“Recurring dreams are scary enough, but the fact that you have a recurring character in your dreams, a figure you saw in reality under what I would say are pretty strange circumstances…” He trailed off. “It’s scary, Lor.”

She smiled wryly. “Tell me about it.”

“You have no idea who this girl is? You’ve never met her before? Never dreamed about her in the past?”

“That’s the thing. She seems familiar to me.” Laurie paused. “Sort of.” She looked across the table at her brother. “I mean, I think I know her from someplace, but I can’t for the life of me figure out where. I don’t know if she’s someone I met or imagined or saw in a movie. There wasn’t a girl on our street like that, was there? When we were little?”

“Not when you were with us. But maybe before.”

She frowned. “Before?”

“Yeah. If your birth mother was around we could—”

Laurie’s heart stopped in her chest. It suddenly seemed impossible to breathe. “My ‘birth mother’?”

“Yeah.”

Laurie tried to will the saliva back in her mouth. She felt dizzy.

“I thought…” Josh shook his head. “You don’t remember?”

“I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know you were adopted?”

She stared at him numbly. “I thought you were my real brother.”

“I am your real brother.”

“I mean—”

“We may not be biologically related, but I’m your brother, and Mom and Dad were your parents. We’re all family.”

“How long have you known?”

“Always.” He seemed uncomfortable. “I thought you knew, too. I wouldn’t’ve said anything if—”

“Were you born when they adopted me?”

“Yeah. I was pretty little. You were, I don’t know, eight or nine, I guess, when Mom and Dad brought you home. Which meant that I was four or five, but I still sort of remember it.”

She stood. For the first time in her life, she knew what writers meant when they described their characters’ heads as “spinning.” “This is too much to take. I need… time. I need to think about this. I need to absorb it.”

Josh looked worried. “I still love you, Lor. I couldn’t love you more if you were my Siamese twin.”

She put a hand on his shoulder. “I know. I love you, too.”

“Okay. Let’s talk about this, then. Obviously, we need to work this out. I thought you knew all along. I don’t know how you could not—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She tried to smile, did not entirely succeed. “Not right now. I think… I think I’m going to go for a walk. I need some time to think.”

He nodded.

“I’m sorry,” he said as she headed toward the door.

She turned, smiled kindly. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”