite believe what he’d done.”
“Tell me about it.” I shook her hand, blinking furiously. I must have looked very strange. “I’m sorry, I’m still reeling from…” I pointed out the door after Sully, trying not to look quite so stunned.
“Yeah. He has that affect on people. How about I make you a coffee, and we can go over a schedule or something? I can give you a little more information about the last remaining Fletcher brother while I’m at it.”
******
Rose was full of freckles. She was also full of hair-raising facts about Ronan and Sully. They’d both been troubled teenagers, both of them prone to fighting and inciting mayhem. In 2004, once they’d completed their degrees, they joined the military together as officers, and that seemed to calm them down a little.
She told me no one really knew what happened, but everyone had been shocked when Sully returned to the island and Ronan married Magda out of the blue. Sully had shut himself away and refused to interact with anyone on The Causeway unless they were ordering furniture from him, and Ronan hadn’t been seen again. Not until he’d shown up a week ago with no Magda and two children in tow.
“I used to envy Mags so much,” Rose said, taking a sip of her coffee. “She was my best friend in high school, y’know? She was so desperate to get out of here, so desperate to leave. She moved to New York when Sully and Ronan went out there to study, and she just never came back. I visited her once or twice before the whole mess with Ronan.”
“I’m sorry? The whole mess with Ronan?”
Rose blanched. “Oh, well, yeah. I mean, Magda didn’t start out with Ronan. She was dating Sully when they moved out to New York.”