In the Image of Grace (12 page)

“What if we land wrong? We could break a wrist or
sprain something and then that would be a dead giveaway,” Clarissa
concluded leaning out the window and looking down at her possible
doom.

“Well, Elizabeth didn’t hurt herself,” I said not
wanting either of my sisters to back down.

“She technically was sleeping, so she didn’t tense up
or anything. That’s how she didn’t get hurt,” Isabelle pointed out
not easing anybody’s woes.

I bit my lip and looked around the room. I didn’t see
anything that could really help. There were no air mattresses lying
around. “What if we tied sheets together or something?” I asked. I
thought perhaps it could work. “We could tie them to Elizabeth’s
canopy bed or something.”

“Problem with that,” Isabelle reasoned pointing with
her finger for added emphasis, “Is that there would be this sheet
rope hanging out of the window.”

“True,” I agreed. “What if we gathered all the
possible pillows and things with fluff and threw them all on the
ground and then scooted out on our bellies, swing our legs over the
side while holding onto the gutter and then dropped onto the
pillows.”

“Just come up with that?” Clarissa asked.

“That might work,” Isabelle said giving the idea a
slight nod. “But what are we going to do with all the pillows and
stuff?”

“I know,” Clarissa blurted excitedly. “We could throw
out laundry baskets or garbage bags to put them all in and then
store them on the side of the house.”

“If we stopped talking and listened to ourselves we
will realize that we sound crazy,” I said thinking we were quite
possibly crazy for wanting to jump out a window. Granted it was
only the second floor, but there was also a basement and our house
was big and old. It wasn’t like some tiny compact suburban house.
We really could have gotten hurt.

“Aren’t we doing this for a reason?” Isabelle
asked.

“Yeah,” I responded. “Let’s start gathering.”

………………………………………………………….

We each started in our own room. I went in my room
and yanked my pillows off the bed throwing them on the floor. I
then pulled off the comforter and tossed it in the pile. I then
went to where the turret of the house was in the corner of my room
and pulled off all the pillows from the window seat that sat under
the windows. I then also pulled up the window seat itself. I only
had a couple stuffed animals, but I threw them in the pile too. We
needed all the extra squishing we could have gotten. I dragged all
my stuff into Elizabeth’s room and then went down the hall to the
laundry room and got all the laundry baskets and the couple of
hampers that were in there. I met up with Isabelle and Clarissa in
Elizabeth’s room. We proceeded to throw all our bedding out the
window.

“Who’s going first?” Clarissa asked as we all once
again stood in front of the windows.

“I will,” I volunteered. “I can help the two of you
to the ground.” So with that I held onto the window frame and
slowly lowered myself to the roof. There was a good breeze blowing
outside and the air actually smelled fresh and crisp, not the usual
city smell of car exhaust and garbage. On all fours I crawled
backwards until I felt my feet hit the gutter. I then got onto my
belly and started to shimmy myself over the side. My legs hung all
the way over the side, then my backside went over and then I
realized my plan in grabbing onto the gutter wasn’t going to work.
The top of my body slid off the roof and I fell backwards hitting
the ground with a great whomp.

I was a little dazed for a second and I heard
Clarissa scream and I saw the underneath of the trees and the
clouds in the partly overcast sky and felt the pillows and blankets
below me and realized that it worked. Not quite the way we had
planned it, but I made it out of Elizabeth’s room without any harm
caused to me. I then rolled to my side and slowly stood up shaking
off my fall. “Throw out the baskets,” I yelled up before we
forgot.

“Oh, thank God you’re alive,” Clarissa yelled
down.

As I stood there waiting for Clarissa and Isabelle to
throw the baskets at me I wondered if any of our neighbors were
witnessing what was going on and if so were they going to say or
report anything. I was hoping not. The baskets were thrown down at
me and I put them on the side, reorganized the pillows, blankets
and select stuffed animals for the next sister who was to drop from
the roof. Clarissa was next. I saw her appear outside the window in
her ponytail and pink ski vest. She did the same shimmy and scoot
that I did. I kind of caught her by the waist and we both fell
backwards together. Last was Isabelle. She closed the window after
she climbed out and Clarissa and I caught her in our arms.

“Hey,” Clarissa said as we were all safely on the
ground gathering all our bedding and putting it into baskets. “How
do we get back up there?”

Boy, we sure didn’t think of that. We decided we
would worry about that when we got back. At least we got out to do
what we needed to do without setting off the house alarm and
alerting the police. We then managed to get ourselves over the
fence and were on our way.

………………………………………………

We got to Mr. Fernando’s house about fifteen minutes
early. The three of us stood on the curb looking at the house. It
was in a part of the city that was still technically the city, but
surrounded by suburbs. The house was brick and resembled a little
gingerbread house. A neatly manicured lawn sat in front with
perfectly trimmed bushes. We had the slightest idea what we were
going to say and even if we should mention the possibility of us
being clones and should we tell him about the whole cult thing
worshipping Grace? If I heard it I would think we were making up a
bunch of horse hockey. We started getting a little cold, so we
decided to approach the house. We climbed the steps and stood on
the little cement porch. I rang the bell. The three of us anxiously
awaited the door to be answered. After a little bit the door was
answered by a man of average height with thinning dark hair on top
of his head. He had Asian features, but one could discern he was of
mixed descent. There definitely was some sort of relation to our
mother going on.

He looked the three of us over. “Yes, do come in,” he
said very politely.

We walked into a small foyer with a coat rack and
then in the living room. “Please, take off your coats.”

So we did and he took them from us hanging them up on
the coat rack. “Have a seat,” he said waving us over to the
couch.

“The three of us sat down on a yellow floral print
couch. Mr. Fernando sat in an armchair next to the couch. He sat
bent over with his forearms on his knees and his hands clasped.

“I can’t believe the resemblance,” he said looking
over at us. “I just can’t believe she had three girls and I didn’t
even know about it.” He sat up straight and rubbed his hands over
his face.

“Actually,” I said. “There were four of us. Our older
sister recently passed away.”

“Oh my word,” Mr. Fernando gasped. “I’m so sorry to
hear that.”

I looked around the house. I figured he must have
been married because there was a lot of floral. I only sat that
because I’m pretty sure most guys don’t choose floral for their
decorating theme. Above the archway between the living and dining
room was a twisting branch with leaves and pink flowers all over
it. The rug on the floor was maroon with blue and white flowers.
There were various vases full of flowers on different shelves
around the two rooms.

“How exactly did you know our mother, Grace?”

“I’m her brother.”

“So you probably want to know just as much as we do
in what happened to her,” Isabelle suggested.

“Yes, I would like to know where she is. I still
can’t believe how much you girls look like her. It’s almost like
I’m looking right at her.”

“You kinda are,” Clarissa said wincing not sure if
she should mention the whole clone thing.

“In a way yes,” he replied. “After all, you are her
children.”

“There’s something very important we have to tell
you,” I admitted hesitantly. “You might not believe us, but its
okay if you don’t because what I have to say might sound
crazy.”

“Okay,” he said clasping his hands again.

“We might be her clones,” I blurted out. There really
was no way of beating around the bush.

He looked up at us, “Jesus.”

“I know it sounds crazy.”

“No, I say that because before she went missing she
told me this story and I refused to believe it. I only talked to
her one other time after that.”

“What did she tell you?” I asked.

Mr. Fernando took a deep breath. “I don’t know if I
should be telling you girls this.”

“Oh no, please do sir,” Clarissa urged.

“You girls can call me John.”

We nodded in agreement.

“She called me in a frantic state and said that
somebody drugged her and impregnated her with her own clone. I told
her she was crazy and that no such thing could happen and now you
girls come here and say.” He stopped and stood up and started
pacing back and forth. “I should have believed her, the next time I
talked to her she said she had her baby and she kept going on with
the clone thing and that was the last time I heard from her. I
mean, was she really telling the truth?”

“She might have been,” I surmised. “There’s more to
the story.”

“I think I heard enough for now,” he said. He walked
into the dining room and took something off the table. It was a
silver picture frame and he came over and handed it to me. “This is
from when we were younger.”

I looked at the picture and it was our mother and her
brother standing in front of a Christmas tree wearing red flannel
pajamas. She looked like she was about eight years old and I could
have sworn it was a picture of me or my sisters.

I looked up. “Can you tell us about her?”

John looked over at me. “How did you girls find me?
Why now?”

“Well, we called every Fernando that we could find in
the phone book and online and we eventually found you,” I said
looking back down at the picture.

“Why now?” He asked.

“Until now, we didn’t have the resources to find any
answers, but now we do.”

He accepted my vague answer.

“If we’re really clones,” I said. “Then you’d
technically be our brother too.”

He turned towards us and crossed his arms. “I can’t
deal with this. I’m sorry girls.”

“Your parents are technically our parents,” I
informed him.

“Girls, my wife and daughter will be home soon.”

“Do you have a piece of paper and a pen perhaps?” I
asked.

He went in the dining room where there was a china
cabinet, pulled open a drawer, and took out some stick it paper and
a pen. He came over and handed them to me. On the paper I wrote
down The Clonation Foundation and the Xtials. I handed it to him.
“You might want to look these up. There will be a press release
soon about us.” I stood up and signaled my sisters to do the
same.

“I’m sorry I don’t have answers to what happened to
Grace.”

“We’ll figure it out,” I affirmed. “Would it be
possible if we contact your parents?”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” John said
scratching his ear.

“Don’t you think they would want to know about
us?”

He sighed and wrote something on the stick it notes.
“Wait a day or two to contact them. I want to inform them to
everything before you talk to them.” He handed me the paper. It had
the names Helen and Robert Fernando on it, along with a phone
number and an address for Indiana.

“Thank you,” I said holding up the little note. We
said goodbye and my sisters and I were on our way back to the bus
stop.

…………………………………………………………..

The three of us stood at the bus stop. It started to
drizzle out. Cars passed and made a whishing sound in the wet
street. “Was that successful at all?” I asked because I still
wasn’t sure how I felt about how everything turned out.

“She has family and we know where they are and if we
talk to her parents’ maybe they would know a little more about what
happened,” Isabelle suggested reassuring me.

“She didn’t even want us,” Clarissa pouted. “She
didn’t want to make a clone.”

“She never knew anything about us,” Isabelle said in
a voice riddled with gloom.

“I wonder if at first she thought it was a good idea
and then backed out?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t what our father did to her be considered
rape?” Isabelle asked.

“I think so,” I said. “We have to get a hold of her
parents before any of this clone business hits the news.”

We knew we couldn’t call from the house phone because
our father would check the phone records, so on the way home we
stopped off at a drug store and I bought one of those pre-paid
phones.

……………………………………………….

The three of us got back home still unsure how we
were getting back in the house. We helped each other scale the
wrought iron fence that went around the property and we stood in
the front yard looking for a way to get up. We decided to go look
in the garage. The side door was open. We were quite surprised
because we actually found quite a long ladder inside. We dragged
the ladder to the front and leaned it against the house, all the
while making a loud clattering noise. I climbed up first while
holding a laundry basket. I thought I was going to fall for a
second there, but I was able to regain my balance and kept
climbing. I got to the top and slid the basket onto the roof. I
climbed onto the roof on my and knees over to the window. I opened
the window and chucked the basket inside. I then climbed back down
because we had a lot of stuff to carry back up with us. Isabelle
and Clarissa climbed up. I followed with the last basket with a
garbage bag of stuffed animals and assorted fluff on top. I held
onto the ladder with one hand and held the basket under my arm with
the other. We all got safely to the top and threw the stuff into
the room.