The Reunion

Grace Turner had always felt that something was missing from her life, although she could never explain what. She had grown up in Wellington, New Zealand, with loving parents, a younger brother and a large, noisy dog, and she had known from an early age that she had been adopted as a baby in Spain, where her parents were working at the time. What she did not know, until an email arrived one rainy Tuesday morning in May, was that she had a sister.

The DNA test had been a birthday present from her brother, who thought it would be fun to find out where her ancestors came from. The results showed that her roots were mostly Spanish. They also showed something else: a "very close match" with a woman called Laura Romero, who lived in Seville. The website described their relationship with a single word that made Grace sit down on the kitchen floor: twin.

Laura had taken the same test for a completely different reason. A nurse in a busy hospital, she had always been curious about her medical history, which her adoptive parents had never been able to give her. When Grace's name appeared in her results, she assumed it was a mistake. Then she opened Grace's profile and saw a photo of a woman with her own face, her own crooked smile and even the same habit of tilting her head to one side when she laughed.

Over the next few weeks they exchanged hundreds of messages, slowly piecing together their story. Their birth mother had been seventeen and alone, and had given them up for adoption. Because of a mistake in the paperwork, the twins had been placed with two different families, and nobody had ever noticed. At first they both felt angry about this, then sad, and finally, above all, curious. They decided to meet halfway. Neither of them was sure that London was exactly halfway between Wellington and Seville, but it felt like neutral ground, and Laura had always wanted to see it.

On the morning of the meeting, Grace had been traveling for almost thirty hours. She stood in the arrivals hall at Heathrow, clutching a bunch of flowers that were starting to droop, and felt more nervous than she had ever felt in her life. She had changed her top three times on the plane. What if they had nothing to talk about? What if Laura didn't like her? What if the whole thing turned out to be a terrible disappointment?

Then the doors slid open, and there she was. Laura was wearing a yellow raincoat, exactly the same shade as the one Grace had nearly packed. For a moment they simply stared at each other. Then they both burst out laughing at the same time, with exactly the same laugh, and a woman nearby, who had no idea what was going on, started to cry.

They spent the next five days together in a small hotel near the river, and the similarities kept appearing. Both of them were stubborn and impatient, and both hated being late. Both were terrified of pigeons, put salt on their fruit and hummed when they were concentrating. Both had chosen careers looking after other people: Laura was a nurse and Grace was a primary school teacher. They even shared the irritating habit of finishing other people's sentences, which, as Laura pointed out, got rather confusing when they did it to each other.

There were differences too, of course. Grace was quieter and more cautious, and liked to plan everything in advance. Laura was outgoing and spontaneous, and on their second evening she persuaded a reluctant Grace to sing karaoke in a pub full of strangers. "You've had twenty-nine years without me," Laura told her. "Now you have to catch up." By the end of the week, Grace had to admit that she had enjoyed it far more than she had expected.

Saying goodbye at the airport was much harder than saying hello. They hugged for so long that a security guard politely asked them to move along. But they had already made plans. Laura is spending Christmas in Wellington, where Grace's parents are getting ready to welcome a second daughter, and Grace has started taking Spanish lessons. Her teacher says she has a very natural accent. Laura says that is no surprise at all: it's in her blood.