Everything in our routine seemed perfectly normal until one afternoon while I was driving Hazel home and casually asked the same question I asked every day.
“Were you good at school today, sweetheart?”
“Yes,” Hazel answered cheerfully.
“Did you play with anyone today?”
“Yes,” she replied again before adding something unexpected, “There’s a girl there who looks just like me, Mommy.”
I laughed softly while keeping my eyes on the road and said, “What do you mean she looks like you?”
“She has eyes like mine and the same nose,” Hazel said seriously, “and the teacher said we look exactly the same.”
At that moment I assumed it was simply the imaginative thinking of a four year old child and I brushed the comment aside, but Hazel continued speaking with an unusual seriousness that made me listen more carefully.
“She’s the teacher’s daughter,” Hazel said, “and she’s really clingy because she always wants to be held.”
My hands tightened slightly on the steering wheel as I asked, “Are you sure that is what the teacher said?”
“Yes,” Hazel answered with certainty, “she said we look exactly alike.”
Although I tried to dismiss the conversation as childish imagination, a strange uneasiness crept into my chest that evening when I told Garrett about it.
He laughed lightly and said, “Kids say strange things all the time, so you should not think too much about it.”
