Somebody Like You Read Online Free PDF

noise—even life in black and white, with a disgraced boxer who escaped his demons by traveling home to Ireland.
    She needed to call her mother-in-law.
    Right.
    She’d call Miriam at ten thirty at night—eleven thirty in Oklahoma, where she lived—wake her up, and ask, “You don’thave another child that you and Sam forgot to tell me about, do you? A son who looks just like Sam?”
    Absurd.
    Gathering the edges of the blanket closer, she closed her eyes—and stared down the image of a man who walked like her husband. Sounded like her husband. Who had her husband’s face.
    In all the months since a trio of somber men in military uniform had shown up at her door to inform her that Sam had been killed, she’d never once dreamed of him—no matter how many nights she lay in bed and begged God for a glimpse of her husband. And now, when she was wide awake, he had walked toward her.
    But he wasn’t Sam.
    Sam had died last August. And what had happened tonight didn’t alter that reality.
    Four people had answers. One, she had buried. One, she had chased away at gunpoint. Then there was Sam’s father—whom she’d never even talked to. That left her mother-in-law.
    She needed to make the call. Get it over with.
    As the shrill sound of the phone rang in her ear, Haley prayed that Sam’s mother would answer the phone. If not, what would she do? Leave a message? Hi, Miriam. This is Haley. I wanted to ask you if Sam had a twin brother?
    Miriam Ames’s half-asleep “Hello?” interrupted Haley’s practice conversation.
    “Miriam, it’s Haley. I’m sorry to call so late.”
    “Oh, Haley.” It sounded as if her mother-in-law was moving around in bed—maybe sitting up. “Honey, you know you can call me anytime. Is the baby keeping you awake?”
    More like an unwanted apparition.
    “I’m sleeping okay.” She was—when she was able to fall asleep. She shoved her hair back from her face. “I don’t know how to ask this. I mean, you’re going to think I’m certifiable—”
    Miriam’s sharp inhale should have warned her, told her to tuck her heart away. Prepare for the blow of the unwanted but expected truth. “Did he call you?”
    “Did who call me?”
    “Sam’s twin brother, Stephen.”
    She’d read about how people felt as if they’d been verbally punched in the gut. But Miriam’s statement felt more like something—someone—had strangled the breath from her throat.
    Was she the only person speaking truth tonight? “Sam doesn’t have a twin brother.”
    As if she should have been telling Sam’s mother any such thing.
    The silence between them dissolved into muffled sobs.
    “Does he?” Her whispered question couldn’t pierce the woman’s grief. She tried again, reining in her emotions and raising her voice. “Sam has a twin brother?”
    “Yes. Sam never talked about Stephen—” Miriam broke off again, any attempt to talk lost in her tears, forcing Haley to wait. “—and it wasn’t my place to tell you if he didn’t.”
    Dear God, help me, help me.
    Since Sam’s death, all of her prayers had been reduced to that one-sentence plea. God was all-knowing. All-powerful. His thoughts were higher than hers—he could decipher all the hidden meanings in six words. Six syllables.
    “Why wouldn’t Sam tell me about . . . Stephen?”
    “They haven’t spoken to each other in years—since they were eighteen. It’s as if they erased each other from their lives. I kept hoping and praying they’d figure out a way to reconcile . . . but it never happened.”
    “Why would brothers—twins—refuse to speak to each other?” Haley pushed off the couch, the blanket puddling at her feet. She needed to walk. Think. She needed answers.
    Miriam’s reply escaped as a sigh. “Haley, it’s such a long, convoluted story. What did Stephen tell you?”
    “Nothing.” Her crack of laughter brought her up short. “I threatened to shoot him.”
    “What?”
    “I didn’t know who he was. How could