Separated @ Birth: A True Love Story of Twin Sisters Reunited by Anais Bordier, Samantha Futerman Read Free Book Online Page A

This was my life. On the other hand, it might be good to have it documented for posterity’s sake. We would have it forever.
    Conflicted, I called Kanoa to talk it through. When I told him that a lot of people had business suggestions for me about this story, he told me to think it through and do what I thought was right. He was spot-on, and I really needed to hear someone I trusted say it. Yes, the story could be a great business opportunity, but I had to make my own choices. I decided I was going to Skype Anaïs. I just couldn’t do it tonight. My life had me working a full shift at the restaurant after a full day of auditions.
    When I finally got home from the restaurant, I sat down at my computer to compose a message to Anaïs.
    Anaïs! I am doing well (kind of true). Still processing all this crazy information (yeah, that’s true). The premiere was great! It was definitely a crazy day [smile] (input smiley face because you’re uncomfortable and don’t know what else to say) it’ll be weird when you see the movie . . . cause itwill be you . . . but not . . . cause it’s me . . . but you . . . (input humor because you’re uncomfortable, and it makes it better.)
    Ok! Great! I’ll have my mom and dad take pictures of my baby stuff. They live in New Jersey and I’m in Los Angeles, so it’s a bit far . . . but I’ll get it to you! (well . . . you made the effort. I should, too.) Yes, please! Let’s Skype! We will have to figure out a time because of the time difference.
    How are you? How is your family processing this information? Are you doing okay?
    Love Sam
    After I sent the message, I plopped onto my bed, curled up under the covers, and logged on to Facebook. I looked at Anaïs’s pictures again and again, going back into her past as recorded by her and her closest friends. It was literally a timeline of all these years apart, up until the very moment she made first contact. I could see the moments right there in the palm of my hand.

5
ANAÏS
    nothing is like family
    Growing up, I wanted for nothing. I attended some of the best schools in Paris, traveled around the world, summered in the South of France, learned to play the piano, and had years of classical dance and horseback riding lessons, as many other kids from the wealthy suburbs of Paris do. But there was always a curiosity, a secret longing, to find another person who looked like me.
    I can’t say I didn’t struggle with being of Korean heritage in a community as déconnectée, “disconnected,” as Neuilly-sur-Seine. When I was a baby, a doctor who lived in our apartment building asked my mother what language I would be speaking when I started talking. My mother was appalled at his ignorance. “French, of course!” she told him, asking him what language he thought I would be speaking. Even though he was a doctor, he assumed I would miraculously know Korean just because I was born in Korea. My mother was right to think he was awfully narrow-minded.
    When I was in kindergarten, my family was living in Belgium. I would go to friends’ houses for playdates, where Iwould find myself being served white rice by mothers proud that they were “accommodating” me. This was well-meaning but insulting at the same time. Even now, people in my town who don’t know me assume I must be a maid or house cleaner when they see me in the elevator of my parents’ apartment building, where they have lived only a couple of years. In Neuilly, a lot of the household help comes from South Asia, and there are not so many Asian-looking people in the area. But I am not foreign. I speak French, I eat French, and I dress French. France is my homeland, and I am as French as my parents.
    February 22 was my mum’s birthday. I really wanted to see her and my dad. I just wanted to be with them. Sam had posted a few more images on Twitter and Facebook, and it was all becoming real. She was there. She was tangible, and we had exchanged messages. Some of her