The land up here was beautiful, pines and poplars amid the rocky outcroppings, and a series of streams that sourced from the Kindle. Every mile or so, as they drove, they passed another placid little lake. People were outside now, restoring their houses for the season. You could feel their joy that it was finally spring, a celebratory emotion that inhabited the entire Midwest at this time of year.
Cass took a left on a country road, and then in half a mile turned up a hill. Paul had built a rich man’s retreat. Sitting atop a knob, the large stone house had a shake roof and varnished pine timbers rimming the flagstone porch. The three emerged from Tim’s rental car in the circular gravel drive. The dog dashed free, ran a giant circuit in the yard and came back with a tennis ball that she dropped at Cass’s feet. He whipped it for her once underhanded, just as Paul strode from the house. He was in a plaid shirt and jeans and he crossed his arms as soon as he caught sight of Tim.
Beata emerged next. She wore an old chambray shirt, but Tim could see that Cass had told him the truth about her. She was starting to show. Paul reached back for her hand.
“Are you satisfied?” Cass asked Tim.
Paul looked like Paul, with that big broken bulge at the nose. It had always seemed strange with a wife who was a plastic surgeon that he’d never gotten it fixed, but then again Sofia hadn’t had herself cut on either. But of course, Paul’s nose wasn’t broken at all. It was his disguise.
“You mind if I take a close look at you?” Tim asked him.
“Why?” asked Paul, clearly irritated.
“He’s got another theory,” said Cass, “that you and I traded places in prison for the last twenty-five years and pretended to be each other, by using a nasal prosthetic.”
Paul considered that with a hooded expression, but descended the three steps from the porch. He even removed his heavy black glasses for the sake of the inspection.
“Make it quick,” he told Tim.
Tim approached, fumbling in his own pockets for his reading glasses. He got close enough for a smooch, then came around the other side. It looked real, no doubt of that, but so did the prosthetic. He held still then, gripped by an idea, almost as if it was a dare to himself. He acted as if he were turning away, then revolved back and grabbed the bridge of Paul’s nose and pulled like hell. Paul actually wailed in pain and swatted at Tim, and then Tim felt a heavy blow from the side and the harsh impact when he hit the ground. Beata was on top of him.
Cass arrived to pull her off, but stood by without offering a hand as Tim slowly climbed back to his feet. He could feel a hot pain on the side of his face that had struck the gravel. In the meantime, Sofia had taken both of Paul’s cheeks in her hands, turning his head from side to side to examine him.
“It’s time for you to go,” Cass said. “Just give me my car key. Paul can drive me back to the rest area.”
Beata was now at Paul’s side along with Sofia, who was tossing her head back and forth looking at Tim.
“Mr. Brodie,” she said, “I think you’re getting demented. You could have broken his nose. You may have.”
“I’m sorry,” said Tim. “I thought I had this all figured out. I’m sorry.” He had felt a hard ridge of bone and cartilage. Paul’s nose was real.
“The key,” Cass repeated.
Tim dusted off his coat and his pants leg. His shoulder was hurting, too. And the bad leg didn’t feel any better either, having largely given way under Beata’s weight.
He opened the trunk of the Chevy and reached under the mat for the key. When he came up with it, he noticed some kind of pinkish residue on the outside of his right thumb. He circled it against his index finger. Pollen was his first thought, but the substance was oily. Then he realized. It was makeup. It hadn’t been on Paul’s nose, rather under his eye where blood collected and bruises showed after an injury at or above the ocular orbit.
“The key,” Cass demanded.
Tim tossed it. He threw it on Cass’s left side and as Tim expected he reached across his body to catch it.
“Nice catch, Paul,” Tim told him.
“I’m Cass.”
“No, that’s Cass,” Tim said, pointing at the man who’d returned to the porch. “The guy who’s been hiding out up here, while his nose healed after Sofia operated on it to put that bulge on it permanently. That was so you guys could make the switch once and for all. But you’re Paul. I bet you were great at playing Cass in the joint. But you’re not used to doing it out here. That dog, she’s eighteen months old, and she’s glued to you. Not the man you say trained her. And by the way, I watched the way you threw that ball for her underhanded. I bet you and Cass learned to eat and sign your name with the other hand-same crappy illegible signature from both of you-but throwing a ball overhand from the wrong side, that’s hard to master. Here. Prove me wrong. Throw me those keys back overhand.”
The man he’d been calling Cass up until now just stared at him. They were Zeus’s eyes, too, dead black.
“Should I ask you to stand back to back with your brother?” Tim said. “Wanna bet that Paul is the one who’s just a tad taller now? Cass is going to be Paul from now on. And you’re going to be Cass. But living with your wife. Which is nice to know,” said Tim. “And Beata, she’s been Cass’s girlfriend for years, whenever he was out of the joint pretending to be Paul. I understand her wanting to be up here with him, especially given her condition, but I don’t think she’s feeling too fragile,” said Tim and rubbed his shoulder. “She’s just been avoiding me. Which is her right. I hope you all live happily ever after. I truly do. I’m not sure I understand what the hell you’re doing. But it’s not really my business.”
Sofia stepped down from the porch. She took her car key from her husband, then approached Tim and put a hand up to his cheek.
“That’s going to bruise, I’m afraid. I’ll get some ice. Anything else hurt?”
“No worse than usual,” he told her. He wasn’t really sure about his leg.
Sofia headed into the house and murmured something as she went so that the other three followed her in. The dog crashed out of the woods at that point and stood at the door with the ball in her mouth. Her tail wagged, and now and then she looked back expectantly at Tim.
“Don’t ask me, Cerberus,” he told her. “I don’t understand anything around here.”
In a few minutes, Sofia returned alone. She carried a plastic bag of ice cubes, a tub of water and a spray bottle. She washed the wound and had him close his eyes while she spritzed him with an antibacterial. Then she handed over the ice.
“Ten on, ten off,” she said. Tim got into his rental.
Sofia knelt down to peer in. “Just between us?”
“Of course.”
“You’re right.”
“I know that. Your husband’s a pretty good guy. Cass and Lidia were both in a jam. But that’s a hell of a thing for a brother to do, volunteer for prison, even if it’s only part-time.”
Sofia looked down to the gravel drive for an instant, as if the truth might be located there.
“You learn a lot about love married to identical twins. It’s not for everyone. Especially if you want to feel like you’re number one. They grow up in a world of individuals, and we all tell them to think and behave like us. But they can’t. At least not these two. Their fundamental experience is different. It’s probably the ultimate bond. The whole switch thing was Paul’s idea. He was certain Lidia would do herself in. But more than that, he just couldn’t tolerate the idea of his brother bearing that kind of trouble without him sharing it.”
“You involved, too?”
“Little by little. I suppose I was in on it as soon as I sutured Lidia. Certainly when I started falling for Paul. I came up with the idea for the nasal prosthetic. We needed a facial characteristic so prominent that it would obscure the other minute differences between them, especially the ones that would develop as they aged. And you know the saying. ‘Plain as the nose on your face.’ It’s the best way to differentiate two people’s appearance. Hilda, my anaplastologist, she must have figured it out by now, but she’s never said a word. The whole thing was manageable because they wore the prosthetic only when they were on the outside, being Paul.”