The celebration time was approaching and the majority of uncles and aunties, grandpas and grannies, cousins and other relatives filled the first floor.
"Lily, Lucy, my dears!" Eva exclaimed. "What did take you so long?"
"We were choosing dresses, granny," Lily answered. "Lucy wanted the red one, but I wanted the white."
"So, you both wore the pink! How can you be sweeter in your fourteen!"
Lily grinned back to an old widow, while Lucy blushed with a naive smile.
"Teresa and David are at the kitchen. Go and say thank you to your parents for giving you a life, beautiful ladies," she sent an air kiss to the girls and went to chat with other old men with a glass of wine.
At the kitchen their mom was cooking, dad was reading a book, while some children were hiding under the table, playing hide-and-seek.
"Does such appearance fits for today's evening?" Lucy asked, spinning around.
"Darling, you both look great!" mother said.
"Maybe, the white one would look better," mumbled father, biting an apple he took from the table.
"...Maybe... " the wide smile slipped from her face.
"Girls, do you want some apple?" mom placed a red plate with slices on the table.
"Nah," Lily said and started playing with children. "Hm, where could they be..? Here or maybe somewhere there..."
"I want!" Lucy exclaimed, noticing mother's sigh.
The girl put a few slices behind chubby cheeks and in result could not close her mouth.
"Eat carefully, darling," mother giggled.
Lily stopped playing with children and burst out laughing, when she saw her sister, while Lucy was trying to press out a curve smile. Father strangely looked at the girls, as his phone started ringing.
"David Kirche is listening," he said, walking out of the kitchen.
"Oh, mom, did grandma Paula find dad's photograph album?" Lily whispered, biting white slice.
"No, she said, your father is the one who holds it."
"Then it must be in the attic! Lucy, let's go! Dad's birthday is pretty soon too and your idea of wall newspaper about him is stunning!"
"Shouldn't we ask father first..?"
"Then it won't be a surprise! Come on!"
Teresa smiled at girls, whose backs had already disappeared around the corner, and kept slicing vegetables into another salad. The last guests were about to come.
Lily stood at the top of an old ladder, which leaded to the ceiling, and stared at the shadows behind the trapdoor.
"My phone's battery almost ran out. Switch on flashlight on yours," she sighed, tossing her white mobile into Lucy's hands and snatching sister's red phone.
"But mine is also..." Lucy helplessly watched her sister confidently plunging into the darkness and submissively followed her.
When she overcame the ladder, Lily's voice made her jump out of her place and nearly fall back:
"I found it!"
"So soon?" girl slowly moved to the light in the end of cool and musty room.
"Yeah, but... Oh my Gosh, what the heck is this..?"
Lucy finally reached her sister and their eyes met.
"Have you ever heard about dad's twin?" Lily's frighteningly stared at her sister.
Lucy, thrilled, shook her head and took a look at the black-and-white photographs in her twin's hands.
There was two of them. Two young boys. Their serious dad and a boy with wide smile.
"David and... Felix?" Lily tried to read hooked captions at the backside. "1976."
"But why didn't father tell us..?" for some reason Lucy was getting furious.
"Something bad must have happened..." Lily's voice was filled with compassion, but she kept searching other photos.
"But we are family and family should not keep secrets!"
"Everyone has secrets!" the girl exploded. "And you know it better, than anyone!"
"What..?" something turned cold inside Lucy.
Their eyes met and silence hung thick in the air between girls.
"I've found out everything month ago. You hate me," Lily's eyes weren't filled with pain or anger. They were strangely looking straight in Lucy's eyes as if she was just a mirror. "And you are scared of your feelings. That's why all those awful pictures you made and things you wrote are hidden under your bed."
Lucy's face was turning red with shame and pale with terror.
"How could you..?" she wheezed.
Lily looked away.
"I wanted to know."
"How dare you?!" Lucy grabbed Lily's dress collar and a fight started.
"It's just mine feelings! I don't want you to understand them! We are different!"
"I just wanted to be closer to you! You've put other people in the first place! I've needed you!"
"You've needed a mirror! A shadow of your perfection! A minor character in your play!"
"I've needed my sister! My best friend! Not sycophant or coward, but my real sister!"
"Don't lie, Ms. Perfect!.."
Their yells filled the attic and their fight ruined the half of ancient stuff, held there. But the incident puts everything in a place and the fortune put an old and sharp joist in one of the attic corners.
One of pink dresses turned all red by the time elders ran to the fight noise.
The shuddering girl with an empty glance sat in the opposite corner.
Mother's screaming cry filled the house.
Other relatives' fouls, cries and talks.
Sirens of police and ambulance.
Silence.
"Hey," father sat before her. "Are you..."
He stared at her and hard sighed.
"...You've seen my photos. And you know I had a brother. As my dad did. And his dad. But in our family... just one child can get through the age of fourteen. At least, my mother told me it on the darkest day of my life. The day when my brother drown... I thought she was just comforting me, however today... Today turned out the worst day of my life... But still... I don't want to lose both of you. I'm happy that at least you didn't get hurt, Lily."
She finally looked up, strangely staring at father's face, his inexplicable wrinkles around the mouth and suddenly smiled in a weird way. As if she was just smiling to the mirror.
"Thank you, daddy," she said, squeezing the white phone in her hands.
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